hallo every one,

need a bit of advice as to what is slowly draining battery,i have been told it could possibly be a relay problem? eny body got eny ideas.

thanks,

chas.

What are the symptoms? Have you experienced repeated flat batteries or is it just turning over more slowly?

The battery may just be near the end of its life, once it's been flattened beyond a certain voltage they can be permanently damaged to a point they hold less charge and therefore flatten quicker and easier.

Do you leave an MP3 player plugged in over night?

Have you retrofitted an aftermarket stereo or sat nav?

What are the symptoms? Have you experienced repeated flat batteries or is it just turning over more slowly?

The battery may just be near the end of its life, once it's been flattened beyond a certain voltage they can be permanently damaged to a point they hold less charge and therefore flatten quicker and easier.

Do you leave an MP3 player plugged in over night?

Have you retrofitted an aftermarket stereo or sat nav?

hi

battery is only 6 month old,nothing been added,car starts ok,but if i do not use the car for a few days the battery looses voltage,has caused starting problems sometimes.could it be something to do with the time of year,short jouneys etc.i have been charging it up sometimes overnight.

How old is the car?

A weak battery is more likely to fail at this time of year due to the lower temperatures and having the lights and rear heated screen etc. more often.

Lots of short journeys, especially in stop/start traffic will kill a battery sooner but not in 6 months.

If it's only 6 months old it should still be under warranty. I'd take it back and see what they say. At least if you get a new battery you'll know for sure if it is being drained by the car.

Check the obvious things, like does the glovebox light go off when its closed, what about the light in the loading area. they may seem like little things but over a couple of days are quiet capable of causing a low voltage battery.

Also if you have an aftermarket stereo, is the switched 12V supply connected to the fusebox as it should be on the Octy MK2 as there is no switched supply behind the headunit.

There are various things that cause battery drains

Headunits are very common, stream items had various updates for this. There are also BCM updates for later vehicles. Door control units can also fail to go into sleep mode keeping the can bus system active.

The battery drain needs to be recorded to see if its excessive and then the relevant system identified.

Best to go back to basics ,and assume nothing .

First step - go get battery & charging system checked out .places like kwak fat do it for nothing .this will elimate battery/charging system

If then all is well - you're going to need a meter . Something cheap and digital that will read up to approx 2A will do .Put on amps -highest possible scale . Then disconnect earth lead ,and connect meter ( one lead to battery negative ,other to battery WITH IGN OFF) .On my Furby , it starts approx .5A and then drops slowly( a - sign in display means you've got leads are wrong way round - ignore) . Any thing higher after a few minutes , than a few tens of milli amps -start pulling fuses and see which one kills the current. Then it's look at which device etc . Sorry ,but it's(possibly) a long slog elimating possible sources .But then if after all that ,you've got to seek professional help - you've sourced it to a particular circuit .

Very true, or bring it to a main dealer, we can measure drain with amp clamp without disconnecting anything, verify if there is a drain and then we can check for updates of any control units.

Check the brake light switch, this has been known to have an intermittent fault where it randomly turns the brake lights on - very difficult to spot unless you actually see the brake lights on. Mine was changed under warranty and I was told this was just a faulty batch of switches several years ago but many people are still reporting odd issues which turn out to be the brake light switch.

Very true, or bring it to a main dealer, we can measure drain with amp clamp without disconnecting anything, verify if there is a drain and then we can check for updates of any control units.

At £££££.clamp meter cost a lot less than that , but there's plenty of cheapo meters (costing a lot less)which will indicate if he needs to go to a main dealer at £££££ per hour . All diference is that once confirmed to one circuit -he can look for it or ,if down to an update find out cheapest way to go .Only other problem is disconnecting battery. From my experience main daelers are their own worst enemies - unless you've got an alternative to bargain with , they like to offer the largest rear end solution .

As has been proven though sometimes bringing it into someone who knows the car for an hours diagnosis and repairing correctly can be better than replacing various things and guess work. We have a massive resource of equipment and information that isnt available outside the network.

And at the moment we provide a free winter health check, part of this check is a battery test.

As has been proven though sometimes bringing it into someone who knows the car for an hours diagnosis and repairing correctly can be better than replacing various things and guess work.

And at the moment we provide a free winter health check, part of this check is a battery test.

My advice wasn't based on "GUESS WORK"- but from a lot of years of interactive faulting on electric /electronic circuitry - I'm eligible for IEE inc Eng qualifations, with a HNC/HND in communications and electronics an over fifty years in electronics (and something like that in working on my own cars).My training teaches me to first work out how it works ,then see what's wrong , then it's a simple process of deduction to see what the problem is .I only offer a cheaper solution to ssolving a problem based on my experience . Sometimes going to a dealer,after looking at the alternatives is the answer - but not always .

Steady on, I wasn't saying you would be guessing. But your advising someone to buy their own meter and have a look, that could be guess work. I'll admit I don't know the OP but trust me some owners drive around with bald tyres and no oil in their engine so I wouldn't trust them to have a look at their own battery drain.

I just hate it when dealers all get tarred with the same brush, assuming we are all overpaid idiots who are out to fleece you for all your money. We charge under £70 per hour which for a main dealer isn't to bad at all for this area. For an electrical problem such as this your probably looking at an hours diagnosis and for that you would get a battery report, a charging system check, a diagnostic print out (just in case there is an alarm based fault maybe) a drain test using the amp clamp and multimeter on our calibrated VAS 5051B diagnostic machine and a check on ELSAPro or ODIS if there are any bulletins covering this problem or updates for any of the control units.

Plus when you visit you get a free health check and we check the car for any recalls or service actions and normally your car gets washed and hoovered out.

Has it been cold around your way, and do you keep the car outside? At 0C, a car battery is only capable of delivering around a half of the oomph that it can at 25C.

Steady on, I wasn't saying you would be guessing. But your advising someone to buy their own meter and have a look, that could be guess work. I'll admit I don't know the OP but trust me some owners drive around with bald tyres and no oil in their engine so I wouldn't trust them to have a look at their own battery drain.

I just hate it when dealers all get tarred with the same brush, assuming we are all overpaid idiots who are out to fleece you for all your money. We charge under £70 per hour which for a main dealer isn't to bad at all for this area. For an electrical problem such as this your probably looking at an hours diagnosis and for that you would get a battery report, a charging system check, a diagnostic print out (just in case there is an alarm based fault maybe) a drain test using the amp clamp and multimeter on our calibrated VAS 5051B diagnostic machine and a check on ELSAPro or ODIS if there are any bulletins covering this problem or updates for any of the control units.

Plus when you visit you get a free health check and we check the car for any recalls or service actions and normally your car gets washed and hoovered out.

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