2006 Hummer H3 Base Model, 5cyl, manual transmission, 90k miles
Only upgrade is K&N

Okay,

So last night I was heading out of work and for no reason the vehicle would not start. It was a dead battery - I had no indication of low voltage or anything. The door chime was working, until I put my foot on the brake. The only thing that could have possibly drained the battery was a cell phone charger that was left plugged in over the last several weeks.

A friend came out, we jumped the vehicle and I was on my way to O'Reilly's. I had them test the starter, alternator, battery, and voltage regulator. At first we got a voltage reg error, but I think this was user error on from the O'Reilly guy. He tested again, this time the tester asked me to start my vehicle and everything passed.

THIS MORNING. Head to work and it was a little cold (it got down to freezing yesterday morning), headed down the road and the car decides to bog, just did not want to go in 2nd and 3rd gear (this is a manual tranny). After about a mile or two of driving it stopped bogging (probably warmed up) and I continued my drive to work.

Had a mechanic friend meet me at work and we put the voltage tester on the battery. Voltage on the battery was a little low, but alternator wa pushing 14volts. Okay, so my battery needs a charge, but O'Reilly's did not detect any bad cells.

We take it out for a test drive and now the Traction Control displays on the dash the it failed.

I live in Wyoming and hunting season is right around the corner. This has me really worried as I will be 50miles in the middle of nowhere, no towns, no service stations, no cell service.

I do need to clean my MAF, throttle body, and K&N filter, just typical maintenance. Don't think I have ever changed plugs. No CE lights at the moment, but I have one that keeps appearing and going away, so I think it is due to the need for maintenance on the K&N intake/filter, etc.

 

One thing to add- when I checked my battery voltage I am sitting at 11.8volts. It is a little low.

 

You need a new battery. 11.8 is a whole bunch low, because 11.4 is STONE DEAD. 12.9 is fully charged. Brush up on your Battery Basics.

If you are still sporting the POS OEM battery terminals, hack those off right now, today, do it, ... and replace them with a quality aftermarket terminal set, like Stingers or your favorite brand.

PCMs are highly sensitive to even minute voltage changes, which can cause errant DIC messages and erratic motor performance.

 

Probably wouldn't hurt to unhook the negative cable to the battery, and with a multi-meter, put the meter inline with the cable and measure the current (A) draw when everything is off. It should be around 55-65 mA draw. If you have much more then it could be causing your issues.

I just had the A/C relay stick in the closed position and was drawing 2.5A when everything was off. Swapped out the relay and was at 55 mA draw. Not saying that is your issue at all, but it seems that battery issues plague these vehicles and this is just another thing to check.

 

if it was drained dead it can take a while to get up to full charge, a few hours driving is not enuf.
in the morn ill check mine as a test. it will read under 12 v overnight. when started it will go up to 15 v for a few minutes, then 14,then just under 14 driving. so 11.8 is ok under NORMAL conditions.
on 2 different h3 I open a batt cable and test current. it reads 2 amps for a minute, then drops to 110 ma everytime.

ive posted all of this many times.
if I remember ill do it in the morn,,,again!!

if it cranks when you turn the key it is ok.
these 3.7 engines turn ez. I put my tiny lawn tractor batt in once and it started right up, 3 times. it dont take much,..

 

I touched the multimeter to the neg battery post and neg terminal with the terminal disconnected and it came back at -.90, which is 900mA? So I would assume something is causing a drain?

 

you must wait a minute or two to see if it settles to 110 ma.,,,,oh all doors closed!!,,no lights

remember mine,both, were bone stock,no messing with addons.

 

Hmm... those multi-commas looks familiar.

 

Is drtom back? I miss him and the ditch the nerfs and crank the tbars guy. They were entertaining.

 

Forgot this morning so I got an extended test, no starts till 6pm.

It actually read just over 12v till I opened the door when it read 11.88 and dropped brieflf on crank, then up to 14.97-9,never hit 15 this time.

I was too lazy to unhook a battery cable but ive done it often with the 110 ma results.