307sw 2004 battery draining?

Hi,

My Car is a 307sw 110HDi 2004 pile of crap peugeot.

6 weeks ago the cooling fan wouldn't stop running until the battery was
dead. 5 Weeks ago the boot struts stopped holding the boot up. 4 weeks ago
the anti pollution fault error kept coming on. 3 weeks ago the Cam belt
decided to go south taking £1500 worth of parts and labour with it! I got
the car back this week and......
Today I have driven the car a few miles and then stopped. Everything seemed
OK. Locked the car and there were no lights left on, Radio etc. A couple of
hours later I have come back to the car and the battery is completely dead.
I mean completely! The AA came out and jump started the car. There were no
warning lights and I drove it around for about 40 minutes to give it a
charge. I then went out to the car after about another 2 hours to find that
it is completely drained again (to the point where there are no lights on
the dash and it will not start pushing down the hill. I have taken the
battery out but it is nearly too hot on the sides to handle even though the
car has been stood for a few hours (The engine is still fairly hot though
and it is a hot day). I am now charging the battery up in the house but my
question is ... What could be causing it to drain down to nothing when the
car is switched off and I am completely sure that nothing is running
including the cooling fan? The AA man told me that the engine was charging
the battery OK. Is there anything I can check with a volt metre when the car
is switched off to see if it is draining the battery? And how?
Cheers
Lenny

P.S. I notice it also needs 4 new tyres now too but I can't really blame
Peugeot for that.

 

click on this link and it should tell you all you need to find out what is
using your battery power

http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Parasitic-Battery-Drain

GGJ

 

thanks GGJ

I have followed those instructions but the Amp power shows 0.04 on my
multimeter, well within the amps recommended when switched off.

When the battery is connected to both the + and - and a volt meter it
connected you can see the volts dropping 12.5, 12.4, 12.3 etc at about a
point every few seconds. As soon as I disconnect the + it jumps up a bit and
is steady.

Another problem that I am also having but is probably not related is that
the car will only rev to 2800 rpm. That is in all gears so it seems a bit
sluggish the rest of the time too but that might just be my imagination. The
Cam belt has just been renewed too but I didn't really notice any problem
for the first week or so.

 

Try a new battery, i think the problem is there, if u took both leads
of and put the tester on the batt and it dropped thats telling you that
it needs replaceing.(i think iam right on this one??)

 

Hi Chris,

I'm coming a bit too late on this one.
Possibly the battery has been drained too deeply on the faulty relay event
(fans staying on), damaging the elements, which can't stand and keep the
electric charge.
I would replace the battery too. Moreover if it's the original one, 4 years
ain't that bad.
(the battery on my 206 is 6 years old, factory fit... I may be a bit lucky)

Regards,

 

Slight mis-understanding here. When both battery terminal leads are taken
off the battery it holds its charge with no problems. It is only when both
connections are attached that it drops the charge constantly. To check what
is causing this I have done an Amp test.

If I leave the + on and take the minus terminal off to add a Amp Meter to
the circuit (one wire from the amp meter to the Earth cable and one wire to
the minus terminal this should tell me what Amps are being used up and that
would be the reason why the battery is draining but the reading on the Amp
Meter is 0.04 which is normal.

 

Then I am even luckier. My 406 is 10 years old (from first registration)
in January and is still on the original battery. I have expected it to die
for the last four winters but it's kept on going.

 

Just maybe worth confirming that you actually have 40 milliamps? These
autoranging multimeters can be difficult to read on occasion.

I note that my 306 Diesel has a draw of about 40 milliamps when everything
is off. I've no idea where it goes - maybe the central locking remote
receiver? Any other ideas?

Julian.

 

I may be wrong, I often am, but I thought that the Amp Meter should go
between the Poss terminal on the battery and the Poss lead to check the
power consumption at any given time, always providing that the Amp Meter
will read up to about 50 amps, with the engine switched off of course.

Bryan

 

yes Bryan, you are wrong about this one.

http://www.wikihow.com/Find-a-Parasitic-Battery-Drain

 

As I said Lenny, it's not often I'm right, seems I'm wrong again. ;-)

Bryan

 

Should not matter from an electrical perspective, the same current must flow
in one lead and out the other.

 

Hi,

Yeah. I suppose the "negative lead" mention is due to the risk of big short
if you ever touch the + lead with the body / engine.

Regards,

 

Hi,

I never tried such a measurement yet.
Current goes to the radio memory, clock... and the central locking
controller. And perhaps some other stuff I forgot to mention.

Regards,

 

Hi,

And it holds for what time ?
I'm still in doubt here, come back and tell us if you fixed your car.

Regards,

 

still not sorted. The charge holder for ever (well for the 24 hours that I
have left it anyway) when the plus terminal is disconnected but only the one
hour at the most when it is connected. I have started to disconnect the plus
everytime I stop. Oh, and the Anti Pollution error has arrived again with a
drastic loss of power and the engine management light staying on. I have a
feeling that this car is never going to be fixed!

 

I think you need a new battery. A discharge of about 40 milliamps for 24
hours should not cause a good battery any problems whatsoever.

Julian.

 

I would take it to a car electrician, you can keep on buying bits in the
hope that you can fix it and never come up with the answer.

Bryan

 

It sounds its your battery so try and get new batt then go from there.

 

Fair enough, if you break the -ve connection to do the test there is nothing
to short against.