Dead Batteries

Posted by Kelly Kyriakos on April 13, 2011 at 12:00 AM CDT

Many times the emergency vehicle lights are blamed for dead or low voltage batteries. However, doing a parasitic load test can save you dead battery cost, down time, and extra maintenance costs. This is an easy test to perform and will show you exactly how much load is on your vehicle battery even when all items in your vehicle are turned off. Equipment that draws load when the vehicle is off include: the vehicle's computer, MDT's (mobile data terminal), radars, in car video systems, flash light chargers, and some other types of equipment that might be installed. All of these items together can definitely lead to battery issues over time. Please contact our technical service department for more information on how to perform a parasitic draw test and suggestions on what to do if you find you have an issue with too much parasitic load.