Battery Cutoff Switch

[X5SND]

Ground loops stem from different grounding potentials between shared circuits. Dkl, I think you're getting a ground loop confused with inductance and the resulting emi. If you have a ground loop, running your ground beside the power wires are likely to have no effect on resolving it.

It's good practice to keep cables as short as possible, but as everyone knows it's not always possible.

[dkl]

Originally Posted by X5SND

Ground loops stem from different grounding potentials between shared circuits. Dkl, I think you're getting a ground loop confused with inductance and the resulting emi. If you have a ground loop, running your ground beside the power wires are likely to have no effect on resolving it.

It's good practice to keep cables as short as possible, but as everyone knows it's not always possible.

I guessed you've got a point regarding the common ground (the single grounding post that the battery's negative terminal connecting to the chassis). If you extend the ground wire along with the additional impedance introduced by the breaker circuit, the common reference point, which is at the chassis contact point, would remain the same as seen by all devices in the car. In this instance, there shouldn't be a ground loop problem.

In this case, it is possible to keep the GND cable very short as this is how the OE cable routing is done.