1998 1.9/M44 battery drain

[98z3]

Having a problem with my 98 1.9L draining the battery. the old one was about 5YO and so I thought it just wasn't holding a charge and replaced it. New one is dead in a few days. Any Ideas?

 

[MRH1966]

Could be boot light staying on. Set your camera phone to record and close the lid. Open up and check video to see if it has gone off.

 

[the Nefyn cat]

And if it's not that, then it's multi-meter time. Amps scale, connected between earth terminal and earth lead, and see how much drain there is, then pull fuses till you find one that makes a big difference. Last time I had that sort of trouble it turned out to be the stereo, even though it was switched off.

 

[Steve Medlock]

I've just been investigating mine after having returned my Bosch battery to the supplier within the 2 year guarantee period. To start with, every time that I connected my multimeter, the radio would come on and blow the fuse in the meter! Eventually I managed to do it by maintaining the earth connection to the battery by contact, turning off the radio and then breaking the earth contact so that only the circuit through the meter remained. I'm getting between 40 and 50 mA though which I think is fairly normal.

Even so, my battery would be discharged within a week without use. I wouldn't be able to leave it at airport parking while I'm away for instance like I do with the Nissan. In theory, it should last about 8 weeks at that drain rate!