current draw?

[gregomega]

hi guy's this is not really an audi related prob but i'm a little rusty on my figures and just wondered if someone could advise me on an exceptable current draw on a parked vehicle with only clock and radio memory taking power? my missus cinquecento has suffered for over a year with battery going flat if left parked for more than a day so a few weeks ago i finally got around to fitting a new battery only to find that a week later the car got left parked all weekend and battery was flat on monday morning. so i charged battery then disconnected positive lead and connected multimeter in line to read current draw, it was drawing 5 amps which is obviously far too much. so after a little detective work i found the draw was the old unused alarm system so i removed alarm and now current draw is 0.25 amps is this an acceptable drain? car been parked again this weekend and battery is flat again. if 0.25 is too high an idea of what should be drawn would be appreciated

[robinwells]

Hi gregomeger

0.25 amps does not seem out of this world compared to the likely capacity of the battery but in my experience batteries do not respond well to total draining as the last bit of output is a different reaction that can be hard to reverse. Leisure batteries are built (and priced) differently to cope better with this. Have you checked the output of the alternator is adequate. Perhaps a new regulator would be worth a try and if you do, make sure the slip rings are still good. Good luck

robinwells

[gregomega]

cheers robinwells..
after a couple of hours of headscratching i decided to remove the power supply to the aftermarket stereo tested current draw with only the clock working and it wasn't drawing enough to even register on the multimeter so left stereo disconnected and left car parked a couple of days gone to it today and stared first time with plenty of oomph in battery so removed stereo and refitted original which also isn't drawing enough to register on multimeter so hopefully it'll behave now. thanks for the help