142 Avensis 1.9D, fails to start after left idle for days

John.G

Above has 72AH one year old battery, alternator charging at 14.0/14.2V, if car is left idle for > 4/6 days it fails to start.
Checked parasitic battery loss at 0.22A (220 ma) with all electrics off and bonnet open. By calculation, 0.22A loss is 5.28 AH/day....31.68AH/6 days so, theoretically at least, battery should be still capable of starting the car?.

This parasitic loss of 220ma seems quite excessive in my experience of 45ma to 95ma in all the cars I have owned, does anyone know if this loss of 220 ma is typical for this particular model?.

case_sensitive

It does sound high. Anything higher than 30-50mA is high for any car.
I have an 2.4l Alfa 159 that leaked electricity very badly most of the time I've owned it up until late last year. I have extensive posts over on Alfaowner about it.
Two easy-ish things to check; ensure you have a good earth, or better still, more than one. Remove connectors to gearbox or body, wherever they contact, get for corrosion. Sand with fine sand paper till you see shiny metal, on the connector and surface. Replace, tiighten and cover with something air and water proof. Grease is pretty good.

Second, disconnect your battery altogether. Measure voltage drop with nothing connected. I chased my tail for 18 months; disabled the glove box light, cut out the cigarette lighter, checked door locks and measuring voltage drop across every fused circuit in the car. In the end, the damn battery, which was only 3 years old, was dropping voltage so quick you could observe it.
I measured the space in the bay and put in the biggest battery that would fit (90Ah, 720CCA http://exide.info/ea900.html). Been perfect since.
Sometimes it's the obvious thing, so always check it, even if it couldn't be that.

John.G

Interesting, I've seen that voltage drop fused circuit test mentioned frequently, how is it done?, if its just measured across the fuse then one would need a huge load to see any appreciable voltage drop?. I've tracked down a few neighbours problems with my method above and then selectively removing fuses until the amps/ma reduced which identified the culprit.

case_sensitive

there are two ways, one is very precicse measurement of PD drop over a fuse, tedious.
The way I did is as you say, put a screwdriver in driver door lock, lock car (don't set alarm until you're testing that circuit!), wait for car to get out of 'light the way home mode', then measure load with fuse in (ammeter in-line with negative terminal) and then pull each fuse in sequence till the number drops.
Fuse belongs to culprit circuit.
But definitely check battery first.
If it's 100% ok, and a second, known good battery shows the same behaviour, I'd look at any circuit that makes heat or light (especially iif not LED) first.
headlamps, fogs, interior lights, glovebox, O2 sensors, glow plugs if diesel, cig lighter, door sills lights.