Excuse me here, I'm using the Mrs account in search of a little help from the Mini experts!
Her 05 JCW has been having issues for the last couple of months where by the battery is dying in just a few days. She's asked me to sort it out for her... I've been putting it on trickle charge over night every few days as I havn't had a chance to look at it but last week I stuck a new Bosch battery on it thinking this was the problem after the recent cold spell. Well guess what... 4 days later and it's flat again! So there is definitely a drain on it somewhere.
I've put a meter across the battery with and wothout the engine running and it's definitely charging so the alternator is fine.
I've checked the current draw on the battery with the car locked and everything off. It's 2.45 amps for the first 30 seconds or so, until the interior lights die out etc. After 30 secs it drops to ~0.57Amps.
From the searching I've done so far, I have found this thread which suggests current draw should be around 16mA. Well this is considerably higher!
I've gone through the fuseboxes both in passenger footwell and engine compartment. Pulled every fuse whilst monitering current draw. There were 2 fuses I found that made a difference when removed:
One was F21 in the passenger footwell box. A 10amp fuse for the Rev counter clock in the centre of the dash. The current draw dropped from 0.55 to 0.35. A drop of 200mA.
The second was F27, again in the passenger footwell box. This is the 15amp for the stereo I believe. It dropped to 0.42 with this one pulled. With both the above removed it was down to 0.18.... 180mA still suggests a problem to me :frown:
The car does have the HK sound upgrade with Amp in the boot and a 6 disc changer. I have a feeling one of these are to blame but I havn't tried unplugging these yet. That's tomorrow nights job.
My worry is why are the dash clocks drawing 200mA ??
Anyone give me any pointers on where to go from here/what to test next?
Thanks
Her 05 JCW has been having issues for the last couple of months where by the battery is dying in just a few days. She's asked me to sort it out for her... I've been putting it on trickle charge over night every few days as I havn't had a chance to look at it but last week I stuck a new Bosch battery on it thinking this was the problem after the recent cold spell. Well guess what... 4 days later and it's flat again! So there is definitely a drain on it somewhere.
I've put a meter across the battery with and wothout the engine running and it's definitely charging so the alternator is fine.
I've checked the current draw on the battery with the car locked and everything off. It's 2.45 amps for the first 30 seconds or so, until the interior lights die out etc. After 30 secs it drops to ~0.57Amps.
From the searching I've done so far, I have found this thread which suggests current draw should be around 16mA. Well this is considerably higher!
I've gone through the fuseboxes both in passenger footwell and engine compartment. Pulled every fuse whilst monitering current draw. There were 2 fuses I found that made a difference when removed:
One was F21 in the passenger footwell box. A 10amp fuse for the Rev counter clock in the centre of the dash. The current draw dropped from 0.55 to 0.35. A drop of 200mA.
The second was F27, again in the passenger footwell box. This is the 15amp for the stereo I believe. It dropped to 0.42 with this one pulled. With both the above removed it was down to 0.18.... 180mA still suggests a problem to me :frown:
The car does have the HK sound upgrade with Amp in the boot and a 6 disc changer. I have a feeling one of these are to blame but I havn't tried unplugging these yet. That's tomorrow nights job.
My worry is why are the dash clocks drawing 200mA ??
Anyone give me any pointers on where to go from here/what to test next?
Thanks