Hi everyone, i have a mk 5 golf gt tdi 54 plate. The other day a went out to start the engine and basicly i had a flat battery (i had to jump start it to start the engine) So after getting the car started i took it to a local garage and they have said that my battery is fine. And the battery is being charged fine aswell. I hadn't left any lights on or anything to drain the battery and i only left the car for 24 hours hours without using it. So it's all a bit of a mystery as to why my batttery went flat??

Has anyone had this happen to them? If so what was the problem down to?

Thanks for your help!

Not a Golf but a Polo, I had the same problem a few weeks back. Opened the garage door and the car was sat there dead as a dead thing. Just a click when I turned the key. VW Assist got me started (quickly) and I dropped the car into the dealer the next day. They tested the battery and said it seemed okay, and then did more tests. Decided it was a build up of static (?), discharged that, charged battery and touching wood has been fine again since.

Odd, but there you go!

There was someone here that had this problem,

it was down to the actual headunit, the screen was off but the headunit didn't shut down properly,

IIRC that was a trip down to the dealer to have that sorted out.

There were some mk5's with faulty headunits, that would randomly turn themselves on for a while when the car is locked.  the radio would play and that would drain the power.   VW have been replacing these radios under warrenty.

my friends 10month old R32 has had a flat battery 3 times now, when the car isn't driven for 5+days.    He took it to VW, left it with them for one week,  and guess what?   They can't find a fault with it!

I had an issue with mine that ran the battery flat which you'll be able to eliminate pretty quickly.  The thermostatic valve that controls the cooling fan failed so that the fan would run after the engine had stopped.  I had popped down the road, got back and parked the car and could hear the fan running and thought 'bit weird, the engine can't be that hot, ah well, it'll go off in a bit'.  Work up next morning and the battery was dead.

Like I said, pretty easy to eliminate this issue and I've not heard of anyone else have an issue with the valves but just in case it helps you out.  I'd rather that than the radio problem, that sounds a nightmare, VW fixed my issue straight away.

Gti Fly:

There were some mk5's with faulty headunits, that would randomly turn themselves on for a while when the car is locked.  the radio would play and that would drain the power.   VW have been replacing these radios under warrenty.

We had one of those ( 05 plate).  The RCD300 head unit would be off at night when we locked up the car, and the next morning it would be happily playing CD's to itself when we went out to it.  Worried about it killing the battery, I pulled the fuse until we got the head unit replaced.  I know its a pain, but if the dead battery turns into a regular occurrance, it might be worth pulling the head unit fuse and see if the problem goes away ...

Take it back to the dealers its a well known warranty issue on these headunits as been mentioned

I think i can pretty much elminate the faulty headunit as i have replaced mine with the mfd2 sat nav unit (unless that is faulty) Also my warranty has run out.

First found the problem on tuesday of this week 22nd and this morning sunday 26th the same thing has happened again. I had left the car for two days without using it. And i have a complete flat battery, the car wouldn't even unlock with the remote locking this time.

Went to ring vw to book the car in and they only open til 12.30 on saturday's so will have to wait till monday to speak to someone!

Still a mystery!?

I had a similar problem, normally use my car every day, but did not use the car for a week. When I tried to open it, it was completely dead, not even enough power to unlock the doors remotely. Fortunately I could use the key and with jump leads and charging up by running another car for 20minutes it started.

Turned out to be the CD changer was on all the time. The lights were permanently illuminated, must have been just enough to drain the battery.

Disconnected it, no further problems, got another since and have not experienced the battery drain again.

If you ahve a CD changer, worth a look.

mustard:

I had a similar problem, normally use my car every day, but did not use the car for a week. When I tried to open it, it was completely dead, not even enough power to unlock the doors remotely. Fortunately I could use the key and with jump leads and charging up by running another car for 20minutes it started.

Turned out to be the CD changer was on all the time. The lights were permanently illuminated, must have been just enough to drain the battery.

Disconnected it, no further problems, got another since and have not experienced the battery drain again.

If you ahve a CD changer, worth a look.

Thanks for all your replys.... No i don't have a cd changer. So can't be that. The mfd2 sat nav i have just turns off in the same way as the rcd radio would. So unless that is turning itself on over night (in the same way some posters had the problem with the rcd300 radio) i can't think what else it would be.

You just know that when i take it to vw they come back to me with "We couldn't find anything wrong with it"!!

Any other suggestions??

I thought there was a generic software update issued, a while back, which amongst other things also covered the radio draining the battery issue ?

I'm sure I read it somewhere.

ludwig:

canariesz1, sorry to hear about your problem.

On 11/11/07 on Tyresmoke, I recal, I posted:

 

"Froggy, that's interesting.
Do VW Assist know about this??

When my GTI started playing up with a flat battery in October 2006, VW Assist came out twice and said that there was a drain on the battery - from somewhere!
Too right there was.
On the second visit, they pulled the radio fuse out.
That stopped it draining!! Of course it would.

To cut a long story short, I've posted somewhere in the MKV GTI section here or on uk-mkvs.net that the dealer subsequently replaced the battery and the alternator. Great isn't it?
Since then no more trouble, so far.

ludwig   "

 

I hope that is of some help.

 

Ludwig

Hi, thanks for your reply. I'm having a bit of a nightmare with this to be honest. Vw have had my car since friday (it is now tuesday) Yesterday i was told that it is one or both of two problems

1) Being a faultly electrical component for my interior courtesy lights, eventhough the lights are going out they are still draining on the battery. To replace this is 300+!!

2) I'm not exactly sure but could be a fault with one of the lights them selfs which is again even though to the eye is going out when i lock the car is still draining on the battery. this is 100+  As the enginneer thinks it is most likely the faulty electrical swtich component  they are going to change that first.

I had spent 200 before they could even come back to me with these two faults! (What is a cheaper way of doing this? The fault finding/diagnostics check thingy? i didn't really have any other options as my car was imobile becuase of the constant flat batteries)

Just a side point i wish you could actually speak to the bloke working on your car rather than the dippy receptionist (male or female) as they are just relaying the info given to them and really don't know what there talking about (at my STEALERS anyway) Bromley, kent by the way. Anyone had any dealings with them??

I was also told that my vw sat nav mdf2 (which i put in myself as an after maket) Is causing a 0.3 amp ( i hope thats correct??) drain on the battery so if left over a long enough period would cause the battery to go flat. I think we are talking a long time though.

SO i am waiting on the phone call to say whether the component was the fault behind the flat batteries????

the story thickens....... I had them change the electrical interior light control unit, all in all costing 550. Picked the car up, all seemed fine. Went out the next day and i still had a flat battery!! AFter being told that my car had been fixed!

so they have now had the car again for over a week, and are now telling me it's the control units for the side mirrors. The units i have in there are for automatic folding in mirrors, which i don't have on my car! So the unit is trying to turn the mirrors in but there are no motors to turn them!! I know very change...They are trying to charge me agian for this second lot of work.

Has anyone had a situation like this with vw? And what was the outcome? Did you have to pay for the second lot of work done?

Ive lost all faith in VW

Any help??

To help with this, I had a RCD 510 fitted and guess what, the next morning I had a flat battery. I took the car to VW who said theres a fault with the head unit as, when it shut down it wasnt fully shutting down and instead drawing a constant 2amps. The battery would flatten from full charge to dead in the space of about 9 hours.

 I'm in the process of looking for a battery drain.

Has anyone had any luck with a multi meter?

If googled how to find the drain and everywhere says to disconnect the negative lead and put your multi meter between the lead and the terminal. When I do that everything in the car turns off and I get a zero value on the multi meter.

What am I doing wrong?

I'm sure I had a firmware update done on my RCD310, which was supposed to stop the thing failing to turn off completely and draining the battery. Worth checking if yours has had this done.

It could be that disconnecting the battery causes whatever you drain is to drop off. You could try putting the multi-meter in circuit and then turning on the ignition, so that the radio comes on, then turning the ignition off, so that the radio goes off, and see if there is a current drain then.

Hope that makes sense - I'm a bit confused myself now!

 How would I go about checking the firmware on the RCD310?

When I disconnect the battery and put the meter in the circuit nothing happens. No accessories are on and I can't turn on the ignition it just dead.

This sounds obvious, but have you got the cable on the multimeter in the correct hole?   Most have a different connection for high current testing - usually marked 10A or similar - move the red lead to that, and use the high current range on the meter.

 Not too obvious as I think I had it in the wrong hole!

Swapped it round after testing a AA battery.

Cheers for that.