Battery Drain Problem

[xillius200]

Hi,

I have had some helpful replies from this forum so thought i'd try my luck with this issue.

I have an issue where my battery will drain after being sat for 2 days, so far I have changed the following: (changed alternator at time I was doing injector, pulley and aux belt)

Battery
Alternator during belt change and pulley as it was chattering
Checked all cables in the engine bay including cables to the alternator/battery
Checked all lights, doorlocks and removed radio

Any suggestions on where to start next??

I have a multi-meter, to check the drain by fuse is it letting the car sleep with bonnet open, remove positive from battery and connect multimeter in circuit before unplugging fuses?? any idea what normal usage should be when the correct fuse is unplugged??

Any advice would be appreciated!

Car: Seat Leon Cupra 2010 mk2

 

[Legojon]

Out of curiosity, how old is the battery? Are you sure it's a drain and not just that the battery isn't holding it's charge?

 

[andylong]

Hi,

I have had some helpful replies from this forum so thought i'd try my luck with this issue.

I have an issue where my battery will drain after being sat for 2 days, so far I have changed the following: (changed alternator at time I was doing injector, pulley and aux belt)

Battery
Alternator during belt change and pulley as it was chattering
Checked all cables in the engine bay including cables to the alternator/battery
Checked all lights, doorlocks and removed radio

Any suggestions on where to start next??

I have a multi-meter, to check the drain by fuse is it letting the car sleep with bonnet open, remove positive from battery and connect multimeter in circuit before unplugging fuses?? any idea what normal usage should be when the correct fuse is unplugged??

Any advice would be appreciated!

Car: Seat Leon Cupra 2010 mk2

Do you know it's charging?
Off load voltage should be close to 12.9v fully charged. You will need to disconnect the positive terminal (ignition off)to check this if you have a load issue. Your battery is unlikely to be fully charged given your post.

Connect your meter (highest current range you have) between the battery post and battery positive cable, if you are going to drop a test lead, make it the one going to the battery post, otherwise you will get through meters, or meter fuses ! if you have a bonnet light take the bulb out or other means to switch it off.

What's the current? A fully charged battery (lets say 60AH) has almost 3 days discharging at 1 amp. I would expect only the alarm current, maybe the media standby current too, which should be around 100mA max.
Reconnect the positive terminal. Start her up.
When charging, engine running, you should be 13.5 to 14.5v. Typically 13.5 from near idle with low load.

Now you should know what the idle load on the battery is, if it's charging and it's state of charge.

After I would charge the battery with a charger for a day at around 5A. Use a decent charger. Get it filled right up.

If you don't use the vehicle much the battery will never get full and they do like to be full and stay full. The Irony of Lead Acid batteries...

Andy

 

[Bast]

I had a similar, frustrating search with mine. It turned out to be a faulty door control module. It would stop the car ultimately from going to sleep and would drain the battery in 2-3 days, this was with a new battery as well.

Using the multimeter, when trying to get the car to go to sleep, would see the current gradually drop down to below 0.1 of an amp. Then every 30-40 seconds, spike up to say 0.7 amp before gradually falling back down to below 0.1 again.

 

[jettsync]

I had a short in an ABS sensor do this. Ofcourse that was obvious because of braking issues.