[s-cars] Current draw/dead battery

[Ben Swann]

Jim,

My most recent encounter with this sort of current draw had to do with a stuck relay.
The relay to my ECU was actually sticking on.  This was on a different car, but it was a
typical VAG relay.   I replaced the relay and resolved that issue.    Of course when you
pull the relay to check, there is no current draw.  Almost all my cars would have a
problem with the aftermarket stereos that will drain the battery – I pop the faceplate
to alleviate this.

Still the battery was getting marginal – I have been finding a lot of the inexpensive
batteries I get at SAMS just don’t hang in there like the old ones.  I have found
several batteries that would even have an internal drain after 2 years.

Ben

[Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:28:15 -0500
From: "Jim Furdyn" <audijim at comcast.net>
Subject: [s-cars] Current draw/dead battery
To: <s-car-list at audifans.com>
Message-ID: <008201c841de$6dce9760$496bc620$@net>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

I'm getting a little frustrated with a ghost current draw that's leaving me
with a dead battery every freaking morning. This morning, I jumped it (as
usual) with my jump box that nearly has a permanent duty station behind the
front passenger seat. I'm usually good all day until I start to car to go
home. Today was different. I had a dead battery again this afternoon. Jumped
again and drive the 65 miles home. That's it, time to trouble shoot this
bitch. I pull the + lead off the batt and set the DMM to amp. It reads 24mA.
Hardly anything at all. I start pulling fuses just to see if I can get it to
change. Nothing. I pull all the relays and C/B's under the hood, nothing
again. I pull the pass carpet up and pull the fuse and C/B's at the ECU,
nothing yet again. I disconnect power from the security/vacuum pump (door
locks) and still nothing. I removed the rear seat and put it inside the
weapons van for now. I'm sick of lifting that thing off to jump the bitch
everyday anyway. So I have eliminated all the fuses and most of the C/B's
and relay's. I have yet to pull the lead off the starter or the alt to see
if I get a change in current draw. The 24mA crept up to 30mA by the time I
"said F-it, it's cold and I'm going inside" I left the DMM on the + batt
terminal and the + lead over night. I'll check it out before I go to bed
this evening to see if the mA jumped to anything bigger than 30.

 
Does anyone have any known culprits they could throw my way to check out? I
do not have the luxury of spending large amounts of time on this. 

Jim Furdyn]