Pug 407 2.0HDi flat battery

Partial internal short - insulation failing between windings. Reduces the efficiency and increases the current. Which can also kill the battery.

I would suggest a radio should take very much less than 10mA to retain its memories - it should be just a few uA. My car, which has all of the toys you can think of fitted, draws around 20mA, which occaisionally pulses up to 25mA. That 20mA maintains radio/ satnav/ TV receiver memories + the usual thing like alarm, intruder detection, remote locking receiver and a mass of ECU's.

Dave Plowman (News) explained on 21/08/2016 :

Mine has a similar useful link built in. The main battery feed goes to a big bus bar in the under bonnet fuse panel. Releasing a large torque bolts on the bus bar, opens the main positive feed.

Might have been - always worth checking the neg. battery leads and that the block is connected to the metal car body. Had an olde ford many years ago where that had come undone and the starter currents were returning via the throttle and choke cables;!..

That happened on my A35 van, I was about ten at the time. You live and learn, I had to hand crank it for a while till the earth cable was fixed back by someone (can't remember who actually did fix it, might have been me, but we did also have a part time mechanic way back then)

En el artículo , tony sayer escribió:

Had that on a olde-style Mini once. the return came through the throttle cable which was plastic-sheathed. Seeing that melt as the coiled-wire outer tube glowed cherry red during starting was ... entertaining.

Eventually the lead stops built into the cable melted and it seized solid.

My mum had borrowed it and became alarmed at the smoke coming from the plastic sheathing. Happy days :-)