[jglanzer]

I just bought a 1999 Sephia for my teenage sons. The dealer installed a new battery before I took posession. It sat in the garage for about a week when I noticed that the battery was dead. After a lot of testing, I found that if you remove BOTH of the brake / stop light fuses (one under the hood, the other under the dash) there was no current drain. OR if you remove BOTH of the ECM fuses under the dash, there was no current drain.

I also noticed that the shift-lock mechinism was not working at all. Under normal conditions you need to apply the brake in order to put the car in gear (automatic transmission).

Other than the shift-lock and battery drain, everything seems to work correctly.

Any help or information would be greatly appreciated.

 

[97molavi]

I am going to guess here. The shift lock is released when you apply the brake. Seems like the brake light is also draining the battery too, so somewhere the system thinks your brakes are always applied. Is the brake light always on? I guess the shift lock switch should be stuck. Normally without the rest of the info I would have said you need an alternator. Why did you come up with the idea to remove the fuses, there should have been a link that I am missing.

 

[jglanzer]

Under normal conditions, the shifter would be able to move out of park as long as you have the brake applied. However, this is part of what isn't working correctly. I can move the shift lever without the brake on or the key in the ignition.

The brake lights are not on even though the car's systems seem to respond as if the brake pedal is depressed. If you press the brake pedal, the lights work correctly.

I don't believe that the alternator is faulty because the battery charges while engine is running. It just drains over a few days even when everything is turned off (dome lights, head lights, running lights, radio, etc.)

I started removing fuses one at a time and using an amp meter, measured the current draw to try to determine just what was causing the current drain.

 

[97molavi]

You probably have a short in the shifter disable key. Though on one of the cars that I had someone had disabled that feature; it was my first auto and took me a while to know that such a feature should actually had been there.

 

[2FST4U2C]

our 2000 sephia with transmission troubles does the samethings (power drain + being able to shift without being stopped by the brake shift interlock) I don't know exactly what is causing the drain on ours tho, I haven't had the equipment to do proper voltage drain probing, so this is potentially very useful info to have before putting it back on the road. The brake lights are off unless you touch the pedal also, for a real interesting experience yank the parking brake and shift the car though the gears without your foot on the brake, its not supposed to do that is it? ours is.