randomsi

Hello. Right, I bought a Skoda Octavia 06 reg with full service history and up-to-date MOT. Having had the car for a week one morning I went to start the car and the battery was completely dead. I called out the AA who couldn't find any fault so he jump started the car and we hoped it was juts a one-off. The next day the same happened and AA came out. Again they couldn't really work out the reason for this and I took it to a garage. This garage ran some tests on the battery and found that it was in good working order. They checked for battery drain and couldn't find anything out of the ordinary (They tested to see the drain levels after the car went into sleep mode - around 40mins after locking - and the drain was 0.003amps). Battery was charging fine also (14.3 volts). Their outcome was that there was nothing wrong and charged us the £80 labour for the pleasure of finding this out. We took the car away and then a couple of days later went to start it....again the battery was dead. AA cam out for a 3rd time and started the car and so we decided it was time to take it to a Skoda service centre (Marlborough, Isleworth). They ran the diagnostic on it and came back that there was a fault on the near side rear door as well as that the battery was worn out (possibly due to draining so many times). They replaced the door lock and fitted a new battery. I then had to do long drive to Blackpool straight from picking the car up (this was on Friday just gone - 1st June - and a few miles down the road noticed a light on the dashboard was on. I didn't get the chance to see what the light meant until Inext stopped at which point I found that it was the Airbag system warning light? This may be a completely separate point to the above issues however I am yet to resolve this with the garage so would appreciate any advice if this may be related to battery drain or if it is just that the garage may have done something that just needs resetting? Anyway, back to the battery saga (hopefully at least one of you has managed to endure reading my epic description of events!)... Whilst in Blackpool and upon retunring home, the car seems to start fine, however I am not sure if it had been left long enough for me to see if it is still suffering battery drain. The real worry was that last night - 4th June (actually 1:30am to be precise) the car alarm started going off for no aparent reason. I kept turning it off and then about 10-15 mins later it went off again. I tried disabling the internal sensors to see if this was causing it but the alarm still went off without them on. In the end I had to leave the car unlocked overnight (not ideal). I checked the red flashing light in the driver side door and it appears to flashing normally when locked (i.e. nothing suggestng an alarm system faulty). Having read some forums it seems that maybe this could be a sign of the battery dieing again??? I am really now loosing patients with the car as even the Skoda service centre don't seem to be able to find the problem and resolve it. If anyone can propose any other suggestions as to what the problem could be it would immensly appreciated. Hopefully someone may recognise some of the symptoms? Thanks for your patience in reading! Simon