Primera flat battery

Blue Frog ("Blue Frog" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

For each fuse... Pull the fuse out, put a multimeter on a current setting across the fuse terminals. Repeat with next. See which one's pulling more power than "next-to-nothing"... Then troubleshoot within that.

Establish an ampmeter in the battery line and ascertain how much current is being used, then pull out fuses till the drain stops. If no amount of fuse pulling will stop the drain (or bring it to a very low level like 0.03 amp, then disconnect any directly battery connected items, such as firstly the alternator. Frequently I have found that badly fitted aftermarket radios are the cause of extra battery drain, in fact I always scrutinise anything non genuine first.

Mrcheerful

Followed by the interior lights.

Do you mean those that can be switched on without the ignition key being turned to the first position?

Do you mean those that can be switched on without the ignition key being turned to the first position?

Usually, yes. what people tend to do is just twist all the live in wires together, which makes it work, BUT other stuff gets powered by the wire twisting, plus the radio is always live and pulling power itself. radios usually have a permanent live feed and an ignition switched feed, if you get it wrong the radio may work, but forget its tuning, or may work even with the ign. off. sometimes there is a dash light connection too (again pulling power or even sending power out to the lights when you get it really wrong.

Mrcheerful

Feeding both from a permanently live circuit shouldn't result in a very much higher quiescent draw - assuming the radio is switched off when you park up.

My current Blaupunkt actually allows the radio to be used without the ignition key - the only difference being it times out and switches itself off after a set period. I suppose for when you leave a passenger in the car.

I wired a Pioneer head unit in my MK2 Golf with both to permanent live (because in those days VW didn't wire a switched one) and it was fine.

I'll bet big installs with lots of amps permanently powered (rather than wired to the switched o/p from the head unit) would be a problem though.

Better ones should sense an audio input and if not there go to standby. But there's an awful lot of junk out there.

Thanks for comments I've bought a current tester from Maplins which plugs into each fuse holder, will try that tomorrow I'm not 100% certain about this since I drove during the day about 5 miles parked up and the battery wouldn't turn over the engine. A couple of times the battery was so flat I lost the clock etc.

Luckily I have one of those Halfords booster battery with jump leads!

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=A0 London SW

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Boot light staying on, it happened on my 92 Primera Trevor Smith

Accompanied by the sound of a chisel on slate Adrian, managed to produce the following words of wisdom

Maplins sell a device for doing exactly that except the Maplin one replaces the fuse. It's about £7. I keep thinking of buying one, but the electrics in the Rangie are simple and the Scorp is multiplexed - so I'd probably never find any bloody faults on that. It's working at the moment anyway..