Folks,
My daughter owns a '03 Passat that she bought used about 3 years ago.
It has an electrical leak/drain that will discharge the battery if the car is parked for 2 or 3 days. Car does not blow fuses.
Does anyone have any insight on what system(s) on the car are prone to this defect?
Any good VW forums for this type of problem?
Any recommended problem solving approaches?
TIA,
Rog
The VWVortex is good for this sort of stuff. You'll probably have to sift through a lot of fan-boi B.S. to find it, but there is a lot of good info on that site. That said, there was recently a forum change and much of the archived tech info is still in limbo.
These sort of problems are a SOB to find. The typical diagnostic procedure is to put a sensitive amp meter on the positive battery lead, making sure that it measures the power drain. Then start pulling fuses until the drain stops, bearing in mind some systems are supposed to run continuously. That should narrow down the system to look at.
Don't even start unless you have a service manual (Bentley).
Good luck.
Pull all the fuses and hook your multimeter up in between the negative lead and the battery. Insert fuses one at a time and look for a load.
Had a Corvair that did that. Turns out it had a mercury switch to turn on the trunk light. Parked on a slant, light turned on.
John Brown wrote: * Step one unplug the CD changer.
Really
John Brown wrote: * Step four buy new upper control arms.
HAHAHA!!! Because its the troof!
Had the same issue with a Jetta and even replacing the whole wiring harness and a mess of relays, boxes, etc. did no good. 4 VW dealers had the car more than I did for almost 2 years.
After much time and money we finally found the solution - a Mazda 3!
Sorry, but that was my experience along with literally hundreds of little things breaking or quiting working. We simply couldn't keep the plastic clips that hold the rear glass in place so we had to tape the rear windows up.
skruffy wrote: Pull all the fuses and hook your multimeter up in between the negative lead and the battery. Insert fuses one at a time and look for a load.
I did this with my wife's 2000 Passat. It would eat batteries every two years and if it sat for a week or so, it wouldn't start. I found it was the factory alarm system pulling the draw on the battery.
DukeOfUndersteer wrote:John Brown wrote: * Step four buy new upper control arms.HAHAHA!!! Because its the troof!
Step five should be "install arms correctly according to the service manual and get more than 100K miles out of them"
Oh and buy earplugs for your neighbor children if you ever have to remove the pinch bolt at the top of the hub carrier, otherwise they'll learn new words.
Common issues with that car courtesy of your friendly VW tech.
Unplug the sun visors driver side first while checking for a draw.
Next check the door latchs. Easy to check. Use the key to roll down all windows. With the windows down lock the car. After waiting for 3-4 seconds reach inside and open the door. If the alarm doesnt go off the latch is bad and the vehicle will not go into sleep mode and drain the battery. Repeat at all 4 doors.
Doese the car "beep" when setting the alarm? If not check to make sure the radio is pushed in all the way and also check the hood latch.
Pull the radio fuse while checking for a draw.
I would recomend trying the door atchtrick first as that is the most common problem and easiest to check. Then move down the list.
kyle
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