Thanks for all the posts  which helped me to track down the leak that is flattening a new battery when parked over a couple of weeks!

 

I am hoping someone may be able to assist me pin down the component draining the battery of 0.2 amps on the Amplifier circuit?  Is there more than one device on this circuit or just the Harmon (Kardon 10 speaker) amp?

 

With doors & bonnet closed I am leaching 197mA. Take out the F18 fuse from the Engine compartment box and it drops to 17mA. Garage wants to charge a couple of hours to track it down from this point so they can decide what's required to fix it and the cost!

 

Columbus headend showing TV and DAB/FM channels but no sound with fuse removed. And if it's the amp that's causing the drain - where's it located in the car?

 

Any help much appreciated.

the amp is under the passenger seat. are you sure the drain continues after the car goes to sleep? 
(being locked for X mins where X is a value i do not recall) 10 mins perhaps?

 

So it is - many thanks. Noted that it is a Panasonic and not a Harmon system which I thought it was . 

 

Thanks also for the clue about the sleep timer. In fact the current drain doesn't stop after even three hours. So rather than the amp (a rather expensive component at @ $200 on the open market) maybe something else controls the sleep interval and  is duff? Capacitor? I can't imagine it is the Columbus head end because that runs fine without the fuse in place. So I wonder if there is a way to simulate the sleep period as a check rather than knocking the whole circuit out with pulling the fuse?? Cheers! 

 

how are you measuring the drain? all doors and boot bonnet , windows must be closed for the car to deep sleep.

Windows; bonnet and doors all closed. Unlocked.

Connection made using low loss (ex jump start) cable by looping the battery through a multimeter (10A setting) - from the negative battery terminal (battery negative to meter common; meter positive to now disconnected Skoda negative battery connector) (see below). Even after three hours current drain is 192mA

 

i  In the boot is TV module in the drivers side rear behind panel

remove plug on this then check 

Mine used to do it all  the time and after unplugging it for a day it kind of reset itself

You should be latching the doors then fully locking it before checking
can take about an hour for car to go to full sleep mode

Thanks Del8oy

 

Regarding locking the doors - my new fully charged new battery was flat when I returned a couple of weeks after replacing the original Varta battery. And it had been locked all the time. So whatever in the amplifier circuit is causing the drain did not go to sleep when the doors were locked. Just to be sure I charged the battery again and measured it over a four day period while it was parked up and the voltage steadily dropped by the end of each day. When it reached 12.0v I decided to diagnose (as well as having the battery checked by a garage with a Bosch BAT131 tester). Finally I had the car diagnosed by the Skoda dealer and they confirmed it was the amplifier circuit causing the issue.

 

I did consider disconnecting the TV tuner but because the current drain stopped when the F18 fuse was removed and the TV worked on the Columbus headend with the fuse out I presumed it was not the TV tuner circuit causing the issue,  In your case did pulling the F18 fuse stop the current drain?

Have you checked that module connector for any signs of water ingress? 

Anyone near you with VCDS that might be able to connect to it, or attempt to?

 

Thanks Wino - I did have the car checked with a VCDS after the battery replacement (ECU needed to be reset to new battery). No errors came up. 

 

Looks dry under the passenger seat (as per above photo). I was thinking of pulling the amp connector and re-inserting it but worried if it might cause the headend to need reprogramming. But come to think of it - if cutting the power doesn't cause an issue, reseating the connector shouldn't!