New to the site with an electric fault

[geeezza]

Hi All,

Just got my hands on a 51 plate 1.2 bravo sx with 96k on the clock,got it home an the wife loved it.24 hrs later tried to start it from cold and no go,would not turn over,initially i had maybe one turn of the motor and that was very slow.Fitted a brand new battery and the charging system seems to be ok ,engine started fine with battery fitted no problems good strong tick-over and engine revs like a bike very responsive.Left the car over night and returned to the car about 24hrs later to see if the car would start and found the new battery was also dead not even enough to turn the engine over.I left nothing on electrically some thing is discharging all the voltage from the battery overnight, one thing i did notice when i was about to jump start was that when i was about to connect the negative side of the jump lead it had a slight spark as if there was something on inside the car but everything was off. I am a trained mechanic but my electrical knowledge is very little I tend to leave the minefield of auto electrics to the experts.

Stuck and in need of help any answers please.
Geeezaa

 

[T14086]

need to do a battery drain test, a small spark is normally when reconnecting battery as you are powering up codebox,ecu,clock etc

 

[a1ant]

Hi,

Do you have an aftermarket stereo?

Alan

 

[geeezza]

Yes there is some junkish looking face off thing and the thing is taken off at night but it has a small security L.E.D that flashes I doubt that this has enough draw to kill a new battery,although i had a sneaking thought that this stereo may have issues

 

[a1ant]

Hi mate,

Its very common on the Mk2 punto, as there is NO switched live from the ignition. Any aftermarket radio thats fitted WITHOUT a switched live will drain the battery even without the face off, some just more than others.

You can test this by diconnecting the negative lead on the battery, place one tip of multimeter on the negative lead, the other tip on the negative pole of the battery. Set the mutlimeter to amps.. note the maount of ams being drawn (with everything off and face off radio) then remove the fuse for the radio, and watch if the amps suddenly decrease.

Alan

 

[T14086]

must be crap battery then as I used to run an Idea with the usual blaukpunt stereo fault of switching itself on by itself. This was usually in the early hours of the morning until I went top work and it always came on at high volume much to the neighbours annoyance:devil: (I often heard it from inside the house)...never did get that sorted

 

[geeezza]

Well I've had the car back after much wrangling with the mechanic who was adament that it could not possibly be the radio draining the battery,but he admitted defeat and apologised for his attitude and that he was wrong.The problem was confirmed to be the radio by the auto electrician,Nice one Alan good call good proper info.

Cheers lee