Battery drain?

[ainarssems]

From the report

State of health: 40%

My experience is that battery with 60% of health cannot start the car if left without running for 4 days in summer, 2 days in winter. 25% cannot start car if left for more than 24 hrs in summer.

I am using tester like this http://www.aliexpress.com/item/High-...1-b0ec54ce0376 it only goes to 800A rated batteries but even if you battery have higher rating you can just set it to 800A and get a general idea

I am not sure what the threshold is but I have seen tester telling to replace battery at 61% health an I think I have seen 74% saying good battery so it must be somewhere in-between. I have also found that health stays at 100% for a long time 4-5 years but when it starts to drop below 90% it goes down very quickly couple of months to 25%

[Cornershop]

Fair point - ideally, i'd call RAC back out so they can retest the battery now its fully charged to see what it reads now.

Battery re-inserted after a 28hr reconditioning charge - pretty easily this time, just looped the neg cable around the nearby stud, then managed to push the pos mounting loop away enough to slide the battery past - 30 seconds this time round.

Have hooked up the solar maintainer for now, unlikely i'll get a chance to have a look until the following weekend, which should mean it'll be flat again ....

Tempted to buy a fuse tester - would this allow me to pinpoint the culprit? I guess what i don't know is what is considered an excessive draw and what is normal?

And to perform the test using the above tester, what would be the best procedure? Wait inside the car for X minutes for car to 'sleep' Assuming i disable the interior alarm sensors?

Reading Del's uploaded procedure, I can't interpret the table - ie is it telling me what current draw I should expect or what is considered a high current draw?

Is the old school technique of connecting the multimeter in series and pulling fuses unusable with the Audi?

Sorry lots of questions....

[moltuae]

@Adrian: That seems a bit drastic just to get the battery out.

I've never had to remove any trim to change the battery in any of my D2 8s. Granted it's a bit of a faff and jiggle to get the battery in/out but it's never taken more than a few minutes. I suppose some batteries probably make it more difficult than others, depending on how well they fit. That's actually the first time I've seen behind that piece of trim ... interesting. How easy is it to remove the trim?

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by moltuae

@Adrian: That seems a bit drastic just to get the battery out.

I've never had to remove any trim to change the battery in any of my D2 8s. Granted it's a bit of a faff and jiggle to get the battery in/out but it's never taken more than a few minutes.

I think, to be fair, Adrian had the trim out for other reasons.

And my battery-changing experience is the same as yours.

[moltuae]

Originally Posted by HPsauce

I think, to be fair, Adrian had the trim out for other reasons.

And my battery-changing experience is the same as yours.

Ah! I thought perhaps there was a quick way to remove it that made it worthwhile.

I have thought about removing that piece of trim once or twice for other reasons, as it happens, but thinking about doing it is as far as got so far.

[HPsauce]

I've had the other side trim out many times for various reasons, mostly to do with the alarm.

Never actually had it out fully though, just at a "jaunty angle" as illustrated by Adrian, and I can manage that without removing much at all, just a couple of clips, a velcro'ed plastic panel, and a bit of wiggling.

I think I had the battery side out (similarly) just once as well, to finish off fitting a full cover there (which needed some slots cutting for the mounting lugs) rather than the standard low clip-on divider.

[Adrian E]

It's pretty easy to get it out as HP says. That pic was from when I was changing the tail light, a couple of weeks before the battery died!

I looked at the opening and the size of the battery and just didn't fancy trying to drag it out without an assistant for cable management. Second time going in there took about 5 mins to have the trim out to that level

Eta - I didn't try and remove the battery without trim removal but based on experience with our c5 a6 I expected it to be bloody hard work attempting to get it through a hole just slightly smaller than needed! The a6 was a pig. The s5 is no better as its buried under everything else in the boot including the B&O subwoofer!

[Cornershop]

So, just ran a VCDS scan, which spat out the following. A quick google suggests the alarm horn can be a cause of battery drains ?

Could the 2 issues be related? ie should i inspect/swap the interior sensor initially?

Address 35: Centr. Locks Labels: 8D0-862-257.lbl
Part No: 8L0 862 257 P
Component: CV-Pump, Alarm, RC D17
Coding: 15179
Shop #: WSC 02313
VCID: 428CD0534E4E043138B-4F08

4 Faults Found:
01370 - Alarm triggered by Interior Monitoring
35-00 - -
00958 - Key 4
09-00 - Adaptation Limit Surpassed
01134 - Alarm Horn (H12)
76-10 - Terminal 30 missing - Intermittent
01134 - Alarm Horn (H12)
49-10 - No Communications - Intermittent

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Address 45: Inter. Monitor Labels: 4B0-951-178.lbl
Part No: 4D0 951 177 B
Component: Innenraumueberw. D06
Coding: 00001
Shop #: WSC 00000
VCID: 285862FBC832CE6106F-5142

1 Fault Found:
01462 - Anti-theft alarm ultra sonic Sensor (G209)
53-10 - Supply Voltage Too Low - Intermittent

[Delboy]

Some of them fails may be related to a low battery.

Clear them out and see what comes back

[Cornershop]

Thanks Del - I've cleared them but wonder if the alarm horn related codes suggest a leaky alarm battery type issue.

Will give it a few days to see if it returns