07 Ford Escape

not tractor related ,farmer wifes car has a battery drain, when key is shut off, battery will go dead over night. took the + cable off the battery and it sparks with every thing off. any ideas ?

That is a pretty good drain.

I would pull all the fuses, check for spark, if none, replace one at a time until spark.

Sounds like maybe a bad diode in the alternator or an interior light that you can't see. Hint:never remove the positive cable first, it can cause damage to electronics! Remove the negative first. Something else to check is a sticking electric door lock solenoid. Try this, put an 1157 light bulb in series with the positive cable after closing the doors and waiting for interior lights to go out. If it burns at all, remove the fuse for the interior lights. If it still burns, start pulling fuses, putting them back one by one until it goes out. You may have to pull relsys too, could be a relay sticking. If not, remove the alternator hot wire. After this much looking, you should have found something.

Had the same exact thing with a 1980 Ford Fiesta when the car was less than 5 years old. Culprit was the turn signal flasher unit. It was some kind of a high-tech, transistorized affair. I'd never seen anything like it, and neither had the parts man at the Ford dealer. I replaced it with a conventional, can style flasher unit. Drove the car for 10 more years and never happened again.

you can't do the pulling 1 fuse at a time thing on a newer vehicle with multiple modules that power down at different times, it just doesn't work that way anymore. If you can access online manuals look up the battery drain test , if not you have to unhook the negative cable and put a jumper wire between the cable and battery , then wait 15-30 minutes for all modules to power down , then hook an ammeter inline between the battery neg cable and neg post ( or in this case with as big a draw as you have use an old tail lamp socket with an 1157 bulb or something similar) but hook this up BEFORE you break the circuit between the battery and cable or you will have to start all over again. Normal draw should be less than 25-50 milliamps. This will usually not make a test light glow at all, but the draw you seem to have should make it glow bright, then you can start pulling fuses to see when it goes away, don't forget to open the door and close the latch so the dome light circuit won't be drawing current and prevent modules from shutting down , do this first thing when you start with the cable unhooking . Just remember that if you unhook the wire between the battery and cable without having the other wire with your ammeter or light hooked up you open the circuit and the module power down process has to start all over. Happy hunting. And if I remember right some of those years Escapes had problems with the "smart junction box" AKA fuse box in the console area.

The "spark the cable" test is no longer a valid test for modern vehicles.

They will all spark, there are all kinds of timers, capacitors, memory circuits, and computer related items that have to charge up, time out, and do whatever is programed for it to do when power is restored. If all goes well, the drain will slowly dissipate in a few minutes.

The test light in series with a disconnected cable is also out dated, won't work on a computer controlled car.

First, check the obvious. Try disconnecting the battery overnight, see if it still has a charge the next day. You might want to have the battery checked just to eliminate it being the problem, or switch batteries with another vehicle.

Check for any added accessories, like radio, security system, remote start, anything that was added to the car or changed. Electronic installers are notorious wire butchers!

Try disconnecting the alternator, both the main wire and the plug in connection.

You will be looking for a substantial drain. A small drain, like a glove box light, trunk or hood light, will take more than overnight to discharge a healthy, fully charged battery.

So, to do a valid test, you will need a DC amp meter, like a multimeter with a DC amp setting (not milliamps). With everything off, connect it in series with a disconnected battery cable. Give it a few minutes to level off, the reading should go to zero.

If not, start pulling under hood fuses. If you have to get inside, you will need to block the door switch to kill the interior lights, and even that may not completely stop the drain with the door open. It can be difficult to find, a lot of weird stuff doing strange things...

But hopefully it will be something obvious. It usually is, but they can be mind benders!

You can remove either cable, that is totally untrue that it will damage anything.

The reason for removing the negative cable first is to prevent your wrench from shorting out while removing the positive cable.

I have a Ford Escape I got a bad a battery too. the passenger side mirror motor was draining it

Check for things such as under hood light not turning off when hood closed, brake light switch sticking, rear passenger (cargo area) light in manual position.

Thank you for all the ideas, I bought a new battery, thought the old one was bad and I disconnected the alternator cable if that was bad, but still spartks when touching the cable to the battery

I once had a ford pickup that drained the battery. I put an 0-100 amp amp gauge on it. It was pulling 2 amp. I pulled every fuse, every plug, on hooked the alternator. Last thing to unhook was the voltage regulator. Bingo.

Sparking at first hookup means nothing. Put an amp-meter in line with a cable to battery and check it after it sits for a few minutes. Should read no more then a 100 milliamp draw after being hooked for a while. That is unless you have added options like an aftermarket alarm system. 200 milliamp is usually considered the max.

For a quick check may not be the problem , but after the car has sat for a while with key off, check the rear wiper mtr
to see if it's warm. Motor may not be going to the Park position which will put a higher drain on battery. If it's warm unplug
& see if your issue goes away.

A few things it could be: Light in glove box not shutting off, light in Trunk not shutting off, Light under the hood not shutting off, or i have seen with a few chevy trucks, something in the instrument cluster is bad and is draining the battery...

That is normal these days, lots of things power up when cable hooked up. If your old battery was weak , it may have been losing voltage too fast and preventing proper module shutdown, making it go dead faster. Low voltage does crazy things with todays cars.