Battery dead after 14 days of no use

[PH430]

The battery is dead after 14 days of no use.
My Chim has no alarm or imobilyzer.
This is the 2e time in a month. Battery is new.
On both times the fans where running when i swithed of the ignition, but after switching of the iginition the fans stops.

Is it posible the relay is worn? And has a leak power.

Thanks for the comments.

Cheers,
Pieter

[shake n bake]

Get yourself a trickle charger my friend.
Does sound like there is a drain in there somewhere though, get your multi meter out and start probing.

[jesfirth]

I had this on my griff. Check all the relays when it is parked. If one is warm that is the circuit with the problem. Mine was the interior light circuit. The light was not on but it drained the battery anyway.

[steviejasp]

I'm pretty sure I heard that when a normal lead acid battery has been allowed to go totally flat that it won't ever hold a proper full charge again. Anybody know if that's true?

[PH430]

jesfirth said:

I had this on my griff. Check all the relays when it is parked. If one is warm that is the circuit with the problem. Mine was the interior light circuit. The light was not on but it drained the battery anyway.

Thanks, thats a good one.
I will try after charcing the battery.

[ChimpOnGas]

If you haven't got access to mains power a "Battery Brain" is the answer.

A disconnected battery cant drain & is safer than a trickle charger too.

http://www.batterybrain.co.uk/

[davo23]

jesfirth said:

I had this on my griff. Check all the relays when it is parked. If one is warm that is the circuit with the problem. Mine was the interior light circuit. The light was not on but it drained the battery anyway.

Maybe a silly question but where is the interior light relay?

[PH430]

davo23 said:

Maybe a silly question but where is the interior light relay?

The big yellow one in the footwell area

[caduceus]

shake n bake said:

Does sound like there is a drain in there somewhere though, get your multi meter out and start probing.

Can you possibly elaborate on this please? I know there is a drain on the Chim I bought not so long ago, which I have been fixing up since day one. So once the battery is in I'll be needing to undertake the laborious task of finding it. Don't know a lot about currents, etc so need some pointers.

I like the Jesfirth tip

jesfirth said:

Check all the relays when it is parked. If one is warm that is the circuit with the problem.

Cheers

[shake n bake]

caduceus said:

shake n bake said:

Does sound like there is a drain in there somewhere though, get your multi meter out and start probing.

Can you possibly elaborate on this please? I know there is a drain on the Chim I bought not so long ago, which I have been fixing up since day one. So once the battery is in I'll be needing to undertake the laborious task of finding it. Don't know a lot about currents, etc so need some pointers.

I like the Jesfirth tip

jesfirth said:

Check all the relays when it is parked. If one is warm that is the circuit with the problem.

Cheers

I can't directly as I have yet to experience a drain like the one described, however, with the ignition off there will be a limited number of circuits still open, get a probe on each fuse and see what's live and if it should be.
From there on check what's live, if it should be then with the help of plenty of the people on here will say if it should be active or not and hopefully point out what's wrong!

[caduceus]

Sounds logical captain.
Cheers

[Plan B]

I suggest you get one of these from Maplins - £13-00 I think. Just plug this into each fuse position in turn and see which circuit is causing the drain on the digital readout.

[Plan B]

I suggest you get one of these from Maplins - £13-00 I think. Just plug this into each fuse position in turn and see which circuit is causing the drain on the digital readout.

[zacherynuk]

^What Plan B said. It's the only way to be sure.

I recently had hard starts in my day car and it turned out to be a shorting USB plug in the ciggie lighter - I was lucky not to have a fire, I think. I only notice it after dark one night putting the rubbish out - thinking "Never seen that light before" the damned thing was glowing like an ember.

For reference, longest my Chim has gone is 6 weeks. Still spun up like new.

[BabyDriver]

I'm not sure what type of batteries they were but over the years I have completely flattened two and they never held their charge again.

I bought a battery brain for my Chimaera but the residual charge it leaves in the battery is not enough to start the car. It's an easy but expensive option to cut off the power at the press of a button and will stop the battery becoming completely flat if the car is left with the power connected for a long period of time.

[rickprice]

Killed mine after 2 weeks recently - not unusual, really.

Some have gone down the relatively unattractive solar panel trickle-charge route. I have a garage so have a trickle charger on the wall for long lay-ups, esp winter.

Rich

[davo23]

Plan B said:

I suggest you get one of these from Maplins - £13-00 I think. Just plug this into each fuse position in turn and see which circuit is causing the drain on the digital readout.

Thanks for the heads up on this, so is this an alternative to putting a multimeter on the battery and pulling fuses? You simply go straight to the fuse board and unplug one by one till you nail the drain?