So I've been having this issue with my battery draining. At first I thought I had left my running lights on, which wasn't the case. I've checked the wiring and fuses for my leds that I've added, and they all look good to me. I added led tail lights when I put on my Evo rear rock skins, but it started doing this a couple days before I put those on. It's only totally died a couple times, other times it's just gotten low but turned over and then after a while running it's charged and good, but when it's dead it's dead. Battery is reading around 9 volts. Anybody else had this happen? Where should I start?

 

People have posted about parasitic drains on their batteries.

Is your battery original to your 2013 JK? Some OEM batteries last only 3 years, or less.

Normal drain of a JK that has gone to sleep is from five to thirty-five milliamperes.
It takes about 5 minutes for all the computers to shut down after the ignition switch is turned to OFF.

Disconnect the battery negative cable and place the leads of an ammeter between the cable and the battery terminal. Wait 5 minutes and note the draw. Make sure not to lose continuity. If you do, the 5 minutes starts over when you reestablish continuity.

If you see more than the normal five to thirty-five milliamperes, start pulling fuses and reinstalling fuses, one at a time. If one causes a significant reduction in the amp reading, that's the circuit you need to look at.

If no fuse shows a reduction, pull the alternator lead and see if that shows a reduction.

 

If you have a DMM: Lift the positive battery term and connect DMM to read ma. If it's under ~70 ma (normal), the problem is likely a bad battery that's self discharging. If it's over ~70 ma, there's something drawing too much constant current -- Disconnect stuff and pull fuses while checking the DMM to see what is causing the current drain.



edit: Dang your fast Ron! I also forgot to mention waiting for the auxiliary stuff to go to sleep (which Ron mentioned above).

 

Negative battery terminal. The positive terminal should never have a tool applied to it when the negative terminal is still connected.
Normal draw is from five to thirty-five milliamperes.

 

You're right, safer to lift the negative. Sometimes there's an added alarm system or other device that adds a little more current.

 

Stock batteries suck. Mine in my 2012 lasted just over two years. I would make sure it's not a battery issue. The jeeps do whacky things when the battery is dying.

 

I'm going to school pretty far from home and don't have my regular arsenal of tools, but I eyeballed everything pretty hard and decided to go by good ol' Autozone and have them test my battery, and their meter said that it was toast. Doing some more digging on forums, the stock battery biting the dust after about 2 or 3 years seems to be pretty common. Weird that it quit with no warning, but after I replace it, hopefully that solves the issue. I'll let y'all know later on today. Thanks for the help!

 

I got it sorted out. The battery decided that it was it's time to go. Got 'er squared away now, though!

 

glad you got it sorted out. I've had many vehicles in my life. Never had one that had the battery die so suddenly and demonstrate the symptoms my jeep had. Quite a few people on here have had similar experiences. My Walmart battery has been doing just fine since replacing the oem one.

 

I had just installed led taillights and a 20 inch light bar, so it freaked me out. I wasn't too stoked about it.