Member Since: 04 Aug 2011
Location: Anglesey
Posts: 2
Battery drain
Any experts on how much is acceptable current drain???
I have a D3 which stands a lot (5 days between starts) and often ends with me having to re-charge or jump start. Ive replaced two battery's in 18 months and today I've got home tried to start it and its happened again, flat as a pancake, this time its an optima thats only 6 months old and cost £££. The battery's are so drained they wont charge up again
I borrowed a meter to try and measure the current drain - its about 2.4amps when ignition goes off, then drops to 0.8amps when interior lights goes out. I removed the fuses and relays in the engine bay fuse box, one at a time, to see if it drops further but it didnt.....any ideas?
21st Mar 2012 12:27 am
wiggs
Member Since: 03 Sep 2006
Location: Manchester
Posts: 14372
Get yourself a decent ctek charger .. You can condition them and bring most batteries back to life
0.8 amps is not excessive ... What about a small solar panel stuck in the window somewere to keep the battery topped up ?G4 Gone ...but not forgotten
21st Mar 2012 12:56 am
grahamk
Member Since: 28 Feb 2010
Location: Dumgoyne
Posts: 1473
mine was the same....I get about 18 months out a battery as well. Just bought a euro carp parts special now, guaranteed for 3 years, they replaced it for me as it was dud. Now when I am going offshore for 2 weeks I disconnect the positive. takes 20 secs.
If you do this....Make sure you leave the car open, press the lock button from inside the car with the passenger door still open. This will make sure all other doors are locked, then lock the passenger door with the emergency key...sounds a pain but much less of a pain than coming back to a flat battery.
24th Mar 2012 7:44 am
Robbie
Member Since: 05 Feb 2006
Location: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Posts: 17932
Hmmm 0.8 Amps sounds a little high but not sure what the published acceptable range is for the D3. If I get chance I will do a parasitic check on my own for comparison.
I cannot recommend Cteks enough and plugging them in via the tow electrics (if you have them fitted) is really easy. It is something I do when away or in the winter with short journeys and it's always worth trying the recondition function on the larger Cteks with troubled batteries.
Don't like the idea of removing the positive lead though. This is not the best idea given the pyrotechnic nature of the clamp - always remove the negative first.Land Rover - Turning Drivers into Mechanics Since 1948
I've always removed the negitive terminal first - due mainly through experience with my first car - a Beetle, when the battery was under the rear seat - and it was easy to touch the frame when undoing the terminals - and you could get sparks if the +ve removed first!
So I've always done it that way, but wasn't aware there was another good reason for doing so?Mark.
2006, D3 SE Auto - gone but not forgotten.
2014 BMW 530d M Sport Tourer.
1977 Triumph Spitfire 1500
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24th Mar 2012 9:36 am
Robbie
Member Since: 05 Feb 2006
Location: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Posts: 17932
DHG,
I've been thinking about your post some more and as well as not saying 'welcome to the forum' with your first post I should have really thought some more as 99% of owners wouldn't even know how to do a parasitic draw test; so I guess you have covered all the basic checks on battery and alternator.
So am am wondering if you have a more obscure issue. A drain through the alternator is an example which can vary with temperature due to a breakdown in the diode pack leaking to earth. Another D3 specific issue is a fault with the EAS. The air suspension does wake up after a while to check and adjust the level of the car. It may be worth leaving your meter on for a few hours to see if the draw during self-leveling is excessive, which may indicate a wiring, connector or sensor issue. Other random faults can 'wake' the car too causing excessive current draw.
Disabling the meter time-out function and setting min/max mode is useful here (if the meter has such modes or if you can borrow one that does) as you can set it and forget it for a while.
Hope this helps.Land Rover - Turning Drivers into Mechanics Since 1948
Theoretically a drain of 0.8A will kill a 100aH battery in only 110 hours or so, which is less than a week, so does sound a little high. But Wiggs knows his onions, so not going to contradict particularly!Mark.
2006, D3 SE Auto - gone but not forgotten.
2014 BMW 530d M Sport Tourer.
1977 Triumph Spitfire 1500
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Disco Picture Website Here
24th Mar 2012 2:52 pm
DaveS
Member Since: 15 Aug 2009
Location: Weybridge
Posts: 241
I cannot believe that 0.8A drain is normal. I recently left my D3 parked for two months and it started first time afterwards. The only precaution that I took was to lower the suspension to access height as I had been advised that this stopped the car fro "waking up" periodically to adjust the height.
24th Mar 2012 7:51 pm
Disco_Mikey
Member Since: 29 May 2007
Location: Dundee, Scotland
Posts: 20778
I thought it should be around 0.02A (20mA) of a drain. IMHO, 0.8A is on the high sideMy D3 Build Thread
Member Since: 05 Feb 2006
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Until the OP comes back we will not know at what point he made his measurements. It takes a few minutes for the car to go to sleep so perhaps the measurement was before the car entered its quiescent state.
Or it has a fault, which given the flat batteries so far seems a strong possibility. Wonder when he will check his thread?Land Rover - Turning Drivers into Mechanics Since 1948
Member Since: 04 Aug 2011
Location: Anglesey
Posts: 2
Many thanks for the feedback – sorry its taken ages to reply. I cant say thank you enough for recommending the CTEC charger – I presumed a charger was a charger and had been using an old Halfords unit! I had decided to throw the two flat battery’s away as they were down to under 10 volts and unchargable – or so I thought…..the CTEC charger has a recondition function and has amazingly restored them “back to life†(that’s 300 quids worth of battery’s now holding charge again!). Haven’t solved the 0.8a drain yet but at least I can manage the symptoms now!
With regard to the testing – I measured from ignition off for about 10 – 15 minutes
whilst removing the fuses…should I do it again for longer????... Cheers dhg
I had a period of poor/non starting and suspected the battery. Dealer checked - said it was fine. LRA checked - said it was fine.
Got the dealer to lend me a case damaged battery that as going back under warranty - spot on performance for 3 weeks now. The original battery that came out I reconditioned with the cTek charger and it also said it was fine.
So left it sitting on the bench with nothing connected and have watched the charge as measured by terminal voltage drop day by day. Now at only just over 12 volts. So it is self discharging through its internal resistance but without some internal examination I can't tell if it is all cells losing slightly or just one duff cell.
I suspect the latter, which would give the same problems that others report. Once it goes below 12v I'll put on the cTek and see if it will come back up again.A vaccine does not stop you catching a virus, or passing it on, or getting ill from it, really ill. It does reduce the likelyhood of you dying when really, really ill. Stay Alive - KEEP AWAY FROM PEOPLE.
25th Mar 2012 12:43 am
Valhalla
Member Since: 23 Oct 2011
Location: Isle of Skye
Posts: 124
In theory, any measurement after 3minutes should be a good one, as the LR Electrical team are happy to publish the 3minute wait-before-disconnection rule next to the battery. Some things stay alive all the time, but the bulk of things that are affected by a battery disconnection will have shut-down in that time, and that will rule-out solenoid adaptions and cleaning-cycles, etc. etc.
800mA is way too high for a parasitic loss. If you are dead sure that nothing is plugged into the electrical outlet sockets, and the interior lights are going out as normal (i.e. they are coming on as normal inbetween door openings) then it sounds like you have got a central locking or key-fob transmitter/receiver type of problem. Even if the whole central-locking function was fully active, 800mA seems a bit high. A bad parasitic loss is usually anything over 50mA.
You are on the right track with the fuse disconnecting, but if you have someone with the right diagnostic gear to hand, you could try and see if the switch inputs to the body control module are being set properly. I had a dodgy Volvo V70 come to me a few months ago, and when I investigated the battery discharge issue that it seemed to have (not the main thing that the customer was complaining of), I found that the door microswitches were not setting properly. Because the interior lights did not go out as they should when the doors were closed, someone had removed the bulbs - but because the central locking function was still "alive", the battery just got drained. This probably not your exact problem, but something like this is bound to crop-up.
You should start at the main positive feed cable from the battery, and work back from there. If you eliminate the starter motor feed, and the alternator charge line, then that's a good start. Go for the really big fusible links and pull each of those in-turn, then keep tracking down the circuits that are most affected.
Good luck!!
25th Mar 2012 12:50 am
PSC
Member Since: 01 May 2006
Location: Johannesburg
Posts: 255
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