Can a bad switch cause a drain on your car battery?

i had a car that showed a drain on my car battery with the ignition switch off. i hooked a test light up to the battery, and noticed when i changed out the combo lever switch on the steering column , the light went out, i thought a switch just opened or closed an electrical path, and was not an electrical load itself. i have heard people say you have a bad ground problem. with there not being a light or some type of electrical device that appears to be on, what else could be draining my battery. thanks for any tips.Can a bad switch cause a drain on your car battery?True a switch is open and close the path, but think about this. The negative battery cable is electrically connected to the car frame. The switch may or may not be mounted to the metal that includes the car frames' connection. If it is then the bottom of the switch housing and the negative are connected. If the interior of the switch has lost some of its resistance from the positive terminal to the switch's connection to the frame then there will be current flow.
Can a bad switch cause a drain on your car battery?
You may have a bad starter or alternator.
Can a bad switch cause a drain on your car battery?
Hello;

A bad/malfunctioning switch, especially a combination switch on the steering column can definitely drain your battery.



Remember. power is always available (key on or off) to the combination switch because your headlights run through there. The switch's contacts could have been bad enough to pass a small current through them, and said current may have been too low to activate the headlights, but still enough to eventually drain the battery.
Yes a defective switch or other component can cause battery drain by leaking current to ground. In some cases they can start electrical fires too.



It's pretty hard to check battery drain that way because your clock or even radio pulls a minute current all the time. An ohm meter is better.
well is there still a drain ??? as the guy mentioned before if its the light switch there is 12v consistantly. it can cause a drain. please make sure when you do your draw test you are using the negative side of the battery. also if you have a computor controlled vehicle when you attach the light, make sure you just touch the negative terminal to the battery, it allows the computor to release itself from the test and you are only testing for an honest drain
yes .....a bad switch can cause a drain......not fully disengaging........almost any electrical device can cause a drain if not functioning correctly........use a test probe to identify faulty circuit,s....remove one fuse at a time until the test light go,s out....that,s the suspect circuit.....narrow it down from there.......good luck!
yes, it might it can leave accesories on causing it to have an electrical drain
Lets go back to basics here. First look at the battery for age and condition. Get a load test done on it to determine that the battery is in good shape, and the disconnect the ground side of the battery. As said before connect a test light between the ground cable and the battery ground. with the key's out of the ignition and door shut, touch the ground clamp to the battery post to charge the system for about 5 seconds. If the light stays lit after that, you have a drain. Remove one fuse at a time (replace it after you check) until you find the circuit that has the drain.

Then you can work on that circuit to find the trouble.

Later

Tim