One thing i've heard is when you jump start the car you dont have the neg cable connected to the car needing the jump. It should start without it.

And when you have to connect both the pos and neg cables to the battery to jump the car the alternator is gone. Gone in the sense that its not charging up the battery while you drive like it is supposed to.

though i can say this which is odd. I've been driving my durango since winter 2009 and since before i think the battery in mine is stock from 2002. I ask my dad and he says he's never changed the battery.

good luck. hopefully it is the alternator sense you already changed it. just remembered this when you changed the alternator was the fan inside wasfree spinning? i cant remember but i know there is a ay to check your old alternator if its bad by checking its fan.

 

pkucan, it was amps...

 

I know how it use to be where if you took the negative cable off the batter while your car was running the car would shut down indicating the alternator was bad.

With jumping the battery I always thought you needed the negative side connected, you even hear the engine slow down when you connect both cables to the batter? Back when cars had chrome bumpers, doing jump starts I would touch both bumpers together then use a standard speaker wire to the positive side of the battery and that was enough to turn the other car over, people would say WTF an laugh there a$$ off when it worked...

 

to my knowledge you NEED both cables connected, some people will attach the negative to the frame of the dead car, but as long as its connected to the negative of the system it should be fine.

 

When I took auto mechanics in high school (2 decades ago), we we're told to do it that way to avoid arching. Hydrogen gases seeping from a damaged cell + spark = no bueno!

 

that makes sense, but with modern batteries being sealed, non-serviceable cells its definitely less of an issue.

 

Another way to do it is to get a test light. Unhook the positive side and clamp one end of the test light on the positive side of the battery and put the other end of the test light on the battery cable. If the light is on on the test light there is a draw somewhere. Pkucan is right, there should be very little draw. If the light is fairly bright then start pulling fuses till the test light light goes out. Remember that the ecm and the radio clock both pull power. So you can unplug those fuses first. This a good way to have a place to start.