Standing current of VW Golf R

That sounds like a wiring problem. A mate of mine had a similar problem in the 70's with a 60's car, that turned out to be a failed on/off switch on the radio (this had no lights to indicate it was on, and didn't make a sound tuned between stations). IIRC it was drawing an amp or so.

Slightly different, but the reason my ATV battery was going flat even when used regularly was that the glow plug timer relay had failed, so these were drawing 20 amps or so, well over the charging current on idle.

How long did you leave it measuring for? When you connect the ammeter you are effectively re making the circuit and it will then go though any diagnostics etc until it goes into sleep mode.

Cheers, T i m

The current will start high, but will settle down after a few minutes as things go to sleep. You need to wait for a while before measuring the quiescent current draw.

The meter was connected across the knife switch before the circuit was opened, so it shouldn't have seen any break in supply.

You need to make sure everything is allowed to go to sleep mode before measuring the quiescent current.

A normal figure would be more like 0.03 amps (30mA)

You need to leave it for say 20 minutes or so, and check again.

The standing current once it has finished all its power on self tests and become quiescent is likely to be in the range of about 30-100 mA. It varies a bit with the car, model and how many LEDs it decides to flash.

Fairy muff (and good idea), so how long did you observe it for after opening the switch?

Cheers, T i m

valves ?...

Dave Plowman (News) presented the following explanation :

I agree, some electronics wake up, even with just a slight change in voltage across them.

My car, loaded with electronics, sleeps at <20mA, with an odd higher short pulse, which I assume is for the alarm system.

What on earth is it doing? Brian

Really? I'm sure somebody told me that audis only fiddle about for a minute or so after everything has stopped and the car locked etc, mind you I guess there could be some issue if you have the battery in view and are still close enough for it to know you are there if its one of them there intelligent cars. Brian

You'd have heard the vibrator...

That's good. I've got quite a bit of extra junk on the old Rover, much of it home designed/installed. And couldn't get it down under 30mA. The original central locking took about 10mA. Got that down to under 1mA.

About 100,000 counts

VAG cars share most components. The user interface maybe Volkswagen or Audi or Skoda or SEAT specific but the underlying components and low level software are the same.

Powering the hundreds of CPUs that modern cars use.