OMG:eek:: Easy, low tech, and inexpensive… That can’t work.
WE NEED AN APP!
Living up there, you are probably using the correct weight of oil.
Buy a $100 battery & a bigger alternator. Battery warmer is worth it’s weigh in gold.
I run a standard $20 space heater on a board in the passenger side floorboards. An always warm cabin and no window snow or ice to mess with. If you can make good forecasts about when you might need your plow truck, just turn on the juice 24 hours before. May get away with as little as 6 hrs on the cabin heat but
Battery tender, battery blanket, block or oil heater need on most of the time because if they are starting out at 0°F, i takes a long time. I just turn mine one when I shut down with everything already hot/warm and electric power use goes way down.
I use up to two 100’ HEAVY duty power extension cords, works just fine.
If I was up at your place, doing this all winter in those temps, 150’ of outdoor 10/3 wire out of a breaker box to a gang 4X receptacle box.
Check black boxes as mentioned
Sell that sound system to some kid and just get a good radio or CD player if you care for music.
My Blazer ( 84 ) had an analog clock. Must have used 20 amps, it would kill a battery so quick. It never moves off 4:20 now. 
Bawahahaha I got lots of time thingies that don’t need my vehicle power.
If you are more than 250 feet from power, get the neighbor with a dirt blade to make a parking space closer to your electrical power. ← This X 42 just from your description of the out of the way place you live.
Of course I don’t have to set it up as I spread my expenses out as I learned what worked. Harder to justify all at once if you are poor like I am.
This is not a good test, as capacitance will make it spark.
To measure leakage current, simply disconnect one of the battery cables and directly measure the current using a handheld DMM. I believe the rule of thumb is that the current should be less than 60 mA.
So many good responses and suggestions.
My take on it -
The 30-40 feet of cable (for the plow and winch)is not drawing the battery down, just by it being there.
I may have a phantom draw. I suspect it may be the aftermarket stereo. Might be something else though. Lots of good suggestions about how to check for that. I don’t listen to music while plowing, I need to listen to the truck.
It would be nice to plug the truck in with a battery blanket and or block heater. But I don’t like the idea of running extension cords to it to do so. It’s not practical to my house. And I feel that it is a bit of a Band-Aid that doesn’t address the problem.
Something that I did get reminded about when I plowed last night - There is occasionally a warning ‘ding’ when pulling the plow up. The warning is from the charging system/alternator gages. The system is under too much stress.
After plowing, I think I will let the truck run for 10min or so to try to catch back up. And also, will look into a heavy duty alternator, and probably replace the battery since it’s been under so much abuse.
It should be fine for the winter, and I purchased a ‘jump start battery’. Much better than trying to move a vehicle close enough to jump start it. Especially, when you’re ass deep in snow balls.
It doesn’t sound to me like you have a problem at all, I don’t think your battery is being adequately charged back up between using it. Just starting a car and running it for a few minutes is not enough to recharge the battery. Cold weather is another issue. Yours was just slow starting after sitting for a week in near zero temps. A heavier duty battery would likely take care of your problems and then make sure the car runs long enough to fully charge it back up or use a trickle charger.
I’d agree with HBDC. You need an amp meter to see a rate of charging. It’s like a gas gauge, as the battery gets built back up the needle will back up.
My plow is a three way Myers and it always had a draw from the controls after I shut down and would kill the battery in a day or two. I remove the fuse to the control switches each time I park and problem went away no more dead battery. I suppose I should install an on off power toggle to make it easier but like you its always too cold lol.
Here’s a related question for the assembled experts:
I have a car with a pretty new battery (about 5 months old). Last week my wife drove it around with no problems in the morning, but then after letting it sit in our driveway for about 1-2 hours, the power was completely drained out. Turning the starter key produced zero, and the power options (locks, radio etc.) were also non-functional. (The only thing which worked was the “door open” light on the dashboard, and even that died after one try at starting it.)
OK, so I jumpstarted it. Started up with no problem, and after letting it sit for about 10 minutes, it was good to go and worked fine for the next several days. (I also measured the battery current with a multimeter and got good readings, both with the engine running and not.) Then, Sunday morning the same thing happened. Dead as a doornail.
So I think the alternator must be fine or the battery wouldn’t have gotten charged, and the battery must be fine too. The cable connections look very clean and snug. I’m thinking there must be something which intermittently draws the battery. But what?
I would take the battery back to whomever sold it to me and tell them it’s faulty. They should replace it under warranty.
What kind of car is it? That will help folks give more specific answers.
My wife once had a 2004 Jeep Liberty that did that a few times. Turns out …
When you open the car doors the interior lights come on. And when you close them the interior lights stay on for about 30 seconds then slowly fade out. Very pretty. And vastly more complex than older cars with simple mechanical switches in door jamb that are pushed on by the edge of the door when closed.
The little brain box that controls that fancy delay-and-fade went stupid and would sometimes leave the interior lights on. We finally caught it by going outside just before bed and happening to see the interior lights hours after we’d last driven it.
One useless $40 electronics module later (plus $150 troubleshooting and installation) and the problem went away.
But what if it’s not faulty? (And I’m guessing it’s not.)
If they have some sort of system for testing if the battery is truly faulty, then I’m wasting my time. If they don’t then I’m being dishonest.
Either way, if the battery is not really faulty then I’m not solving the problem.
LSLGuy, it’s a 2001 Prizm, but I don’t think that makes a difference. As above, the first time it happened it was after a 1-2 hour break from having been driven. There’s no device of the sort you describe which would drain the battery in that time span (other than headlights, which were not on).
When you checked the voltages with and without the engine running did you get at least 14V and 12.5V respectively?
That’s the indication of a healthy battery and a healthy alternator. Also running for 10 minutes is not enough to fully build the battery back up. You just got enough amps to crank up that’s all. Filling it up with amps is like filling up a gas tank, you got ways to go.
About 14.6 and 12.8.
All that said, I called my mechanic and he said it’s likely a faulty battery. He suggested that Costco could test for it. Costco said they can’t test for it, but that if I brought it in they would give me a new one anyway. So I might try that as a first shot.
That’s very good readings. Only thing left is a load test so the auto repair shops will have such a machine.
Actually it turns out that I misspoke when I said the cable connections look snug. Before heading to Costco I decided to check the battery again and it was at full power. So I looked at the cables closer and the positive one had some wriggle room. Put a new terminal on and I think I should be good.
It’s not capacitance, it’s the fact that on any reasonably modern car or truck every electronic module will power up for a short time once battery power is connected.
Everybody should have a decent DMM, they are only $40 to $100 but they have a lot of uses around the home and last for many years.
A 12 volt battery should almost be called a 13 volt battery, as modern “maintenance free” batteries have a resting, fully charged status at 12.8 volts. A “load test” is the method used to put an automobile start battery through the paces. It’s like a stress test. But, you can do much the same thing with the vehicle it’s installed in. Accurate testing assumes a fully charged battery. The alternator will not do this. Well, it will, but you have to drive to Montana or something like that.
A $30 battery charger - “dumb” or otherwise, capable of providing at least 5 to 10 amps or better is a very wise tool to keep on hand, they will pay for themselves many times over. Back to the “load test”. Charge the battery up to 100%, don’t be concerned if you see 15 volts or more on the charger, especially in cold weather. It needs to “cook” for a while with moderate gassing.
When the current drops off to nearly nothing, the battery is charged. It now has a “surface charge”, that will interfere with measurement. This is true on a car that has been recently driven as well.
Turn the headlight HI beams on (enginenOFF) for five minutes. Then let the battery rest for at least ten minutes. If you monitor the voltage during this time you’ll see the voltage creep back up. At ten minutes or thereafter is the true voltage or state of charge. It should be 12.8 volts for a modern “maintenance free” battery. A few tenths of a volt doesn’t sound like much, but it really is. The difference between 100% and Dead, is less than a single volt.
Now we have an accurate baseline to make comparisons. With the voltmeter leads on the battery terminals, safely disable the engine from starting. Crank the engine over for 10 seconds while observing the voltage. It will drop from 12.8 volts, especially in cold weather, but as a general rule if it drops to 9.5 volts during cranking or below, the battery should be replaced. A healthy battery will often drop only to around 11 volts. Then let the battery rest again for at least 10 minutes and measure the resting voltage. It should again measure 12.8 volts.
Then charge it back up again using a charger. Avoid using the alternator to charge up a weak or dead battery. A jump start is really an emergency procedure, the battery should be fully charged when practical. Lots of $$ problems can be traced back to a dead battery, you want to avoid this.
A car actually have a 14V system. We just call it 12V.
It’s both.
Living where you are, battery blankets and block heaters are definitely NOT Band-Aids on an otherwise properly-maintained vehicle. All batteries lose capacity in cold temps, lead-acid batteries even more so. Personally, I would think of them more as a necessity in your location, especially on a “working” vehicle.
Unless you’re driving it, merely starting the truck weekly isn’t recharging the battery enough - the alternator, even a high-amp alternator, simply isn’t spinning fast enough at idle to put out all the current the battery needs to recharge. It’s also bad for the engine - sitting at idle, the oil doesn’t get both hot enough and circulated enough to boil off the condensation and other liquid contaminants it picks up inside the engine.
Hopefully, whoever installed the plow and winch used appropriately-sized cable for the amp draw and cable length. Also, hopefully a larger lead from the alternator to the battery was installed - a 10ga lead from alt to battery simply will not keep up with the battery drain from running a plow or winch.
Another possible factor is the condition of the battery cables themselves. I’ve had a couple cars over the years where a new set of battery cables cured hard-starting and battery charging issues. The cables will eventually corrode internally, and build resistance.