Battery being drained

[dest]

My battery is only holding charge for a couple of days before loosing all charge.
Im confident its not the actual battery at fault as its only 6-8 months old.
When running, the gauge shows 14.1 volts at all times, the battery light has never come on atall.

Im no electrical expert, but have put a multimeter between the earth cable and earth post on the battery. It was put on the 20m amp setting.
With all the doors shut, lights off and everything settled it was reading 0.12
I then pulled each fuse and relay one by one, checking the gauge each time. It never changed from 0.12 apart from with fuse 4, which is:

Reading lights, clock, trunk light, cig lighter, dome light, trip comp, make up mirror, anti theft, check sys, air con, radio, illumination, AG4 selector switch

I also checked it with the alarm set as normal, and that showed 0.12 too.

Where do I go from here?

[quattro turbo 550bhp]

batt drain

iv got same prob on my aby avant does the same thing if u dont start it for 4-5 days

[Henkjan]

Where do I go from here?

check the trunk light

[s2carlo]

I had exactly the same thing, I did the same exercise/tests as you did, with the same result. Could not find the problem.

Finally, after more then a year of frustration and testing I found the cause!!

In my case the siren of the alarm was broken. Could find that measuring, just swapped it.
The siren has an emergency, back up batterypack. That was broken and kept draining power. After swapping the siren problem was gone.

My advice, if possible, pull the cabeling of of the siren and wait a few days.

Good luck

[mark_s2]

mine was the light in the glove box

[Error404]

should this test read 0 ideally with the clock fuse pulled?

[Big Lee M]

I had the same problem on my avant too. It turned out to be my Alpine headunit that had gone faulty, try pulling the headunit out totally/disconnect it.

[Knight Rider S4]

Had this problem on the avant ..ended up going mental one afternoon and cutting the clifford alarm out ..and problem solved

[johne]

should this test read 0 ideally with the clock fuse pulled?

Pretty close to 0. You'll loose a mA or two through the alternator and a few more if the radio isn't on the clock fuse. Around 5mA is what I'd expect with all fuses in and I'd start looking for a leak above 10mA (reading of 0.01 on the amp scale)

John

[S2central.net]

Agreed with johne there... good advice !

[dest]

The siren has an emergency, back up batterypack. That was broken and kept draining power. After swapping the siren problem was gone.

My advice, if possible, pull the cabeling of of the siren and wait a few days.

Good luck

Am I guessing that is somewhere near the battery, as a horn sounds in that era when setting the factory alarm

I had the same problem on my avant too. It turned out to be my Alpine headunit that had gone faulty, try pulling the headunit out totally/disconnect it.

Hmmm, Ive got an Alpine with autochanger.
You can use the radio without turning the key, I never leave the face on it though.

Pretty close to 0. You'll loose a mA or two through the alternator and a few more if the radio isn't on the clock fuse. Around 5mA is what I'd expect with all fuses in and I'd start looking for a leak above 10mA (reading of 0.01 on the amp scale)

John

So mine showing 0.12 with all fuses in should be fine?

I have also just put the meter across the battery.
With the engine running and radio, lights, fan, aircon, rear window remist all on it showed 13.8v, so can assume the alternator is charging ok?

Im also starting to wonder if it is a simple case of the battery not holding charge anymore, but am reluctant to buy another if it isnt!
Thinking about it, in November when I went on holiday for 5 days, it was totally flat when I got back, but after jump starting it then it has been fine until it started going flat last week

[cd_contact]

Hi ,
I think the easy way to see if your battery still holds a decent charge is to disconect the ground cable and leave it for a couple of days (the amount of time it needed to go flat before) and then measure the exact voltage...or simply put the gound strap back on and try to start the engine. If you have no problems starting it then your battery is fine and you should look for a power drain somewhere : boot light,under hood light, glovebox light, aftermarket alarm, central locking pump, stereo amplifier, radio antena amplifier ...

Good luck.

[dest]

It is going flat within a couple of days, pretty much over night.
So Im starting to think its simply not holding any charge put into it

[cd_contact]

Maybe you have one or more dry elements (due to overcharging it one time). What kind of battery is it ? If it's less then 1 year old I believe you can take it back to the dealer.

[Big Lee M]

I never left my face on too and it still drained the battery. I took my headunit out and it solved the problem.