[W126 Coupe] Back to the battery drain issue

[Vance Rowley]

Markus, I appreciate the suggestion  and sounds a very sensible and obvious thing to do. However in practice this would be a nightmare and not very practical for several reasons. Firstly even though I have placed some approximate times of how long between each 6amp peak and how long this current is drawn for, this is only very rough figures. Basically it is so intermittent, you would be lucky to catch this reading. I was lucky I caught it in the first place. Sometimes I have had the meter connected and watched for nearly an hour, but nothing but the normal current draw with the car at standby has shown. Other times it has been as the times I have previously mentioned, but as I say, this is very intermittent. Another reason this method is not very practical is that some of the fuses that would be on the suspect circuit (the ones that are hot at all times) feed quite a lot more than just one thing. The car might not be drivable at all if I have one of these fuses out.

If I could come up with some kind of counter to read how many 6amp peaks there are on average per 12 hour period (while unattended), then this in combination with your suggestion would be perfect. This way I could have the meter (and counter system) connected overnight with one fuse at a time pulled until I come across the next morning where the counter is zero with a particular fuse pulled. This way it could be done overnight and completely unattended.

Any ideas on a simple counter system to do this?

Cheers,
Vance.


----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Markus Meyer 
  To: mbcoupes at mbcoupes.com 
  Sent: Saturday, February 04, 2006 7:54 PM
  Subject: Re: [W126 Coupe] Back to the battery drain issue


        Vance,

        Well, if nobody has any ideas and you are at a loss, why not start pulling fuses and see what happens? One fuse at a time, a week at a time, and hopefully you can narrow it down to at least what items are the culprit. Theoretically when you pull the fuse causing the drain, it will stop, right? I know it may take a bit, but with no other answers...why not!?

        Markus

        --- On Sat 02/04, Jim Ham < jimham at porcine.com > wrote:


          From: Jim Ham [mailto: jimham at porcine.com]
          To: vance.rowley at tiscali.co.uk, mbcoupes at mbcoupes.com
          Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:55:26 -0800
          Subject: Re: [W126 Coupe] Back to the battery drain issue

          This may be off the wall, but it sounds like some heater is coming on to 
          keep a regulated temperature. What's heated? I can think of a few things: 
          bun warmers, windshield washer tips, maybe rear view mirrors. My car is a 
          500 so has fewer of these items. You might be able to feel around searching 
          for something warm. All that energy is going somewhere.

          Regards,

          Jim Ham

          At 08:20 AM 2/4/2006, you wrote:
          >Well unfortunately, although all evidence pointed to the vacuum pump as 
          >the cause of this intermittent 6amp current draw. I have had power to the 
          >pump disconnected for over a week now. It just so happens I haven't used 
          >the car for this last week, so was a good opportunity to see if the 
          >battery would be OK or not. Well, you guessed it, the battery was almost 
          >dead. Certainly not enough power to start the car anyway. Just a few small 
          >cranks of the engine.
          >
          >So, has anyone any ideas what else could draw around 6amps for between 30 
          >and 60 secs every 5 to 10 minutes or so?
          >The 5 year mystery still unsolved as yet.
          >
          >Cheers,
          >
          >Vance.
          >The MB Coupes Website!
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          >Postings remain property of MB Coupes, L.L.C.

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