Stray Electricity

[thug1313]

Well, I 've had the Rover for 3 weeks and I'm on my second battery. It's draining overnight for some reason. It has 2 sets of fog lights, aftermarket stereo, amp, 12 CD changer, CB radio(removed) and a (disabled) alarm system. I have since disconnected all of that stuff and thought about troubleshooting each thing as I could. But still, the battery was draining. I finally got smart and disconnected the thing after each day. What a hassle!

So I took it to Land Rover Nashville Thursday and they are stumped! It seems I have an 18 amp drain on the battery when everything is off. They are trying to locate it, but after 3 days cannot. They have phoned in for technical assistance (whatever that means) They seem to think all the splice-ins from the above after-market stuff are ok. Hopefully after the holiday they'll get back on the thing and solve the problem. But the labor charges I must be racking up!!!!! I'll need a second mortgage.

I'm starting to wonder if this was the reason the guy sold it to me in the first place! Any thoughts out there? Thanks.

Brian

[Mike Hippert]

18 AMPS! Thats allot! I think you would hear, see or be able to feel something if it was drawing 18 amps! Thats over 200 watts. Have they checked the starter or the alt to see if either has a short in it?

Oh yeah after you post back I would like to move this post to the looking for help section as it is technical.

[thug1313]

Yeah go ahead and move it.

[Cyborg]

Brian, If you personally continue with the troubleshooting consider following the bigger wires and disconnecting them from battery, alternator etc until you can at least identify what you can disconnect and stop this drain. I guess another good piece of info to have would be what is the common :rolleyes or ordinary drain on the battery when parked. Does anyone know what should be expected normally??

Larry

[Roadsiderob]

Brian & Larry,
Quiescent Draw should be less than 35mA.
Rob

[Mike Hippert]

Rob hit the nail on the head with the current draw! And Larry has the right idea!

Check out this post

http://www.d-90.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2452

[Roadsiderob]

Brian,
That is a huge draw...18 amps. I assume the person troubleshooting it has disconnected the starter and alternator and pulled the fuses 1 by 1 while monitoring the draw. Does this truck by chance have a power inverter permanently installed? I ran into a Range Rover with a similar problem and the power inverter was powered all the time and drawing all the time even with nothing plugged in to it. Just a thought.
Rob

[BarryO]

Land Rover Nashville is "stumped"? They shouldn't be; an 18 amp draw is not a subtle thing. Whatever is drawing that current is going to get as warm as a 200 watt light bulb. They should be able to track down the source. Do they have a wiring diagram? Do you need someone else working on this?

[thug1313]

Well here's an update:
The last knucklehead who worked on the Rover (replaced the ECU before I picked it up) was just BillyBob, doing what he thought was best out of his garage. He was the former owner's buddy. No clue about electrics, though. He had removed one relay to one O2 sensor and used the wrong kind of relay for the other. Somehow this was keeping the fuel pump running (off my battery), despite the ignition being off. Anyway, it was quite a hatchet job indeed.

My technician at Land Rover Nashville had no wiring diagram for a 95. Says there is no such thing, so he pulled another 95 into an adjacent bay and traced the wires using a visual comparison. Still, I'm glad he found it. Now I'm on the road to it being fixed the right way (and $1,600 poorer, I'm afraid).

Lessons learned? We'll see. I'm just anxious to get it back and rolling again.

Take care!

[smenzel]

Ouch! $1600 for the PO's not-smart electical handywork. Double-ouch!

It might be worth your while to come up with a wiring diagram for your truck. If nothing else, you can loan it to your Land Rover mechanic the next time you have an electrical issue. I bet it would pay for itself the very first time he uses it.

[evilfij]

There is no way you would have been charged 1600 for a simple diag like that at my dealership!

Ron

[thug1313]

That was $750 in parts and $850 in labor.

[Mike Hippert]

$1600! Who wants to open a Land Rover repair shop down there with me! What parts needed replacing that cost $750?

[dmarchand]

Not being critical. But buy yourself some manuals.

[Bowtracer]

I would call LRNA & let them know about the fleecing you just got. They need to know about dealers like this one & perhaps it may have a positive effect.
Peter

[jimmy salmon]

i had a 110 in the UK, was one yr old and kept doing the same,would drain in less than 30mins, frogs island 4x4 could find a fault, i ended up putting duel batteries in so i always had one charged to start it
found out bout a year lkater it was a bad earth on the rear tail light.
the hard part about finding it was it didnt do it all the time
left it in the garage with them for a week it never done it

[thug1313]

Okay, here's the actual bill: $800 total. No fleecing. They cut me a break on all that labor. Their electrician did a good job, and they took care of me to boot!
He replaced the two relays and wired them correctly. I didn't need 2 O2 sensors after all. He traced all the major wires and ensured they were to spec. The starter and the alternator also checked out fine. So tomorrow I'll pick it up. More soon!