Battery dieing overnight?

Sunday morning my battery was randomly dead. It's an old battery so I swapped it out for the one in my Eclipse. Started up fine after. I didn't drive it around after verifying that it started.

This morning, went to start it. Battery was dead.

I don't get it. CD deck is an aftermarket one which doesn't shut off when the car is off, but instead you need to hold down "source" for it to shut off. I did that.

Lights were all off, everything I know of was off.

I remember one day last week on my way home, crwaling on the 403 in rush hour traffic, my dash lights went dim for a couple seconds, and radio turned off, then back on and everything was normal.

Could this be an alternator problem? Does the alternator hold the charge in the battery when the car isn't on?

Are you sure the battery in your Eclipse was charged in the first place?
If the Eclipse has been sitting for a while without running, especially with this cold...

Throw the battery on an overnight charger and make sure that all the connections/terminals are clean when you put it back in.

Pretty sure yeah. My Eclipse was started/driven a couple times and probably only sat for a day before I put the battery from that into my Laser.

Right, but how long was it sitting for with only being started?
Just starting it a few times (no drive) is actually worse than anything because your alternator hasn't put any new charge into the battery since your starter and warm-up cycle took a chunk. The cold temp. is just icing on the cake.

Alright, so I'll charge it overnight, and we'll see what happens Wednesday morning. If it's dead, then what should I do?

If the overnight charge doesn't help, then the battery is garbage. That is of course assuming all of your connections are fine. If your battery is charged you don't need an alternator to run (although you might have some strange electrical behaviour, dash lights and such, due to a bad alt - but the motor should run fine).

An important point to note is that a dead battery subjected to freezing temperatures will freeze and crack internally, and it will no longer hold a charge.
Also, a battery should never be stored on a concrete surface.

Thanks for the help Rob. So if it doesn't start up on Wednesday, I'll go grab a battery from Canadian Tire, and see if that fixes the problem.

Also, you might want to make sure the alternator is doing it's job to keep the battery charged while the car is running. Test the voltage at the battery WITH the car running, should be around 14v or higher. If not, you may have an alternator problem.

Another thing to look for is maybe something is putting a slow drain on your battery... glove compartment not closing and light's staying on, radio not shutting off, etc.

Chabing!!!

We should remember that an Alt is not made to recharge a Battery but to operate the Engine and accessories and "keep the Battery charged". That is it.

Recharging a fully drained Battery takes time and can't be done with a 20 minutes drive. It takes a good old Battery charger a few hours to do so.

A weak Battery will put a strain on an Alt and might help send it to an early grave.

Heck, take the Alt in for testing when you get that new Battery. That dieing Alt might of speed up your Battery's fate.

Ghislain.

It started up without an issue this evening when I left work. So I got a boost to get to work this morning, and it sat there from 10am to 6:30pm, then started. Was only driven for about half an hour in the morning.

It's out of the car now, hooked up to a charger. So we'll see what happens on Wednesday morning.

How long have you had the aftermarket deck in your car?

Came with the car so I can't really tell you.

The instructions say "Hold src to power off, and to power on". So I'm going to guess and say that isn't the problem.

When something like this happened to me it was a short in my power locks that simulated someone holding the button down. It took 3 days for this to drain the battery though.

If something is draining your battery you can take your fuses out one by one and use a multimeter to see which circuit is drawing current when the car is off. Just make sure that the current in the circuit is less then what the multimeter is rated for or you will end up burning out your multimeter.

Really eh? I wonder if it's something dumb like that. The only electrical issue I've noticed is that the dome light does not come on when the drivers side door is open. Instead, it only comes on when the passenger side/trunk is open.

I'll try the fuse thing on the weekend and see what happens.

That's more likely due to a bad door switch than anything else. Watch it for a couple of days and let us know what happens...

The trickle charger has a gauge on it and this morning, the gauge wasn't much above 5...

If the battery is out, take it to crappy and get it tested.

5 what? AMPS?
They usually show the amperage that the battery is drawing to charge, so a lower number is a better charge. I think 5 is too much. After an overnight charge mine would be just above 1.

Crappy tire is good for testing.

It does sounds like the battery is not holding a charge.
You could check this pretty easily with a voltmeter.
Test the voltage with the battery off the charger. Since it was just on the charger it might be a bit above the normal ~12.5v, but wait for it to drop down. If it keeps on dropping down much below 12.5v, then you've confirmed that the battery is toast.

I'm curious as to what type of battery it is, because they dont recommend Motomaster Eliminators up here anymore as the break really easily because of our wonderfull roads. Something to do with too many cells inside that come into contact with each other far too easily.

I'm not too sure what the original one was, but the one from my Eclipse (that's in it now) is a Motomaster Eliminator

Is the battery bloated or swollen? Do the sides bulge out at all? This is a good sign of a battery that has been overcharged or has a bad cell. Mine is bulged and it can randomly lose charge overnight. My regulator went in my alternator and it put out so much voltage that it blew all the bulbs in the car and swelled the battery. Replaced the alternator but the battery is still sketchy.

Nope, battery looked fine.

I bought a new battery for it and is now installed. Haven't had an issue yet.

I'm going to take the other battery to CT tomorrow, and my alternator there when ever I get a chance to remove it to see if one of those is the problem.

If both check out okay, then I know something is drawing a constant current.

Thanks for the help guys

Probably a bit late now but when I had the same issue it turned out to be simply oxidized termials on the battery. They weren't corroded, just has a dull appearance. I thought I had a drain because when I went out in the morning, the battery was dead, but what I suspect was that the battery was pretty much dead when I shut the car off because it could not charge. I bought a wire brush style terminal cleaner, charged the battery and has been great ever since.
Let us know how the battery test turns out.