Hi, so yesterday I tried starting up my car and it was dead, no electronics or anything. I checked the voltage of the battery and it was at 4v. The battery is only 8 months old. I charged it overnight and got it to 14v, ran the car, and it stayed right near 14.8v. After 5 minutes, it started dropping down slowly, eventually to 13v. I turned the car off and checked the power steering fuse (I tried jumping it yesterday, and I forgot that the negative was supposed to go to the strut bolt). The fuse looked fine, power steering still worked when I tried it with the fuse in there. I ran the car without the power steering fuse for a while and it didn't drop in voltage. I turned on every electronic I could possibly do (high beams, radio, turn signals), and it stayed right around 14.6-14.7v.

I have a 2008 HHR 2.2.

I'm guessing it's either the power steering draining the battery or the alternator going bad because there's less of a load without power steering? I tried searching to see if there were any battery draw issues with power steering units going bad and I couldn't find anything. The voltage of the power steering unit at idle is 7.2-7.3v for both positive and negative. Any ideas?

 

If you have voltage on the positive AND negative side then you have a serious short to ground somewhere..................or, you checked it wrong.

 

That's exactly what the motor voltage says on tech2, both the positive and negative have 7.2v for the motor

 

Anything plugged into the 12V power outlets? They are not switched (hot always).
Why are you checking the power steering voltage with the engine running? What is that supposed to diagnose?
When you jump started the car with the cables hooked to the power steering you probably did more damage than blow the fuse.
The power steering would not work at all if the motor was shorted out.
Are there any after market electronics installed?
What do you think is the negative of the power steering?

The front post on the under hood fuse box is Battery (2 wires attached), the rear post is to the power steering (1 wire attached).
Battery voltage when engine off should be above 12.8 V With engine running you are measuring Alternator output; that will vary between about 12.5V and 15V depending on demand.

Information from a Tech2 is dangerous for someone that has no training.

 

I think you see the + and - of the assist motor itself on the Tech 2. Not exactly sure how it works. Some type of demand assist motor. That is not a true ground. The red arrow shows a true ground at the strut tower.

 

Oh I guess I wrote it wrong, I hooked the negative part of the jumpers to the body in the front, jumping didn't even do anything when I tried. I didn't hook anything to the power steering when jumping it. No aftermarket electronics are installed. Nothing plugged into the 12v outlets, I did plug something into them when they were dead to see if there was any power getting to that (and there was). I have no active codes at all.

That is definitely the assist motor that I was reading from, I guess that wasn't any useful then.

Everything is working fine except that the battery is losing voltage while idling longer than 5 minutes with the power steering fuse plugged in. The battery drops down to around 13v when it is turned off and doesn't lose any voltage.

 

Prior to charging the battery did you check and top up the water in the cells?
possibly there’s a dead cell in the battery.
Have it load tested , most parts palaces will do that for free

 

Okay, sounds good, I'll try to get it load tested later today. I did not top up the water in the cells, it says to not open the battery I got. (it is an advance auto battery, DieHard gold)

 

Even though they have "sealed" cells you can remove the cover and look at the level, unless it is AGM (they don't use water). Theoretically Lead-acid batteries should never need replenishing. The manufacturers don't want folks doing stupid stuff they read on the interwebs to their batteries.
What George was getting at is that the polarity of the motor changes depending on which direction you are turning. There is a plus and a minus pole NOT a positive and negative.

 

All lead acid batteries can be serviced. Even the ones that say that are no maintenance.