Battery flat every morning ( Seat Cordoba )

DFD

Got a 05 Seat Cordoba 1.4 about a month ago. First 2 weeks grand not a bother even though the radio didn't work. Got radio sorted out then next morning the battery was flat. This went on for a few days. Thought it was the battery so got a new one 2 days ago (fri). Battery was flat saturday morning.
Figured it had to be the radio draining the battery so i took out the fuse for the radio last night. Battery was flat again this morning !!
Has anyone come across this before?

colm_mcm

There should be two power feeds for the radio.

savagethegoat

possibly your Alternator is faulty.

DFD

savagethegoat wrote:

possibly your Alternator is faulty.

I thought that might be possible but thought i'd check radio first. I wouldn't know much about mechanics, just thought i'd try radio before getting a mechanic first.

DFD

colm_mcm wrote:

There should be two power feeds for the radio.

Didn't realise that. I'll have another look at the car manual and see if i can find it. Thanks

GM228

DFD wrote: »

Didn't realise that. I'll have another look at the car manual and see if i can find it. Thanks

Permanent and ignition live, possibly radio is wired to permanent live instead of ignotion and vice versa-wouldn't normally drain the battery but worth checking. Also is there an amp? If so check the remote wire etc is wired correctly.

mickdw

Car was fine until you fixed the radio. Id be pretty certain its the radio that is causing the problem. There will be a permanent live to the radio as well as the switched so likely that permanent feed is draining your battery

John T Carroll

savagethegoat wrote: »

possibly your Alternator is faulty.

DFD wrote: »

Got a 05 Seat Cordoba 1.4 about a month ago. First 2 weeks grand not a bother even though the radio didn't work. Got radio sorted out then next morning the battery was flat. This went on for a few days. Thought it was the battery so got a new one 2 days ago (fri). Battery was flat saturday morning.
Figured it had to be the radio draining the battery so i took out the fuse for the radio last night. Battery was flat again this morning !!
Has anyone come across this before?

Get hold of a multi meter and with the engine running at idle check the battery terminal volts, it should be around 14.2 to 14.4 volts, switch on the headlights and the heated rear screen and you should still get > 14.0V. I presume that you are locking the car each night because some of the (older) VAG cars would draw over 2.5 Amps if left unlocked, don't know why but its normally not any problem because most people lock their cars as they havn't the luxury of a garage. You might like to post again depending on what you find because there are other very simple tests you can carry out then.

DFD

The car does be locked at night.
I'll try and get a hold of a multi-meter and check that out. Thanks.

John T Carroll

DFD wrote: »

The car does be locked at night.
I'll try and get a hold of a multi-meter and check that out. Thanks.

Ok, the next test I might suggest if the above check is OK would involve disconnecting the the earth strap from the battery so you may need to have to radio code to hand. In theory, as long as the radio has never been removed from the car you dont needi it, SAFE will be displayed in the radio when you do reconnect the battery and then the radio comes back on line but you never know.

jca

Did you fix it's original radio or did you replace it? A lot of those cheapo Chinese replacements are rubbish causing severe battery drain amongst other problems.

9935452

jca wrote: »

Did you fix it's original radio or did you replace it? A lot of those cheapo Chinese replacements are rubbish causing severe battery drain amongst other problems.

The aldi radios are known for it

John T Carroll

DFD wrote: »

Didn't realise that. I'll have another look at the car manual and see if i can find it. Thanks

Schematic attached, fuse numbers may be different as this is a USA schematic, "hot" is "live" in this neck of the woods.
If the radio is wired correctly then it is switched off every time you remove the ignition key. One can revove the key first, switch on the radio and exit and lock the car with the radio still on but it should then still switch off (after 2 hours) as to my knowledege as its on a 2 hour delay off timer.

John T Carroll

jca wrote: »

Did you fix it's original radio or did you replace it? A lot of those cheapo Chinese replacements are rubbish causing severe battery drain amongst other problems.

Found some numbers for a 2005 Polo fitted with a (original) RCD 200 Radio with 4 speakers installed. The radio draws 1.6 Amps switched on with the volume at normal levels, (0.6 Amps on "mute") and only 1.0 Amps playing a CD for some reason or other. It switches off automatically after 1 hour (not 2 hours as I stated originally). So if this radio was wired directly or a similar one drawing the same amps then this would drain 19 AH from the battery if left on overnight for say 12 hours which would flatten a "1/2 charged battery"., but a fully charged battery should be able to deal with it. It would be similar to leaving the side lights on overnight from a load point of view. So if the spurious radios are drawing an even higher load, you certainly wouldn't be doing your battery any good if drawing 1.6 Amps or greater.

colm_mcm

I would get the code of the radio, and unplug it, check next day, That would rule out the radio as the cause.

John T Carroll

colm_mcm wrote: »

I would get the code of the radio, and unplug it, check next day, That would rule out the radio as the cause.

The next test I was going to suggest to DFD could indeed include that, I would suggest that he disconnect the earth strap from the battery post and get the multimeter, configure it to read 0 to 10A, connect it between the earth strap and the battery post (red to earth strap, black to the battery post) and switch on the side lights just to test the multi meter functionality, it should read around 1.5 to 2 amps, switch off the side lights and depending on what the meter now reads..... if the reading is less than 0.2 amps change to the 200m (0.2 A) scale, most cars that I have checked out normally read 25Ma to 45Ma (0.025A to 0.045A) but I have seen the odd one as high as 90 Ma (0.09A), but any of these readings are OK.

DFD

Its the original radio. It wasn't working when i bought the car. The woman said the car had to be on for an hour or so to get the radio to go to "safe" then put the code in etc. She said she never had the time to do it.
I reckon she was having the same problem as i am now and decided to get rid. Couldn't get hold of a multi-meter today. The mechanic i usually use is gonna come down and have a look at it for me.
Thanks for all the advice and i'll post up the answer to the problem when he fixds it. I hope.

John T Carroll

DFD wrote: »

Got a 05 Seat Cordoba 1.4 about a month ago. First 2 weeks grand not a bother even though the radio didn't work. Got radio sorted out then next morning the battery was flat.

DFD wrote: »

Its the original radio. It wasn't working when i bought the car. The woman said the car had to be on for an hour or so to get the radio to go to "safe" then put the code in etc. She said she never had the time to do it.
I reckon she was having the same problem as i am now and decided to get rid. Couldn't get hold of a multi-meter today. The mechanic i usually use is gonna come down and have a look at it for me.
Thanks for all the advice and i'll post up the answer to the problem when he fixds it. I hope.

In your first post you said you got the the radio sorted out.....how??

I reckon that all that was wrong with that radio was that the wrong code was being inputted after reading your last post, if you can put the wiring back the way it was ( if it was altered) and get the code from the woman, the radio card might even be in the manual if you got that with the car. Then with reference to below, you may get the radio back.

"After 2 attempts SAFE is displayed permanently and a small 2 is shown on the left of the display. After 1 hour during which the radio must remain switched on the number of attempts (2) disappears from the display and the correct code can be re entered"

Its well worth a try anyway and thanks for keeping us updated as we all learn something new every day.

Edit: should also have added that on my two VWs that even though SAFE is displayed after reconnecting the battery, if I start the car immediately then the radio resets, obviously neither radio was removed from the car.

PukkaStukka

9935452 wrote: »

The aldi radios are known for it

Usually it's the ones with Bluetooth that are wired in such a way as the radio can be powered on with the ignition off. This prevents the Bluetooth piece from shutting down and this is what drains the battery.