ruffles

What are the most common reasons for a battery draining in just over a week, in a Big turbo Esco? If I leave it much longer it's almost flat. Enough charge to turn over, but not enough to start. It's the second battery in 3 years, so shouldn't be stuffed. Even tried a solar charger so I don't have to have a mains one hooked up all the time.

ossie cossie

Mine used to do that when i left it at the airport for 9 days at a time. It was the aftermarket mongoose alarm so then i bought a $9 screw type negative battery terminal with a big green knob on it and now when i go away i just unscrew that. Just remember not to leave your car keys in side when you go to connect it back up cos it locks the doors when its reconnected.

R5FORD

iTrader: (1)

obviously something draining the current..usualy the alarm.

tabetha

Some alarms use a lot of power when armed, most likely this but could be dodgy diodes in alt if not.
tabetha

Dave Henshall

are you leaving it in a garage unlocked?

the central locking motors draw a few hunded milliamps when in the unlocked position.

also another favourite is the cooling fans relay - the big green one next to the battery, if this has gone goosed, it can leave the fans running on low speed and flatten it.

ruffles

As the alarm has never worked, I doubt it would be that. Do leave it unlocked in the Garage though. Given that my fans, er the cars not mine as I'm not famous, are quite noisy even on low speed, I'd hear if they were on all the time.
Will try locking it and see if it makes a difference. Is there a way to check with just a basic analogue multimeter, any other sources that could be causing it to drain. don't really want to keep disconnecting the battery to keep it charged as then I have to go through the re-learning process for the ECU every time before I drive it. Occasionally twice when it wont rev cleanly whilst driving.
Thanks all for the suggestions.
PS: What did you think of the Great Ocean Road when you were in OZ Dave?

THE RADMAN

iTrader: (2)

check the tracker if you have one, as they also have thier own battery pack which draws current

ossie cossie

Re learning process what is that? I just reconnect the battery and away we go. Am i missing something?

ECOS95

I'm sure someone suggested this before on another thread to disconnecting the earth cable from the battery & putting an Ammeter in line with the battery terminal & Battery earth cable. Make sure the ammeter is set to measure amps & see what it registers. Then trying pulling out the various fuses until you find the one that looks like its drawing the current. It might help track down the problem. Never tried this but it might be worth a go.

Just make sure you don't turn the engine over.

My battery was going flat over a 1 week peroid & it was down to the boot light.

ECOS95

I think the ECU looses some of its settings, nothing major, think it relates to fuelling, but I've heard this mentioned before & not just with Cossies.

MarkN

That's what I did to get to the bottom of my voltage drain. It turned out to be a faulty central locking control box drawing 0.75 amps. Without that it drew less than 0.1 amps. I swapped it for another one and its been fine since...