Battery draining problem

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BeaSotted

New member
Joined
Sep 11, 2018
Messages
1
Hello everybody,

My Puma is left standing at the airport when we go away on holiday, dead-locked but with no other electrical stuff plugged in. Yet again in the very early hours today, the battery was completely flat when we got back after just two weeks! :roll: This time, as my husband had put another battery in the boot in case of problems, we were able to jump-start it straight away.

The battery is a Lucas Premium one, and was new in March last year (it has a guarantee until March 2020), so I shall be back to the dealer later today to get a replacement.

Is the dead-lock draining it please? If not, does anybody have any idea what's going wrong? Oh, and by the way, there is always a journey of about 90 minutes before the car is left, so it's had plenty of time to charge...

Many thanks,
Jane
 
Hi Bea, welcome to the site!

Maybe open the rear seat up and see if the boot light stays on after you close the hatch?

Days gone by the boot light has been a cause of battery drain, so I'd start there before looking at anything more complicated.

Else it could be many things, some of the circuitry elsewhere shorting to ground, I've had this happen on other vehicles when the alternator has failed but with that you'd also see other symptoms with this I'd expect.
 
If you have a decent Digital Voltmeter (DVM) you can check for battery drain without disconnecting anything by measuring the voltage across the battery earth lead. Sounds corny, but you should only show a few mV, if any, and you can calibrate it by opening the boot - then with that single 5W bulb powered, the voltage will increase by a proportional amount. If without the boot open, you do get a reading, then you can investigate by removing any fuses of things that remain powered, like the radio etc.
 
As above, but if you leave the door open while doing this make sure you turn off the interior light so you don't get any false readings!
 

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