Toyota Avensis (1997 - 2002) - 97 2.0 Battery loosing charge

Honest John Back Room » Technical matters
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Fri 8 May 2009 17:37
97 2.0 Battery loosing charge - dlonglegs
If not used for about a week, the wife's Toyota will fail to start with a flat battery.
The car has been to several garages to solve this problem to no avail.
The engineers who have looked at this were reputable & recommended. Not main dealers or back street units.
We are on a third new battery, meters have been used all over the car.
One garage left it linked to a computer for a week, finding nothing. Disconnected it & found it flat the next morning. (No charge for that one)
I did speak to a guy who had heard of this with a Toyota before but couldn't give me a lead to check on.

I feel it is a peculiarity to this car & am hoping someone out there might have heard of this before.

Help please.
Dlonglegs
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Fri 8 May 2009 20:17
97 2.0 Battery loosing charge - Woodspeed
Try disconnecting the radio during the week. Also if the car has an alarm, and is also fitted with ultra sonic sensors, these need power to work.
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Fri 8 May 2009 22:59
97 2.0 Battery loosing charge - Peter.N.
I have a Citroen XM estate which only gets used for a short distance once a week and the battery gets weaker each week. I have now taken to disconnecting it after use and had no further problems.

Modern cars with all their electronics don't seem to be designed to be used only once a week, the alarm system consumes power for a start. If you lock your car with the key rather than the remote, this will probably not arm the alarm and so reduce current draw.

Its quite easy to check current draw by connecting an ammeter in series with one of the battery leads set to the 500ma range, (dont turn anything on while the meter is connected) a draw of 100ma will take 2.4 ah from your battery each day o 16.8 per week, assuming a fully charged 50ah battery that's about three weeks worth, but if the car is not used long enough to fully recharge the battery the effect is cumulative
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