car battery draining?

you might have a parastatic draw.. which means there's something turned on that isn't supposed to be.

just because an alternator is new, doesn't mean it's working right.

Charge battery so it's up to snuff.

check the voltage of the battery and record it.

start engine, check voltage of battery now. if it's the same, alternator isn't putting out a charge, if it's 13+ volts, alternator should be good.

Otherwise, to check for a parastatic drain, you need an Ammeter that can read at least 10amps. disconnect negative battery terminal, set your meter to 10 Amps, connect 1 lead to negative battery post, the other lead to the terminal. ignore the - sign.

If you have more than 300ma, you have a paraststic draw.

consider the car computer and radio take a little bit of power, up to 300ma.

so to diagnose this, pull 1 fuse at a time until the reading goes down. when you see that, that's the circuit you now concentrate on.

Make sure everything is off (car not running) and install an ammeter (use a multimeter which will give you range select capability) in series with a battery lead and then make sure everything is turned off again.. Read the meter. If there is a current drain, the meter will show it. Then you can start removing fuses one at a time to determine what circuit is causing the current drain. Inserting a meter will also resolve the question of whether it is a real drain or some anomaly in the battery. The "spark" sound you mentioned may be the sound of the starter solenoid kicking in when you turn the ignition switch.

Something is staying on. Could be a radio or amplifier, glove box, trunk or hood light (you can't see this with it closed.) You can use an amp-meter connected between the negative battery terminal and the disconnected negative wire to determine amp flow with nothing on. There are small parasitic loads (usually not over 50mA) anything much higher will be a power drain. Start disconnecting fuses until this stops and now you will be in the right circuit to do further testing.

It could just be that the battery is old and won't hold a charge for very long.

If it's old and has been drained a lot, it's not going to keep a charge.

Check any lights that could be staying on. Hood, trunk, anything. If it's a hood or trunk light, you could just simply pull the bulb out.

go to your local auto - zone or other parts store they offer a free charging systems check . fast & cheap way to check it out.