Battery yet again.

Johann

Member
Well the car got a new battery, had a service, MOT and drove faultlessly over 1400 miles this Xmas and NY to Scotland. I left it outside my house on the 3rd of Jan and have not used it since. Get to it this morning and the ******* thing is dead again. Totally, totally dead.

Now the lovely Audi garage charged me £120 to say there was no problem. Where do you guys suggest I take the thing? An auto electrician? My local Audi independent? Audi themselves and tell them that I wasted £120? I'm at my wits end with this problem now...

There must be something that is running all of sudden when it is locked draining it... which of the guys above will be best placed to find out what?
 
i had a similary problem are you sure that all the interior lights(back and front) are off or in the standby position when you lock the car, i was told that's what drained my battery last time when i had to pay them 120 pounds for nothing too :mad: and 10 minutes after leaving the garage the problem happened again.What type of battery u got and how old is it. maybe its to weak and because of the cold whether its hard for it to recharge when the car is off.(just my theory)
 
mine did this last year but it hasn't been left for more than a week before it gets started since i put the new battery on, all i can say is if you are going to leave the car for a long time without starting it try turning the ultrasonics (alarm) off the switch is on the B post near the fuel flap release

Cheers Phil
 
Current drainage.

Hi johann,
Clear'ly you have a current/electrical leakage that is draining your battery, problem is;finding 'out' where it is, then correcting same, could be anything from damaged 'wire' or starter motor & so on!. I would suggest finding a specialist car/vehicle electrical garage
with all the necessary equipment to do this, but i can't help much as i live in east midlands and dont know London 'area garages' at all, so the best of luck and keep searching,
Cheers,Alan.
 
I have heard of faulty boot swiches for the boot light. This can leave the light on and drain the battery. Quick check would be to leave the boot cover off and check the light with the boot shut.
 
Thanks guys. It is a brand new battery. See my previous post: http://www.a2oc.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8880

It certainly is not an interior light I have been walking past the car at night a few times and never saw that. Problem now is that it is completely dead again so I can only get into it via the driver's door and can't check boot lights etc. So have to have it taken on a flatbed truck (again) somewhere... Grrr
 
Just an idea. Disconnect the battery and put a DVM across the connector and the battery terminal - I assume that you have any required radio code. With the DVM in current mode, you should be able to see how much current is draining from the battery which might give a clue as to where the short is. Now remove the fuses, one at a time and check whether each removed fuse reduces or eliminates the current drain. Replace the fuse and proceed to the next one. Hopefully this will narrow the search down a bit.

RAB
 
Thanks, but at the moment the current is ZERO! And this test of yours is exactly what I had expected Audi to have done for their £124 in the first place.

I'm going to get it taken on a flatbed to theirs when I get time... But thanks for the tip. I should have done this when I got the car back with the new battery and not just have trusted Audi that all was in fact clear with the car.
 
Oh and by the way: the last time the car was dead for nearly 6 weeks before I got it all sorted. The radio did not skip a beat and all its settings where there as if the car had never died. I was well surprised. Maybe it has its own little memory battery?
 
Oh and by the way: the last time the car was dead for nearly 6 weeks before I got it all sorted. The radio did not skip a beat and all its settings where there as if the car had never died. I was well surprised. Maybe it has its own little memory battery?

The radio wouldn't have a battery as that would defeat the object of security. It is likely that there was enough voltage in the battery for the radio to keep its memory intact, but not enough for the high loads needed to start the car.


SARGE
 
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If you have a charger, charge the battery fully and disconnect it from the car. The worst thing you can do for a lead acid battery is leave it flat.
 
Well I thankfully discovered I made a 10 day mistake in my roadside cover running out and it was in fact still valid! So this past Saturday I called them out and low and behold it started first time after he connected his jump machine. (Whereas last time it refused to start even when directly connected to his van). I also checked that the boot light went out when you lock the car which it did. As did the Bluetooth phone kit. I then drove to the battery place (Cambridge Autos in Bethnal Green, London) that supplied the now 2 month old battery. They were very, very helpful and tested and checked everything including the alternator and said it all checked fine. Then I went to Audi and told them that I paid £124 for nothing. They said they will happily take the car but all they can do is to do the same test again and if nothing shows up dismantle the car bit by bit until they find a fault (at £100 an hour). I said no thanks. Then drove to an auto electrician that the battery people recommended. The very friendly guy there said no modern car can be left more than two weeks... hmmm. I’ve done it plenty of times with my car before, but there you go... He said to bring it in for a free load test (! Where Audi charged me £124?!!?) this Saturday to just make sure there is nothing still running when it is locked. So far I’ve been using it every 3 to 4 days and every time it started first time... But I just don’t want to be stranded if I leave it again for a bit longer than a week. Lovely to have a green car that forces me to drive!!!!!!!! Just plain wrong is it not!
 
Battery yet again

I had the same problem on my Tdi 90. I had left it for 6 weeks and it started fien. I then did a couple of long runs after which the battery wnet flat in 4 days. I recharged it, and it did it again. Then I went to Russell Automotive Centre in Kingsbury (London) and got them to run a static load test on it. Apparently the A2 can take up to 3 hours to shut everything down into sleep mode - so the test takes some time. Anyway it didn't show any drain, and the battery went flat again. The last time I was careful to turn the audio off and to take the CD out - which had been left in before - possibly coincidence, possibly not. I then recharged it, and then the problem went away. All I can think of was something wasn't shutting down properly (and yes, I had checked all the lights etc). The A2 has comlex electronics and I suspect tracking the actual fault may be very difficult - particularly if it is intermittent
 
Ah... brilliant... well that is where I am now too. The joys of living with an older out of warranty car.
 
Re-code?

I had my battery disconnected for almost a week before returning it fully recharged, I never had to re-code my radio??? so much for security! perhaps if I had disconnected the radio things may have been different... can you comment on this one, as it's got me guessing too!
 
The radio 'imprints' itself with the vehicle and its systems, similar technology to software in modern computer systems.............Windows XP etc.
Code is not required if it is reconnected to the same vehiicle. It 'knows' where it is.......

:)
 
Thanks for that info... Cleared that one up for me. My wife has a Merc "A" class, the radio in this requires to be re-programmed every time the battery is disconnected and re-connected.

Cheers,

Ian
 
Took the little beast to the Auto electrician this morning. He disconnected the one terminal and measured the draw from there. It showed between 70 and 100 (can't remember what, amps? LOL). He says other Audis draw 40 to 50 and that mine is excessive. Well doh! I knew that... He took all the details of the car and my receipt details of Audi's test and will contact Audi UK on Monday to find out what the load should be and why if he could ascertain in 5 minutes that something is amiss, why did they say there was nothing wrong with my car... I'll update this saga as soon as I hear from him/Audi.
 
So I took the car back to the auto electrician. He had phoned Audi UK and they said the car should have a load of between 30 and 40 mA. They also stated the test should only be done after the car has sat for 30 minutes to power everything off. We left it for 45min and when he tested it low and behold it tested between 10 and 30 mA. So all systems checked fine... Back to square one. Audi also said that the A2 has a huge draw from the battery every time you start the car. In a normal modern car you need to drive for half an hour to just put back what you took from the battery by starting. In an A2 they maintain you MUST drive at least 45 minutes. Hmmm. In 8 years of having this car it was never a problem before and now it is...

BUT: the boot was wet again! Argh!!! And I had had the boot seals resealed! There was lots of condensation on the windscreen and visible water puddled around the battery and the lower floor was moist. Any ideas? Are there rain gutter outlets somewhere that are clogged? How do I get to these?

The auto electrician also suggested buying a solar panel to trickle feed the battery. Thankfully the A2's cigarette lighter is always on so it will work.

I got this one from Maplin: http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223251 for £15 (normal price £25 as it was on sale).

So I guess I just have to live with all this now and drive the car more regularly. Though I have to find the leak...
 
So not a single person on here knows about any drainage points on the A2 that could be causing my leak?
 
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