Battery Drain

Tigercat

I have been having a "random " battery drain . I can drive the car with no issues at all and it will fine for days . Then I park up in the garage and the next day I have to jump start it to get to work and again to get home . The car is charging ok . I have tried unplugging various things and when I think ive found the fault , it happens again . Its been suggested its a sticking relay - which makes sense - but ive no idea which one . This has been going on for about 2 months now and im at the end of my tether . My car is an 2002 Astra Coupe 2.2 . I have op com . Can anyone please help as its so unreliable im thinking of getting another car !

evocarlos

did you replace the battery ?

Tigercat

evocarlos said:
did you replace the battery ?

Yes as this was on the car when i bought it . The old battery is the one I use to jump it the morning .An autoelectricion checked the drain and thought it was better than a normal car !

MikeS

dodgy alternator ?

Tigercat

Well it charges at 14.1v and it only happens with the engine and ignition off . I did think of that though and opcom gave no fault code for it . I went into opcom searching for faults and in the power steering section I found C1550 - replace ECU and C1523 battery voltage low . So does that make the ECU faulty or is showing fault code because the of the low voltage ?

Tigercat

I think this should be in the Electrical section ?

Matt

Tigercat said:
I think this should be in the Electrical section ?

Moved to correct section.

@[deleted] had a few issues with battery drain on his Vectra. Can't remember off the top of my head if he ever actually fixed it either.

Tigercat

Hi I was reading that earlier and couldn't find an ending to it .

Tigercat

Thank you for moving it .

Tigercat

Going to take it to an auto electrician . He suggested a few things when I was booking it in , and 1 of them was the radio . So I unplugged it at the back and the following day it started first time . It did again the next day , so I thought it could be the radio , but couldn't see it draining the battery as quickly as it was happening . Anyway car started fine this morning , but was dead after work . So its not the radio after all . Random 🙁

boothy150

Loose earth anywhere?

Tigercat

Don't think its loose earth as its charging at 14V . The earth by the top suspension mount is not loose . I noticed yesterday on the way to work and on the way home the MFD was showing 34.5 MPG solidly . This didn't register till I noticed it again this morning . I disconnected battery at work (so I could get home ) which has reset ECU and MFD is working fine . Does this mean its a random ECU fault ?

Tigercat

Having to jump the car to and from work this week , I decided to disconnect the battery when I got to work yesterday so I didn't have to rely on getting a jump from someone . As the car was disconnected for about 10 hours , the ECU would have reset . The car started ok this morning and again some 10 hours later . Im now thinking its ECU . Is there an easy way to find out or check ?

Daz

Some astras suffer with a poor battery cable, causing high resistance and causing random non starts..... is it deffo reading 14.1 at the battery?... or is that reading taken at the alt..

Tigercat

Hi that's at Battery . When I need to jump it in the morning , I sometimes stop for a paper on the way to work , which is about a mile down the road and the restarts fine . So this leads me to think its charging ok .

Daz

had the same issue with my old coupe..... could drive it from work to home... turn it off outside the house, open the garage, go to restart and it wud be dead... jump leads on it and wud start fine..... i just replaced the battery leads and earth leads and it cured it

Tigercat

I think I read a post on here like that . Think they said something about the leads being warm and the voltage at the battery fluctuating . Mine doesn't alter and the leads are ok temp wise . Its been ok since the ECU reset . Thanks for the input though .

Tigercat

Update , I have found that when the battery has gone flat and needs a jump start . I take it to work and disconnect the battery , reconnecting to get home . This resets the ecu and the car will behave as normal for about 2 weeks . Then I repeat the process over again . As this is the only difference I feel that its a faulty ECU . Can anyone point me in the direction of someone that can check/reprogram it ? thanks

Matt

Anyone with opcom should be able to check it, but I don't know how much they can do into it and actually reprogram it.

@[deleted] is pretty clued up on opcom

Tigercat

I have opcom and it doesn't show any faults with ECU . Im not good with it though so maybe its my lack of skill that opcom isn't really helping me at the moment .