i30 Owners Club
GOT PROBLEMS OR ISSUES? => PETROL => Topic started by: i30John on September 19, 2023, 00:07:33
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Hello everyone, I need a bit of guidance on my i30. In the last 6 to 9 months the battery has intermittently been discharging. There's no regular pattern to this, the car can be fine for a month or 6 weeks and then it will happen twice in a week. Last time I used the car was 6 days ago, went to start it 3 days later and not a flicker. Had to open the car manually, no dashboard lights, completely flat. We went on holiday in February, parked the car up for 2 weeks while away, got back and the battery was dead as a dodo. Went away again in May, came back after 2 weeks and no problem at all. It's as erratic as that. So 2 days ago I disconnected the flat battery, put the charger on it and left it going for 48 hours. Today I thought I'd get down to some fault finding and with a meter connected to the now fully charged battery, got a 0.75Amp parasitic drain. Hunting around for the fuse box, I find the flap next to my right knee when sitting in the drivers seat. Looking at the fuses, there's a clip thingy which I take to be the fuse puller sitting in the middle of the fuse panel. So I pull that out and find it actually is holding 2 15Amp fuses. Checking the meter after pulling this thing out, I find the current has dropped to nearly zero. So I extract 1 15Amp fuse and put that into the upper now empty holder (marked Audio on the cover flap) and although there's a slight spark as it goes in, the current remains low at around 0.01 Amps or so. So in goes the second fuse to the space marked Room LP and again with sparking, the current rises to 0.75Amps. So it seems I have found the problem, there's a fault with intermittent leakage to do with the interior lights. I pull the fuse back out to save the battery and decide to make do with no inside light for the time being but when I go to shut the car door and lock up, I find the Central Locking doesn't work. Putting that Room LP fuse back in makes the Central Locking work again, what am I missing here? I can't seem to find a Circuit diagram on the Internet, can someone please point me in the right direction? Sorry for the long initial posting.
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Hi. Is it the original 14 year-old battery?
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Have you checked all interior lights, including the one in the boot, are all off when the car is locked.
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What theb previous posters said!.
It really sounds like something is not clicking off. I had this same issue, a long time ago now, it turned out that something was preventing the boot light from turning off. Of course I felt proper stupid once it was pointed out.
good luck with it :goodjob:
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Hi people, thanks for the replies. No, not the original battery. I've had 3 or 4 replacements, a cheap one went in when I had problems with the electric power steering over Christmas 2021. Long story but it ended in a bill of £2600!! When this current problem started I thought maybe the cheap battery so replaced it with a heavy duty type which is now around 4 months old. Hopefully being fully drained a couple of times now, it won't have suffered too much. The interior lights I have taken the lamps out, only refitting them for the testing but completely forgot about the boot light so I'll do that in the next day or two.
Interestingly, looking last night at my Owners Manual section 7 page 44, the fuse panel is detailed showing this fuse holder/remover thing and calling it a 'Memory Fuse'. It says to pull this thing out when leaving the car unused for 'prolonged periods' to prevent battery discharge but having owned the car from new, it's something I've never done before. Also, around 8 or 9 years ago when the car was still on it's original battery, we went off on an extended holiday of over 7 weeks and the battery didn't flatten then. all a bit mysterious but I'll take out the boot lamp and see what happens.
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Hi everyone. Thought I’d give an update on my flat battery problem. It’s been around 3 months since I removed the boot lamp and to date - no more flat battery! :happydance: So fingers crossed, that’s saved me from changing the car. Many thanks to Greyhound and asathorny, you were spot on.
I couldn’t find any switch operating the boot lamp so it seems it’s tied in with the hatchback lock. Easiest solution as far as I’m concerned is to just keep a small torch in the back.
Thanks again guys.
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Just screw the two rubber bump stops on the hatch in about half a turn so it closes more surely