Can my alternator drain my battery if the car isnt running?

Question

I have to charge my battery every three days at autozone. I know my alternator is bad. My question is can the alternator drain the battery if the car isnt running

Answer 1

yup. and it's quite common, bad diode

Answer 2

no you probably have a bad batt or a short

Answer 3

no. thye engine has to wither be running or trying to be started or the key turned on to run before it will drain power.. but you should deff. get your alternator fixed asap because eventually draining the battery and then recharging it will eventually kill it...

Answer 4

No your alternator will not drain your battery ,but if the alternator is not working properly it will not charge the battery .

You have a faulty alternator or a fault on your electric system

Hope this helps you

Answer 5

Shouldn't, no, not saying it can't.  But your car is running off the battery if the alternator is bad. Most likely you're draining the battery while the car is running, not while it's off, and that's why.  Also- the battery is never being recharged.  My guess is it's just every three days you're needing to charge it because that's how much stress it's getting.  Buy yourself a battery charger and save yourself a trip to auto-zone.

Better yet- put a new alternator on!  They're not terribly difficult in most cars, can cost a bit of money and sometimes you can even rebuild them.

Answer 6

YES, but only if there is an internal short.

Answer 7

yes thts why you have to charge the battery

Answer 8

Sure.

Answer 9

Generally the alternator doesn't drain the battery at all, starting (and to some extent running) your car is what drains the battery.  The alternator recharges the battery from power supplied by the engine.  If the alternator is bad, it doesn't recharge the battery.  Without a charged battery, your car doesn't start the next time around.  (Be glad, with a bad alternator, you could be recharging the battery after every single start).

You really need to get that fixed, of course.

Answer 10

i dont know how it could

i think its time to look into getting your car checkout by a place other than autozone and consider getting a new battery and alternator......

your alternator is suppose to replace the energy it takes to start the car so it shouldn't ever drain it

my dad gave me this nifty book a whille back on cars.... the website it has on it is www.carcare.org

Answer 11

I'm not sure if the alternator can, but you may have a problem with the regulator.  The good news is that you can disconnect the battery when the car isn't running and neither one can drain the battery while the car isn't running.