p reg corsa - power drained again

[steiff1]

Hi guys

so I bought my son a car. old corsa for his first one. been kept in mint condition. however, there is something that is draining the power if its not used for any length of days. battery goes totally dead, there is no central locking power, no tick over on the ignition either.

I changed the battery a month ago, and have just got back for a fortnight holiday and its dead again.

any ideas???

[supraman54]

With everything turned off try removing suspect fuses and seeing if you get a reading on an ammeter scale of a multimeter
Maplins have a dedicated meter thet just plugs in where you remove the fuse.
Any reading at all indicates which circuit the problem is on..most likely would be a boot light but you will narrow it down this way.
Incidentally my problem ended up as a shagged battery and has been fine since I renewed it

supe

[Over Carl]

You can also use any multimeter with an Amps DC setting to check the drain on each circuit after pulling the fuses.

[steiff1]

thanks guys. borrowed a multi meter from the sparkies at work, so will get on it this week.

[plug1]

You should star out by finding how many amp the car is pulling from the battery when it's all off and keys out
then pull the fuses one by one .

also I would disconnect the starter and alternator and see if one of them is the culprit .

[steiff1]

I started to look last night. but after 12 hr days I'm working at the minute, I thought fook that, and rang the garage this morning to pick it up and they can look.
If I wasnt preparing for a shutdown I would have continued on myself and muddled through, as I'm no mechanic, but do enjoy learning new things and tinkering about. , but this time I cannae be arsed.

thanks for all the advice though guys. much appreciated.

[BIG-TED]

If you can borrow an "amp clamp" this is ideal for testing parasitic drains, this goes around the battery lead with out disturbing and circuits, once its on switch off the ignition and wait at least 5 minutes for each module to shut down before taking a reading, the trick is then pulling a fuse one at a time to see when it drops down to about 20 miliamps depending on vehicle. Once you open the door the interior light comes on and on some cars even the fuel pump primes and wakes up the systems on the can bus. so you kind of have to trick the car to think that the doors are shut by shutting the latches on the door with a screwdriver and where applicable make sure the plunger switch is pushed in on the door frame on the vehicle.

drains are normally boot lights, radios (after market chepo Aldi ones etc) and alternators the diodes pack up internally, of course could just be a dying battery is there a charge by date on it ? over 4 years bin it.

Ted

Edit:- you can check for a drain with a bulb, disconnect the negative lead off the battery and put the bulb in circuit between the terminal and the lead, open the door and watch it glow brighter, the brighter it glows the more the drain. pull fuses until the light goes out.