Technical Parasitic Drain, Fuses, Wiring Diagrams (2002 Active Sport 1.2 8V)

[LittleBlueCar]

Trying to track down why the battery died after a few days parked.

Found that sometimes there is 500mA being drawn with the ignition off. It goes up and down for maybe 30 secs after the battery is connected and sometimes settles near zero and other times at 500mA.

Found that pulling the big 70A Fuse F1 stops the 500mA draw. Then it got tricky...

The wiring diagrams don't seem to match reality for this vehicle and I wasted a lot of time yesterday poking around at the electric window fuses and relays and getting nowhere.

Today I took every other big fuse out and then probed every small fuse socket to see which still had volts. Then I took F1 out to see which of those lost volts and are therefore fed by F1.

The answer - F53, F38, F39, F36, F32

With the 500mA drain 'performing' today I whipped each of these out and found F39 caused the 500mA to vanish instantly.

The fuse list says F39 is 'Luggage compartment light, interior light, audio system, diagnostic socket'.

The snag is that I'm not sure whether to believe it. F39 does not appear on the diagram for the interior lights.

The main courtesy light was switched off. As far as I can see there is no light in the boot. There is a hole near the R/H seatbelt reel but I can't see much else - not even a socket.

The radio is a Blaupunkt job. As far as I know it's factory fitted but I can't be 100% sure.

Does anyone have a better idea how these cars are really wired?

Is an intermittent drain from a Blaupunkt CD/radio a known issue?

Thanks in advance

Andy

 

[flisko]

look here
if charging voltage with everything electrically turned off around is 14V, thats still fine

https://www.fiatforum.com/punto-mk2...alternator-parasitic-drain-testing-guide.html

 

[g8rpi]

Hi,
500mA is far too high. This level of current will flatten a typical battery in 4 days. You need to disconnect the radio first as it's easy to rule out and a common culprit.

Robert G8RPI.

 

[LittleBlueCar]

Cheers both. Sounds like the radio is the next step, just a bit p***ed off after putting too much faith in the wiring diagrams yesterday.

The other snag is that the problem is not always present, so it's hard to know if it's gone because of something that I did or it just went away on its own - that also wasted me a bunch of time yesterday.

If I work out how to disconnect the radio then (if I'm lucky) I might be able to do it while the drain is present and with an ammeter in the circuit - only way to be sure that I've found the cause.

Regards, Andy

 

[quaffle]

I've got the exact same problem as you and I still haven't solved it yet and it's been months.

 

[digger58]

Any after market alarm? another good cause of problems

 

[LittleBlueCar]

Thanks - no alarm though.

 

[murfman53]

Hi,

Its a strong possibility it is your radio.

Most radio's now come with 2 live feeds.

One feed only comes on when turn on your ignition.

The second feed stays on all the time, so it can remember your channels selections.

You can disconnect this particular feed if you wish, but you'd have to reset your channel

selections every time you turn on your car.

I'm assuming your radio installation wiring is of the same type.

It really depends on the wiring arrangement that is on your car.

John.

 

[LittleBlueCar]

Thanks.

Having read Mr Haynes, it says that the radio will ask for the code if I disconnect it.

Is that right?

The battery was out of the car for 24 hours while I charged it (slowly). Haynes says that even disconnecting the battery will make the radio ask for a code, but that's clearly not true for this car.

I don't have the code.

I saw the thread on the ICE forum about radio codes but can't find a clear answer about what will make the radio ask for the code. Is there some sort of backup battery somewhere that keeps the radio coded for some time when the main battery is disconnected?

I'm trying to get the car ready to sell so I don't want to make things worse.

Regards, Andy

 

[Ziggy122]

paracitic drains are tested for a good 10mins tbh

The max i'd like to see is 60ma

Brothers astra has just suffered a paracitic drain fault - it was pulling 350ma when engine off - and wouldnt go down
Pulled every fuse / connection = No drop
Disconnected alternator = Dropped to 6ma (A super super low reading)

It took a good 5mins for it to drop from nearly 400ma after ignition to 6ma as each system shut down

-----

The stereo's on punto's
Some have 2 feeds predone = No issues
Some have 1 feed = Constant live = Issue

I've done video's and guides on how to stop it draining your battery with a simple fix - its honestly a dead donkey easy

The best way to tell if the stereo is at fault - with the key out of the car - does the stereo turn on and start playing when requested?
if it does = A an original unit which DOES do this
B aftermarker = Theres the problem

Ziggy

 

[LittleBlueCar]

Dead easy sounds good. I didn't find your vids or guides from my searches though.

Could you possibly post some links?

Thanks.

 

[LittleBlueCar]

Just went out to do dome more prodding now that the rain has stopped.

With F39 back in (I'm keeping it out as a rule), the radio will come on when I press the button. No need for a key in the ignition. I think it's a factory fitted radio.

Naturally it draws current when it's properly on - around an amp when playing a CD, more if I turn the volume up.

The courtesy light draws around 500mA when it's on.

Opening the boot causes no current draw, but as far as I can see there is no boot light.

The 500mA thing happens with the radio off and the courtesy light off though.

The 500mA thing is not performing this evening so not much point prodding it any further today.

 

[SpartanLee117]

It's interesting what you say about the fuse diagrams.

I recently purchased the front bumper from one of the sport models to replace the "facelift" bumper on my 2004 8v, the sport bumper has fog lights that the facelift doesn't.

I was reading around this forum on if its possible to connect them up since the wires do exist to plug into them. Some people said I may need to buy the fuse box from a punto that did have them because the contacts don't exist in mine.

But the real puzzle to this is that, not only do the contacts to the front fog lights not exist, but they also don't exist for the rear fog light...there's no fuse for the rear, no relay for the rear, and yet some how.....it works!

So it's clearly been wired up at the factory in a manner that completely ignores the fuse diagram, and generally makes me think that the fuse diagram isn't worth the plastic its printed on *sigh*.