Voices

Hey everyone first and foremost nice to meet all of you, I just purchased my first jeep about a week ago and am loving it so far.

However already am having some issues. 4 days ago I replaced the battery and cleaned up the terminals a little bit. Now here we are today and it is dead once again. I thought potentially an alternator could be the culprit. There is an issue also where the radio doesnt fully turn off when the car is off so that also probably could be it. Im not experienced with repairing cars at all so any advice or dumb downed answers would be extremely helpful, thank you very much!

RocketMouse

parasitic draw from somewhere that is still hot.... got to trace that down to get at the real issue.

Red1992XJ

If the radio is not turning off, then it is still drawing power from the battery, and probably running it down.

Like Rocketmouse said, look up how to check for a parasitic draw with a multimeter.

BruceB

The only way to kill a parasitic power draw is by nuking it from space..it is the only way you can be sure.....

Disconnect your radio and see if the power draw is present overnight... if it is the culprit then check what wires are the power wires and insure they are wired correctly.

If it isn't the radio, then you are going to have to take the blue pill and go down the rabbit hole...

get familiar with a basic auto ranging multimeter...free school at you tube...

97grand4.0

not experienced repairing cars, probably bought the wrong vehicle.

lawsoncl

They'll learn soon enough.....

BlueRidgeMark

Can you think of a better way to get experience?


Voices, this video might help:

Morat

It sounds to me like your radio isn't wired properly. Is it stock or aftermarket? If it's aftermarket I bet they've used a constant live into the pin that should be switched live and that's why your radio isn't ever switching off.
If you're not confident, any reasonable auto-electricians should be able to solve that in a few minutes. Otherwise, pull your radio and check the colours of the cables where they go into the connector and compare with a wiring diagram.
This one if for a 2000 (you need to tell us your model year)
https://www.justanswer.com/uploads/H...stereo_pt1.gif

The top left tells you what you need to know, you can figure out the colours from the abbreviations so Pin 8 (top right) should have a Brown wire with a Light Brown stripe etc etc.

BruceB

An often overlooked gremlin is the multiple grounding locations. May not be an issue directly with parasitic draw, but a weak ground can cause all sort of issues. A quick google search regarding ground locations for Cherokee will give you the information you need.
also...the connections need to be disconnected, cleaned and replaced, not just sprayed or wiped down.