Flat Battery

[Brad Chip]

After replacing my battery with a heavy duty diesel one in my 2001 4.0ltr RR and fixing my door actuator so I could enter the code to demobilise the engine to start the engine and having driven it for a couple of weeks ok. I now find that after a week of standing on the driveway the battery is as flat as a pancake and being benched charged as I write. I also went to the trouble of installing a trickle charger as I do little mileage and infrequent usage but do try to drive at least 10 miles to give the alternator a chance to give some charge back. Assuming the alternator is give 14 volts charge (I will pop in to a garage to confirm this) are there other reasons for the flat battery? I don’t live near a phone mast so hopefully the alarm receiver is not picking up stray signals. Any ideas on why it would be flat sitting for a week?? Thanks in advance[/size]

[David Sparkes]

It's not 'just' phone mast emissions that can cause problems.

Anything that works around the frequency 477MHz will do the 'damage'. This is the 'standard' frequency for all sorts of domestic equipment (but NOT WiFi or Bluetooth).

The favourite source is a weather station, yours or a neighbours, with a wireless connection back to the base station.

Other kit can be wireless doorbells, wireless baby monitors, garage door or driveway gate remote openers.

PC wireless keyboards and mice also use this frequency.

One way to prove this is the source is to disconnect the power to the receiver (or the receiver from the antenna). The receiver is under that small shelf, just inside the RH rearmost window.

Assuming your car has an automatic gearbox, do you leave it in Park when unattended? Failing to do so is mentioned as a cause of battery drain.

HTH