Truck off but headlights still able to turn on?

Sup fellas. So I've got a parasitic draw going on right now(truck is dead after about 24 hrs) and I'm trying to figure it out without bringing it to someone and emptying my pockets...

I was just out messing with things to see if anything was out of the ordinary and I noticed that I can turn my headlights (and high beams) on with my truck off.

The headlights turn off with the truck if they are on but if I turn the knob off and back on they turn on as well as the high beams work. Is this correct or is there something wrong? Truck is a 2015 trd sport if that matters. I feel like I was never able to do this/shouldn't be able too but I really am not sure. thanks!

 

Perfectly normal.

 

Like stated it is normal. I would get a clamp meter around the battery cable and remove one fuse at a time until you find a significant current drop. Do you know how many amps it is drawing while sitting there off?

 

This ^^^

Another thing I always check on older trucks or trucks that spend a lot of time off road is the trailer plug and related wiring. If that bad boy gets mashed, bad things can happen.

 

been smashed and is just tied up now that I have a high clearance. Going to check that for sure.

No but its pretty significant. I'm going to get a meter tomorrow and start tracking it down.

 

On modern vehicles you don't really want to pull fuses to check for parasitic draws as power cycling stuff tends to wake up modules (or in some cases temporarily fix the problem) and some vehicles can take over an hour to go back to sleep.
The best method to find the circuit that is drawing power is checking voltage drop across each fuse, any that are over 0mv have current going through them. Once you find the fuse(s) that are drawing power then you have to determine what all they power and eliminate those items one at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn2-R8eUdjc

 

That seems like an easier method that I have never thought of but requires a decent meter that is going to be able to see that small of a drop in voltage.

 

Stumped on this one. This is acceptable for these trucks in assuming? Battery was 12.6v when I took the cable off to test. Going to leave the meter on for a little bit and see if something changes.

 

That's 30mA, generally anything under 50mA is considered ok.
Seems a bit high for a truck with so little electronics but I've never checked mine so I couldn't tell you what the norm is, each vehicle is different though.

30mA isn't gona kill your battery overnight though, it would take a couple weeks or more at that rate.

 

If you reconfigure your meter to the 200m setting you’ll get a better measurement. That’s really too little for the 10A setting.

 

After almost 12 hours it struggles to start unfortunately.

Are you saying to turn the dial up to the 200m setting above it? I’m not the best at using a multimeter I’ll be honest lol

 

Are you certain it's not the battery?
Try leaving the battery disconnected for the same period as it normally takes it to go dead then hook it back up and see if it starts.
I have seen batteries that develop a short internally test good but still kill themselves overnight or in a couple days.

 

I am leaning towards that after this but I figured if the battery charges to 12.6 then it’s most likely not the issue. Im going to try that next though. Battery is less than 2 years old fwiw

 

Batteries aren't what they used to be, in my climate 3 years is about the average lifespan of a vehicle battery.

Do the test I stated above, if it's still dead even being unhooked then it's the battery for sure. If not you may have something intermittently coming on or staying on.

 

To change the multi meter move the dial to the 200ma dc setting above the 10a like you said but you need to swap the red lead to the right hole and leave the black on com. I also assume you disconnected one of the leads of the battery and have the meter in series between the battery post and leads like below. It doesn't matter if you disconnected the positive or negative but I would do the negative for safety so you don't short out your battery by accident.

Also you should try what Dm93 said.

 

I don't think you will be able to use the 200mA setting because most vehicles take much more than 200mA when they first power up so it would likely blow you meter fuse.
10A scale should be sufficient as you can measure down to 10mA.

 

With doors closed, key on headlights on, key off. Open door, do the headlights turn off when you open the door?

 

yes I have it connected to the neg cable (excuse my horrible picture but just wanted to show I’m not doing it wrong lol)
I have it like this right now just to make sure the truck doesn’t have something turn on after a few hours and stay on. I know these trucks run some kind of random diagnostic every time you turn off the ignition so I want to make sure that isn’t the culprit. So far so good.

I know after 5 hours or so the fuel pump comes on aswell with that diag so I’m waiting to make sure that one isn’t keeping something on before I look at the battery. (Hopefully this made sense to those who know what I’m talking about)

 

I will check this tomorrow if what I’m doing in my last post doesn’t come up with anything.

 

That is a good point I forgot to mention to not turn on the key or anything else. I was more wanting to make sure the budget meter was somewhat accurate at low draw on the 10a setting. Both of my meters are auto ranging and I have not used a cheaper one before.