electrical battery drain accessories acting up

[brady55]

Ok so i have a 1996 850 turbo AT with 179k and everything was going well then all of a sudden i have some electrical issues. Before the issues my headlights automatically turned off with the ignition being turned off and most of the accessories turned off no issues. When i would start the car the traction control would be on automatically (tracs light off). Now here is what is going on.
Battery drains within 24 to 72 hrs
Headlights and blinkers (not flashers) can turn on with the key out of ignition
Tracs light comes on every start up and need to manually turn on traction control

What i have done is:
Replaced ignition switch 3 times 2 used ones and a brand new volvo unit
replaced relays under hood
replaced headlight switch

[Ozark Lee]

Start out by trying to narrow things down. Put an ammeter in series with the + battery cable and then start pulling fuses. Hopefully you will find a fuse that causes a dramatic drop in parasitic current. That will at least narrow things down to which circuits you need to start troubleshooting.

What, if anything, has been added to the car by an aftermarket shop? Is there evidence that a cell phone, a different head unit, or - God forbid - an aftermarket remote starter or alarm system has been added to the car? If so, that is an obvious first place to start looking for trouble. No one can hack up an electrical system quite like an average 17 year old car stereo installer.

We do have a (more or less) full set of schematics for your car under the repair database tab at the top of the page.

Electrical problems are usually very easy to fix - once you find the problem in the first place. Finding the problem can take hours with a DVM checking each circuit individually.

...Lee