I have had my Ram since '07. Have almost 170K miles on it. Was a daily driver from '07-'13, when driving 130 miles/day was killing me in fuel. Got a fuel-efficient car for my daily driver (a 2014 Mazda 6- the savings in fuel pays the car payment!), but still drive the truck frequently and definitely use it a lot during hunting season.

In August the battery died. It was the stock battery, so that was to be expected. Got a new battery, and in October I went out for a morning hunt and it was dead. Got a jump and it was ok until three days ago. Went hunting, went to leave and it was dead again. Went back to the auto parts store and they replaced it under warranty. Today I drove it for 20 minutes, came home and did a drain test after it sat for 30 mins. It's draining about 0.66-0.99A until fuse 51 is pulled.. Then it drops to 0.05A. Doing some research, it sounds like burned-out lights in the dash can cause a parasitic drain. I do have several lights that faded and finally burned out. Mostly behind the AC/heater control panel and the oil pressure gauge.

My question is, since I drive it infrequently, can I simply pull the 51 fuse and simply push it back in when I want to drive? Will that fuse being out create any other issues?

I will eventually get the lamps replaced, but have no time for that now.

 

disconnect one battery cable... till truck is needed.

 

I know that can be done, but it would be a lot easier and simpler to merely pull the 51 fuse and push it back in vs disconnecting and connecting the negative battery cable.

If that can be done without causing any issues, which I would think it wouldn't. But that's what I'm asking.

 

Well, I left the fuse pulled the entire week (which got extremely cold BTW) and went hunting yesterday morning (17 degrees). Started right up with full cranking power. No keyless entry, entry lights or radio, but for a ten minute drive, who cares?

Hopefully I have answered my own question. It seems so. Maybe in spring I'll open the dash up and change those lamps, but for now, good enough.

 

You should put on a new positive battery terminal with a **** that will allow you to open the battery circuit... they are very cheap and easy to install... and is much less of a pain in the *** than pulling fuse 51... continually pulling that fuse will cause excessive wear on the socket that it goes into and eventually you may have bigger issues.

It honestly sounds like your TIPM might need a re-flash, as there might be a bug causing it not to time-out and turn off after a few minutes, which is likely why you're seeing such a high parasitic drain on the battery.

 

I'm not convinced that fuse 51 is your issue. OK, it has some power with the key off but tots of things do.

Burnt out lights drain NO power.

You said after pulling the fuse you see an amp draw difference but after doing so it the battery still good or does it still go dead?

 

I agree, but tracking that down is going to take a butt-load of work with a multimeter.... If he's happy with that I say let him be happy with it...

I'll bet that he'll start to see other issues once the electrical problem gets worse, but then it might be easier to track down. (just hope that it won't leave him stranded up where he hunts...)

 

The amp draw drops to almost nothing with the #51 fuse pulled. I can drive with it out, so pulling and reseating it to the point of wearing out the socket isn't a concern.

I'll look into the TIPM.

 

Ok, let me rephrase,

With fuse 51 in place, how long does it take to kill the battery to where you cannot crank it? Example would be 8 hours or overnight

With fuse 51 out, after the said time from the first questions has expired, can you then crank and start the truck without any issue?

 

It may be between one and two weeks. Remember, this is no longer my daily driver so I do not use it every day or so which would probably keep the battery charged sufficiently that I would never know there was a problem. Having said that, with the #51 fuse pulled, even after a week it cranked like the battery was at 100% charge.