Escort courtesy light drains battery

Boot switch.

John

Is this with the light staying on at all times?

You imply it's going off, but draining the battery. If it were drawing some current through a fault, but not enough to light it, I'd not expect the battery to drain in such a short time.

To clarify, a 6 watt lamp takes 0.5 amps. So in 24 hours, 12 amp/hours. Even a small car battery will have a capacity of about 40 amp/hours, so should still be fine after that time. And if it's not lighting, it will be taking much less current.

If you remove the bulb, and with the system in the fault condition - ie light switch to normal and the doors closed, if you insert an ammeter (DVM) across the bulb terminals you'll get a reading of any current flowing. Which on a basic system should be zero.

But I've a feeling it's something else.

Nope, it goes off when the doors close.

That's what I would have thought too.

I'll try that.

It always is ;-)

Cheers,

Iain

Could be... Not sure if I've ever opened the boot to see if the courtesy light comes on.

I've had problems with the contacts before and tried cleaning them many times but they're still manky...

Cheers,

Ia>

Many of these switches have plated contacts, and if you're savage with the cleaning - or the plating's gone, they're knackered.

I never use abrasives on this sort of thing - a chemical contact cleaner like Electrolube works fine. For cleaning non plated stuff a fibreglass pencil.

Hi,

Tested the light last night with a multimeter. With the switch in the auto position and the doors closed, there's 0V @ 0A across/to the bulb terminals...

Cheers,

Iain

Yup. ;-)

IMHO, unless you've got added high power sound systems, etc, the most likely cause of a battery discharging quickly when not in use is a faulty alternator. A diode goes short circuit and draws about 5 amps when the engine's not running, but doesn't stop the alternator working.

You need something like a 10 amp DVM to check the current being drawn out of the battery with everything switched off. There will be some current for radio memories, clocks etc, but no more than say 0.05 amps.

Hi,

Yeah, I'm gonna try that next...didn't have time yesterday. Don't really understand though how if there's no juice at the courtesy bulb it can drain...unless it's an intermittant fault somewhere.

Battery's new(ish), no other issues electrically (except the rear fogs occasionally turning themselves on and as the 'on' warning light's in such a stupid place I can hardly see it when I'm driving).

The light/battery drain problem was known to the previous owner as well (my parents). Ho hum...

Cheers,

Iain

Didn't you say earlier, that the battery only drains with the light switch in the "auto" position? If that's the case, then it can only be something related to that switch. My money would be on the delay module. Try pulling out the interior light fuse and putting your ammeter across it's terminals in the fuse box. Then switch to the various positions and see how much current the circuit pulls.

Cheers,

Colin.

You'll probably find (if it's a Mk6/7) that you have inadvertantly hit the fog light switch while doing something with the keys or in that direction. A few times I've looked down to find either the front, rear or both fogs activated by accident!

G.

The Xantia lighting switch stalk is made in such a way that if you brush the end with your hand after say indicating or operating the dip switch, you can turn the lights off unwittingly. This can be disconcerting.

Hmmm....it's stopped working altogether now (0v at the bulb) for both manual and automatic modes. I think I've got bigger fusebox problems though (see the new thread that I'm about to start)....

Cheers,

Iain