On a second test after waiting another 30 minutes, it settled at .40 amps. I also took out the trunk lights in case they wanted to stay on with the trunk open. Thanks guys for all your help

 

You have a large parasitic drain, it should be less than 0.03 amps. With 0.4 amps draw, your battery will go flat in about 5-7 days (if fully charged to start with). Perhaps this is because you kept the boot open. Even though the boot lights automatically go off after some time, there may still be some current draw by the module that controls them. I checked the current draw using two longer wires from the battery to the back seat, thin enough so that I could close the boot lid and the rear door over them (the rubber seals will allow this) and locked the car with the remote. Then I placed the ampere meter on the back seat and monitored the readings through the window over a period of about 1 hour. My final reading was less than 0.02 amperes.

 

Lol I thought I was reading it correct! Thanks for letting me know. So it should read no higher than .04 amps? I just need a second set of hands to help before I start pulling fuses.

 

Or you can measure the - tiny but non-zero if there's current - voltage drop across each fuse.

 

Dumb questions guys. When you say to check it after 30 minutes, do you mean to have the negative cable unhooked for those 30 minutes? While still having the meter hooked up and checking the voltage later?

 

Connect the ampere meter (set at 10A range) between the disconnected negative cable and the negative battery post. Close all doors, bonnet and the boot lid and lock the car with the remote. You can then monitor the ampere meter (from time to time) over a period of 1 hour, during which the current draw will be slowly decreasing, or just see what the current reading is after 1 hour. You have to be able to do this without unlocking the car or opening any door so place the ampere meter on the back seat and look through the window. At the end of this 1 hour period, the current draw should be no more than 0.03 Amps.

 

Ok sounds good. The reason I was asking is because, everytime I touch the red lead to the negative battery terminal/cable, you can hear the CD player do it's boot up sequence. Making me think it wakes up all the car's electronics.

So my plan is this, leave the leads connected for an hour, and leave the multimeter on. I say leave the multimeter on, because everytime you turn it back on, and both leads are connected to battery and cable, the CD player does the boot up thing. Which I believe wakes up all the electrics. Or am I wrong to think that?

 

Yes, you have to leave the ampere meter on and connected all the time. At the time of initial connection of the ampere meter, you actually power up all car's systems (just as if the battery is re-connected) except that you should not switch the ignition or the headlights on as it will overload the ampere meter. Opening doors is ok as the interior lights do not draw much current. Then, when you lock the car, the car's systems will start shutting down one by one, some earlier some later, and the current flow through the ampere meter will start decreasing (initially fast then very slowly) over a period of one hour. After one hour, most car's systems will have shut down (gone to sleep mode) and the current flow will drop to some minimum which will remain. This should be less than 0.03 Amps.

 

Awesome thank you. I did that yesterday. I didn't lock doors though. Should I redo? Anyways, closed everything and did the test.

After 30 minutes, it was bouncing between .06 and .05

After an hour, also bouncing between .06 and .05

Waited another 10 minutes, and same. Bouncing between .06 and .05.

 

The results are slightly higher than the spec but not bad at all. Could be due to the car being unlocked. With this level of current draw, the battery should be fine for 1 - 1,5 months sitting.

On the other hand, the higher reading could be due to some inaccuracy of you ampere meter (unless it's Fluke).

 

It is an Innova 3300. I have a fluke but the thing went dead for some reason. So I think we can conclude the battery is bad/going bad. Thank you all for your help. Especially you Stojanovic for walking me step by step.

 

Please be aware that, if you buy an NEW battery, it is not necessarily a GOOD one. Do never buy a cheap new battery.

Fully charged new battery must indicate 13.5 V. With engine running you must have 14+ V.

T.

 

You are a bit too optimistic about the voltages. A fully charged battery will have 12.6 to 12.7 volts and the alternator (when engine running) will produce 13.5 to 14 volts.

Only Lithium car batteries will have about 13.5 volts when fully charged.

 

Bought a new Duralast Gold today. It has more CCA and reserve than the battery I took out. 900 CCA and 150 reserve. I read the voltage on the duralast when I bought it. Read 12.55v. Hooked it up to the car and it read 12.49v. Then I just started the car and let it warm up then shut it off.

I'm very paranoid about this, so I checked it just now. Reads 12.45-12.46v. When I read voltage, battery was in the car for 2 hours.

Will keep you guys updated on how she does.

 

Soon as I turned the car off yesterday from a drive, I read the battery voltage. Which it read 12.81v.

Read the voltage today before starting it. Read 12.45volts. So it went from 12.81v to 12.45v in 21 hours. Is that something I need to worry about?

 

12.81 V was just a temporary higher voltage immediately after the battery was off the charge (by the alternator). That voltage would have settled at about 12.6 a few minutes later so you are talking about actual drop from 12.6 to 12.45. This is nothing to be concerned about as long as the voltage does not drop too much further down after say one week of the car being parked. You need to now check it after a longer period of sitting time. In any case, if you can still start the car after a longer period of sitting (about a month), everything is fine. My car had recently been sitting for about a month and the battery voltage read 12.0 volts. The engine started on the first turn of the key.

 

Sounds good. With that said, I just did another draw test. This time I locked the doors with the fob. After 30 minutes, it was at .06

After an hour, also .06

I know Jaguar says should be no higher than .03

So I'm going to see if I can find where the draw is coming from. I read that unplugging and plugging fuses back in will make all the electrics come back on. Is there another way to do it?

 

As you informed, you are using Innova 3300. I can see that it is a $10 multimeter. At this price, it may not be very accurate. Especially when measuring currents near the bottom of the 10A range. I would first check the current draw with a higher quality (accuracy) multimeter before going into tedious investigation.

Otherwise, one possible culprit for extra current draw is the alarm siren. It has its own Ni-Cd batteries which are charged by the car's battery. The Ni-Cd batteries do not last for ever and they may develop a fault that will cause continuous current draw even when they are (supposed to be) fully charged. One day, after my car had been parked for about 5 days, when I came near it I could hear some humming sound from the front. Opened the bonnet and found out that the SC electric pump and the throttle body motor were running, even though the ignition was off, because their relays were energised by something. After some time going through the wiring diagrams, I established that this could be by the alarm siren battery. Disconnected the siren and the problem was solved. It appears that the siren developed internal fault that allowed the current from the Ni-Cd batteries to flow back into the car's wiring and this was what energised the two relays.

With the siren unplugged and taken out, the car's alarm still sounds using the car's horn which is good enough.

 

No the meter was like $35 when I bought it 4 years ago.

Pic of the meter and how I set it. I measured every fuse in the car. Correct me if I am wrong. But there are two in the engine compartnent, one in the trunk, and one behind the passenger(right side) seat.

The upper fuse on the left was measuring between 30-40. While every other fuse measured 0. Parasitic draw found?

 

There should be two fuse boxes under the rear seat, left and right. As I understand from your picture, you set the multimeter at the 200mV range and probed the two sides of each fuse. In this way, every fuse should read zero volts (whether there is 12V supply on it or not) unless the fuse is blown.

To investigate where the parasitic draw goes, you need to have the 10A ampere meter inserted at the battery, wait until the current drops to (in your case) 0.05-0.06 A and then start pulling the fuses out one by one (without re-inserting them) until you find which one(s) cause the ampere draw measured at the battery to drop. Mark each fuse that causes drop and by how much then find out what these fuses are for. For this test, you will need to keep the trunk, the doors and the bonnet open. In this way, I do not know whether the current measured at the battery will still drop, after 1 hour, to the same 0.05-0.06 A you measured with everything closed and locked but you can try.