View Single Post
      05-24-2020, 06:03 PM   #1
lime
Private
lime's Avatar
15
Rep
54
Posts

Drives: 335i
Join Date: May 2018
Location: New Zealand

iTrader: (0)

Can't Locate Parasitic Draw? Increased Battery Discharge

I'm really struggling to figure this one out. About mid 2018 my battery died so I replaced it and coded it with Carly. Everything worked fine until about a year ago when I started to get occasional warnings about increased battery discharge where the car shuts everything down to preserve enough power to crank the engine. Initially I thought it was probably just not getting enough use or long enough journeys to adequately charge the battery. I started putting it on a ctek regularly and things seemed ok ish. I'm now at a point where the clocks etc are reset basically every time I get in the car, and increased battery discharge warnings are frequent. I decided to check for a parasitic draw and as far as I can tell I followed the correct procedure for this (shutting trunk/door latches, leaving to sit with ca key far away for >30 mins etc) and after connecting my multimeter between the negative cable and terminal it appears the car is drawing about 2.4 amps while sleeping! The next step I took was leaving the meter connected and having someone watch while I pulled every fuse in the glovebox one by one, there was no change. I even pulled the fuses and relays in the engine bay fuse box. I also decided to test the battery so after charging it until the ctek was happy I immediately read the voltage at 12.25 which isn't ideal. After sitting overnight it was down to 12.1v. I started the car no problem at all at that voltage and checked to see what the alternator was putting out which stabilized at 14.4v so it doesn't appear to be a problem there.

I'm a bit stumped really, any ideas on what to check or try next would be much appreciated.
Appreciate 0