TRUCK KEEPS DYING EVERY OTHER WEEK

[HUMMERICH23]

A little too far for me, but i did have my PCM sent to TILLEY ALBERTA for a Westers Hot tune so i guess part of my truck has been up by you!!! Ever deal with them?

[HUMTECH]

Ive talked to him through email about doin my pcm in my SS Trailblazer but havent had it done yet. Probably will this spring sometime

[HUMMERICH23]

WELL SHE DIED ON ME AGAIN this morning while i was going the closing of my new house (not very pleased and let the dealership know). This time i drove it the night before with no problems at 11pm. Went out to start it 7am today and it was flat DEAD. Lights barely even had a glow to them, this is the deadest its been.

Made a list of the things you guys have told me, printed them off and gave them to the service manager. Also got the manager of the dealership involved who has been a great help/friend since i bought our first Hummer two years ago and we talked for a while. I told them i wouldn?t even bring it in until they at least knew what the Fk they were going to do. They had it 4 days last week and couldn?t come up with crap. That really pisses me off. I told them i went on Google for 5 mins and got a laundry list of things along with what you guys told me and they had it 4 days and did shiiitttt.

They are leaning towards OnStar running at night and will pursue that tomorrow. I got a question for HumTech or anyone who might know; Do you guys think any of this had to do with my Hot Tune on my PCM and would that mess up the idle levels or how the pcm controlled the alternator etc. That is the only thing i could think that might be a reason for this, but like i said i have had the tune Since June and now 8-9 months later why would it cause this. I just wanted to know for sure if they give me crap for having a tune and blame that i can say it has nothing to do with what?s going on.



Richard

[[__--MUD--__]]

You know if your onstar was upgraded to the newer system?

For those that still have the old units, like myself... What are they doing now that the network is unreachable? Even if they are not activated and not getting signal, could they be continously trying to connect to the network? Cell phones w/ low signal, crank up the power to try to get signal..

I would kill for a device I could plug inline to my battery that would log the draw at say 5 minute intervals. So i when i have a dead battery i could go back at see what the draw was over a time period.

I live right next door to my office, so i dont drive alot, truck usually sits from friday-monday. I keep my tools in it, so i'm getting in it maybe 5-10 times over the weekend. I need to check what the draw is when I open the doors. I know when I first hook up the battery, its about 7amps.

[HUMTECH]

I doubt very much pcm programming has anything to do with it.

[[__--MUD--__]]

there's a TSB on this for all trucks and h2's-

Faulty Ingition switch, not indexing properly causing 300-500mA battery drain.

Thats right in the range of draw I'm seeing. Gonna tear apart the column and disconnect the ignition switch see if my draw goes away.

[HUMTECH]

If its not indexed right you will see the odometer stay lit up

[HUMMERICH23]

So after two more days in the shop they have NO IDEA what to do or what is wrong. Can not reduplicate the battery dying and they contacted GM technichal service or something and they pretty much blew off my complaint and were absolutely no help. All test are normal they keep telling me and all they do is the same dam amperage test at night and thats it. I told them to please do more or look into other things like ignition and starter but they said its fine.

I think part of why it dosent act up at dealer is because they spend 8 hrs charging the battery, then dont drive or start it at all and slap on the amperage meter and get nothing. So i told them to please do more so the manager is going to drive it home, use the remote start everytime starting it, and put the equipment on at home and check in middle of night and morning.

To say that i am fustrated is an understatement with what the truck is doing and why they are soo poooor at figuring it out. And to put icing on the cake the h3 they gave me an 09 with 500 miles on blew its transmission on me and had to drive it 40 miles to dealer going no faster than 40 because thats all as fast as it could go.

Richard

[Ed G.]

Go to Walmart and buy a Dura-Start Max for $76 they have a 3 year free replacement warranty. This way you can get rid of the factory crap replacement and if the new battery doesn't solve the problem, in 30 days, you can get your money back. I worked for Exide for 6 years and believe me new batteries all not always "new". Battery's that fail quality checks are reworked and sent out to customers on the same pallet as the new ones. You can't tell new from reworked from the outside but on the inside it can get scary!

Ed

[HUMMERICH23]

Still at the dealer and still nothing. They did pick up on normal driving the Volt Meter Plunges down to 10-12 range and they thought that was odd. Other than that still no new news and i guess everything GM Tech has told them has tested negative or they never really even tested it.

I have noticed the volt meter dropping off in December but thought it was normal and all the problems started in Jan. Before the Volt Meter would always stay strong at 14 and never fluctuated but i have noticed since the battery problems started once the battery was new or recharged from the dealer the Meter Dropped to 10-12 but if you jumped it from being dead it would jump up to 14 i assume to charge the battery but it seems once it gets charged the system takes a crap. I thought this was normal as the manual says the volt meter will change so i never thought of it as a problem untill the dealer stated it might be.

Richard

[madmike]

Wow , I never thought this would be such a viscious issue. When AM Gen cant even fix the problem. Im old school, I would probably put a high amp relay on the battery which would disconnect it from the rest of the car every time you stop it. Although you would lose your radio channels What a nightmare. Also I would disconnect the battery and reconnect it to see if it drains. There has to be a light on or something. Good luck!!!:

[madmike]

Meditating on this post and missed the obvious. Your Alternator was fluctuating. When running , your alternator should be charging the battery as well as running all your electronics. New batteries? No drain? really sounds like a bad alt. Im sure any local auto parts will check it for you. Although I usually place a voltmeter across the battery to see if its charging. I believe it should read above 13 volts constant. Seems your truck is running off battery until it dies.

[HUMMERICH23]

I wish someone told the service department it was that easy because its going on THREE WEEKS they have had my truck and NOTHING. I am going to flip a gasket tomorrow when i head back to the dealer. They state the problem is too intermittent to catch and pull fuses to see what stops the drain. There has to be a test they can do besides waiting every 5 days for the drain to kick in and miss the drain then wait some more and tell me nothing yet.

Richard

[[__--MUD--__]]

I feel for you... I'm still fighting same battle. I didn't catch if you ever said what the amp draw is on the battery or the year of the truck. Mines an 04 w/ 350mah draw. I've pulled my remote start, and bypass module, heated wipers and hid lights. I've yanked every fuse in the enging bay and interior. My issues started around the 1st of the year. I still think the old onstar module is a potential problem w/ the network unavailable. I've had a few service people say they didn't think the onstar was fused and is wired direct to battery for survivability in an accident.

I found this the other day, its right in my draw range..gonna start disconnecting it tonight.

Condition/Concern:

During battery parasitic drain testing, there may be some confusion as to the normal power consumption reading from the OnStar? system.


Recommendation/Instructions:

When performing current draw tests it is important to understand the power cycles of the various OnStar? systems. All OnStar? customers with currently active vehicles have digital/analog cellular capability. A green status LED on the OnStar? keypad normally indicates an active OnStar? account. A red LED indicates a system DTC. On Gen 6 and later systems, a clear, or "dark" LED may indicated the OnStar? system has been deactivated or may possibly have a no power concern/no communication.

The OnStar? system will stay powered up after ignition off for an extended time in order to allow for remote services like door unlock, horn honk, light flash, etc to take place as requested by the customer. Power cycle (also referred to as DRX) times vary depending on the generation of the OnStar? system. Technicians may identify the system generation by using a Tech 2 (Body>VCIM>Module ID Information>Module Information 2) or by using www.onstarenrollment.com.

All Gen 6, Gen 7, and 8 systems are powered up continuously for 48 hours from ignition off. After the 48 hours the Gen 6 and some Gen 7 power off; Gen 7.xxL, and all Gen 8 systems will enter a 9 minute OFF 1 minute ON power cycle for an additional 72 hours. At the beginning and end of the 1 minute ON stage, you may or may not experience a short spike of current at the beginning and at the end. This allows for calls from OnStar to be received by the system. After 120 hours from ignition off, these systems then completely power off.

The expected current draw of the OnStar? module is:
? IGN ON - 240 to 400 mA
? IGN OFF - 3 to 20 mA for 48 hours
? IGN OFF - after 48 hours (120 hours on specified VCPs) - 0.2 to 0.8 mA
? During extended voltage monitoring for platform battery parasitic it is possible that you may see a voltage spike caused by a cellular registration call that was triggered by the local cellular system, or that OnStar? has set a monthly trigger for a vehicle data upload call for the OnStar? Vehicle Diagnostic email upload. Note that in analog cellular markets all module generations completely power down after 48 hours. You can contact Technical Assistance to find out if your dealership cellular market or the customer's home cellular market still has analog service.

[HUMTECH]

On an 04 the INFO fuse is for the onstar

[[__--MUD--__]]

thats like a 15amp fuse, right? Know if the onstar is just a single unit or it has a seperate transmitter? If multiple are they both powered off this fuse?

Wasn't it around 02-03 when all those bad caps were made in taiwan? It would suck to have that **** start showing up in vehicles..

[HUMTECH]

I believe its a 15a fuse. Its in the underhood fuse box. Bad caps?

[[__--MUD--__]]

Capacitors man... caps..the little cylinder thingies in your electronics..

I'll be god damned, but I found my problem tonight. As i said before I disconnected all kinds of **** including my HID lights. But I only disconnected them at the ballasts.

I pulled the cover off my fuse block and yanked the main power feed there where my HIDs are powered off of. Obvoiusly that killed everything, but i didn't reconnect the power to the HID's when i connected it back up. Drain was about 25mah. WTF, no more drain, its the damn lights!... So I go to the HID manufacturers website and there's a little notice a couple pages deep about the H1 and H2 HID kits. The plug that connects to the relays IS WIRED WRONG! Swapped the 2 wires and everything is great.

I am so glad I figured this damn thing out...was gonna take it to the dealer monday if i didn't find the cause this weekend.

If anyone if wondering which HIDs are factory wired wrong, its this set-
http://www.predatorinc.com/projectio...dlampset1.aspx

[HUMMERICH23]

Well I got my Truck back last Friday and so far everything has been ok and they ended up doing 4 updates to all the computers including the PCM, TCM, BCM, and OnStar. They think it was a combo of one of those so they just reset and updated all of them. GM engineering gave them all the updates and besides crossing fingers to see if it works (including dealer and GM) they couldn?t figure it out.

I think it was OnStar even though they said it already had the latest update and equipment .They said my drain was around 300 milliamps but bounced from 250-400 but most of the time it was around 300.

So far she has been great and no problems and the only thing I have noticed which I have always noticed is the volt gauge bouncing between 12-15 volts on me all the time. I read in the book it says it drops lowering during Fuel Economy Mode (whatever the hell that means, shocked to read fuel economy and hummer in same sentence). One service tech thought that was strange thinking it should stay at 14 and the manager said that is normal. What?s your guys? do???

Richard.

[Rene S. Nielsen]

Mine stays at 14 Volt all the time (when the engine is running).

I just pulled the Radio, AMP and INFO fuse to figure out if any of these are making the draw on mine

Rene