Hey everyone so i recently took my car into the shop because i could figure out where my battery drain was and figured they would have more luck. What they came back to tell me was the there was about a 1 amp parasite somewhere in the instrument cluster and that they were going to have to replace it. Total cost including labor and parts would be around $417, is this a fair price or should i look into doing it myself, how easy is it? Also, if im going to be replacing it are there any upgrades in that area that i should be looking into doing?

Thanks in Advance
-Derek

 

Its pretty simple to replace a cluster, I pulled one from a junk yard for 60 dollars. The mileage on the odometer wont be correct after tho.

 

Hey everyone I thought I would let every know I went to a local scrap yard callled schrams and bought a used cluster for $40, I took it to the shop and was going to have them install it but they said it would be a few days so I just installed it in there parking lot...all is good

 

Hey blazerforum community,

i have a 2001 BlaZeR2 with about 1962** miles and having trouble with a parasite in the electrical system...i have isolated it to something involving the cluster but when i replaced the cluster i had the same problem...does this mean it has to be something with the BCM or the ECM or the wiring harness? what can i do to check?? im considering just taking it in to a dealer to have them deal with it but i would muchhh rather do it myself. please give me some advice or ideas!!!

Thanks Everyone,
-Derek

 

Wow. Could you possibly tell us a little less about the problem?

 

An electrical shop would be much better than the dealer. The dealer will swap parts until you are broke. Electrical shops will actually diagnose the problem.

So, what circuit have you narrowed it down to? How much current is that circuit drawing?

 

Dude what's your problem? I'm new to electrical systems and don't know what to tell you guys or what to test. That's why I posted.


Swartlkk - I narrowed it down to the RDO BAT circuit, I don't know how to further test it though. I unplagged the cluster and the draw went away plugged it in and it came back... How can i test this more?

 

How much of a draw are you talking about? Have you tested the draw with a multimeter? Does the draw decrease over time? Most items in the truck will go to a low power state (sleep) after as much as 5 minutes from the time the key turns off.

If you haven't done so already, pull one of the battery terminals and put a DMM in Amp mode and connect the DMM in series with the battery. Measure the current draw at the battery and let us know what it is initially and after 1, 3, 5, and 10 minutes. Then reconnect the battery and repeat the process on the RDO BAT fuse to see what that circuit draws and how much of a contributor to the overall draw it is.

The RDO BAT fuse powers:

• Radio
• Instrument Cluster
• Electronic Climate Control (ECC) Module (if equiped)
• some other things for the Envoy trim and Bravada only

As far as Rich's comment goes, there are a number of threads that are out there on this topic that would have provided initial checks and insight that, if read prior to posting, would have lead you to providing more details in your initial post that others could use to better help you.

Or his comment could be a result of you having another thread on this very topic... I have combined both of your threads on this topic to provide continuity.

Searches like "battery+drain", "battery+draw", "power+drain", etc will provide some further details.

Here is one such topic after I searched for "RDO+BATT":
Real Bad Battery Draw!!!!
The OP in that thread replaced his cluster and it fixed his problem. You may have gotten another bad cluster...

 

Alright I can understand that comment sorry about that I'll be more informed next time.. As for testing it I was running a DMM in series with the battery yesterday and was getting around a .8 amp draw with everything off. When I pull the RDO BAT fuse it drops down to about .1 which I thought was acceptable. Also while the fuse is in if I pull the instrument cluster it will drop to the same level of about .1. I've had the dash apart of few times now testing different aspects and I just need ideas of ways to test! Thanks

Hey swartlkk, thanks for the thread, I read through that one and another one I saw, but I just don't see how one of these could go bad let alone a second one..I agree all the evidence points towards this but the chances of it happening are slim to none. I guess I'll call up schrams after school and see if they have another one that I can try out.

 

I saw a reply that came to me through my email, but did not register in this thread for some reason so I copied it into your post above.

What happened to the draw after time passed? Did it ever drop?