Hi everyone, welcome to my first post regarding our fabia (Mavis).

So, we bout this tdi 1.6 fabia to become our run around but when I bought it the rear wiper was not working and the seller made some noises about the battery needing replacing as well. When i got it home i noticed the battery in it looked very new, it is a NAPA 60 AMPH battery, so not the original I suspect as thats a 61amph according to the book. The next morning I came out to start it and the battery was flat, dead flat, so i bunged a fully charged old battery on it (old but serviceable as i use it as a slave on another vehicle).

I then got the multi meter on it between the positive battery lead and the positive terminal on the battery and found a 11.45v , 180.7 mA current drain with all services turned off. which is a massive drain.

 

So my immediate thoughts are that the seller was aware of the drain but has not diagnosed the reason, instead they have charged the battery and only connected the leads on the morning of the sale.

Next I searched for possible fabia current drain reasons and it seems there are many options so I am now looking at checking through the fuses,,and now I find that in fact the reason the rear wiper was not operating was that the fuse was missing from the fusebox under the steering wheel, in fact the fusebox had not been put back on quite right ( hmmm evidence of tampering). Additionally i am thinking that some fuses are missing and /or incorrect amperage. As soon as I put the fuse back in the wiper started working and I am thinking theres fuses in slots for things this car doesnt have.

 

Now heres my problem..

In order to start to correctly diagnose which fuses are drawing power when engine is turned off I need to know the proper and full fuse layout for this 1.6 TDI skoda fabia elegance.

Skoda helpline is telling me the car was manufactured 30 Aug 2011 and registered 17th Nov 2011 so I am looking in my haynes manual and going with the "Fusebox in passenger compartment as of 05-2011"

 

I shall start comparing photos and the book but if anyone has a photo of a correct fusebox that would be very helpful

 

I know these current drain problems are a nightmare and I want to be as well equiped with info before I start pulling fuses etc.

 

thanks in advance

 

 

 

This is the fuseboard from my 2009 Fabia Elegance Hatchback. It has a 1.4 16v petrol engine. I hope it is of use to you. My limited experience with the fuse diagram in the Haynes manual has so far been positive.

I do however think you are barking up the wrong tree. In theory, a 60 Ah battery should deliver 60 amps for 1 hour, 1 amp for 60 hours, or 200mA for 300 hours (12 days). In theory.

A 3W bulb draws the current you measured. I take it you made the measurement with all the doors closed, the bonnet closed and the car locked. Just the boot/tailgate open would give you that current draw.

If you are driving the car then the alternator should happily replace that use in a few minutes running. The alternator pumps out 50+ amps. Check the alternator is working by measuring the voltage across the battery with the engine running. I checked mine this week and it showed 14.5 volts.

Personally, particularly with my experience this week (I had to buy a new battery), I think the original battery is done and the one you replaced it with is also kaput.

Hey Jocko, thanks for the info, your fusebox is slightly different to mine as its a petrol from 2009, according to the Haynes manual Section 12 page 46 you have a fusebox that was installed upto Feb 2010, like mine the fusebox is the same body as the LHD version merely rotated 180 degrees clockwise so fuse 1 is bottom rh micro fuse and fuse 24 is topleft of the micro fuse rows. Like mine you seem to have empty slots and the slots themselves are missing the metal jaws inside the plastic holder implying that when the car was build these fuse slots were never required to be filled.

As you see from my attached 1.6 tdi fabia elegance built aug 2011 I also have slots missing the metal jaws and I am going to suggest there should not be fuses in these slots. According to my haynes however as my car was built in aug 2011 there should be a fuse for the radio in fuse 1 for the radio, as you can see I dont have this. Also haynes says i have a fuse in slot 2 for the Starter relay OR not used on other websites it says this is the "start-stop" fuse whatever thats supposed to mean. Fuse 6 is supposed to be the Reversing lights cornering lights or Reversing lights according to Haynes, as I dont have this fuse in place im going to suggest my reversing lights go through fuse 21 (which I do have) and according to the Haynes is also for Reversing lights Or Reversing lights Cornering lights.

Frankly the variety of changes in the fabia fuse layout and options as to which fuse does what is a mess in my view and I have worked with enough engineers to know how it should be done, the end user has not really been considered.

Now that I have established I cant trust the haynes to tell me exactly which fuse holes should have fuses in, given that my radio works and fuse 1 is empty ! I am assuming the radio is coming through fuse 17 (which i have) or fuse 50 (which i have). So im going to run through some tests and see what happens.

 

 

So, taking on board the possibility of one or two duff batteries I have charged my slave battery overnight having done some testing on the old battery yesterday.

 

All battery charging is taking place using a FOXSUR 3 IN 1 12V 24V Touch Screen LCD Pulse Repair Battery Charger Motorcycle Car Automatic Intelligent For Lithium Battery Lead-Acid Agm Gel Wet LiFePO4 Batteries, I have had good results with these pulse chargers in terms of "fixing" batteries and most importantly these pulse chargers will start charging a battery regardless of how low the battery voltage has been. I make this statement as some so called modern "intelligent" chargers from Lidl/Aldi/Halfords/ wherever, have got to be so intelligent that they refuse to charge a battery unless it is carrying a charge of approx 6 volts in it prior to you putting the leads into it, needless to say this is useless to us DIY guys as then we cant charge a very flat battery unless we "trick" the charger into thinking the battery has a high enough voltage to get the charger to kick in the charging process. I have read an interesting post where a guy goes into the guts of an Aldi charger and fits an override switch that enables the user to trigger the charger to charge a totally flat or low battery regardless but honestly why were they built like this in the first place !. MY other "old school" chargers simply start charging regardless of the battery voltage as you would expect of stuff built properly with the user in mind.

The link below is the one I have, it was cheap, it covers 12 and 24 volt, it covers all normal battery types and I would recommend as perfect for DIYers.

https://uk.banggood.com/FOXSUR-3-IN-1-12V-24V-Touch-Screen-LCD-Pulse-Repair-Battery-Charger-Motorcycle-Car-Automatic-Intelligent-For-Lithium-Battery-Lead-Acid-Agm-Gel-Wet-LiFePO4-Batteries-p-1707984.html?akmClientCountry=GB&a=1734803190.9465&cur_warehouse=CN

 

Rant over

My testing yesterday  comprised leaving the battery negative lead off the night before hoping all the systems would then goto sleep. As stated before the fuse for the wiper motor had been put into fuse 25 (a slot with no terminals in it) when it should have been in slot 26 so I switched this.

The ignition is off and drivers door and bonnet locks have been "tricked" to show as closed to the cars brain. I had opened the drivers door with the key initially so in theory the car has had no cause to "wake up"

 

I then checked the voltage drain from the negative battery lead to the negative battery terminal, its was 12.6 volts.

I then checked the 3 fuses and the 5 cables in the positive terminal battery box by unscrewing the retaining nuts and removing the cable ends whilst watching the voltage meter to see if the drain fell. The pic shows cable 1 being tested in this way, there was no change to the voltage drain.

I then connected the negative lead to the terminal and put my voltage meter onto the positive side, I took the positive side fusebox off the main power lead itself and check between the main power lead (the thick one that goes to the starter) and the positive terminal, there was no drain. I then tested between the terminal and the positive terminal battery box, the drain re-appeared at the 12.6volts. So whatever is drawing power is coming through the fuse box. Not much I know but its all the black arts to me

 

I did try to check between the individual cables in the positive terminal fusebox and the fusebox itself and found low voltage draw down cables 6,5 & 4 (reading from the right and ref the Haynes) these being 6 Power steering control module, 5 Cooling fan control unit, glow plug control unit, or cooling fan control unit & 4 Starter headlights. Im a bit confused how the draw through these cables does not equate to the 12.6 volts draw I was seeing at the negative terminal measurement from earlier so I shall redo them with the slave battery soon.

 

At that point I reassembled the cables etc and went to to lock the car only for the car to be totally dead....I mean nothing, nada, zip, at this point I am thinking the worst and that somehow I have now b*ggered the whole thing with my hamfisted tinkering.

My wife advises I go to bed or come shopping with her.

 

Next day I plunked the now fully charged slave battery onto the system and took the battery that came with the car into the house to charge.

When I opened the car it seems I had left the negative terminal on the system and the battery was dead therefore once again the car systems should have all gone to sleep, so I tricked the drivers door and the bonnet latches into the closed position again and proceeded to check for current draw at the negative lead and terminal and found I was drawing next to nothing !!!  This surprised me until I noticed that in my tired haste refitting the cables in the positive terminal fusebox I had placed cable 2 onto the "blank" terminal threaded stud which is situated in the gap between studs 1 and 2. DOH !! so I placed cable 2 back where it should be and suddenly the car was back to normal and the locks and lights etc all came on ok, praise the lord.

This cable 2 (SA2 on wiring diagrams) is listed in the Haynes as being "80 amp Fusebox in engine compartment Starter x contact relief" does anyone have a translation for what thats supposed to mean for christs sake ! As it happens nealry all the circuits start with this damn cable so that explains why the ignition and everything had no power !

Back to square one sort of.

 

So now i decided to perform a drop test on the battery to make sure it was good.

I untricked all the locks and closed. locked and opened the car doors an bonnet to ensure everything should be normal.

I connected the volt meter across the terminals using my extension cables  so I could sit in the cab and start the car whilst also seeing the voltage drop, voltage was 12.93 volts prior to ignition. From the footage i recorded the voltage drops to 10.23 volts and then rapidly climbs again when i turn the key, so thats a pass in my book. At this point i noticed that the alternator was running and providing a healthy 14v to the battery so thats something else ticked off.

Most other websites advise your battery should not drop lower than 9.7 volts upon ignition. In the event you do get a sub 9.7v drop this would indicate that one or more battery cells have "dropped" and are not holding charge.

A recent site i read told me that the 6 cells in the battery carry approx 2.13v each so when you see a reading thats a multiple of 2.13 in your battery you can be sure its a knackered cell

Drop test over on the slave battery, will redo this test on the battery from the car itself tomorrow when its been repaired and charged.

 

So at this point I moved onto checking the fusebox in the drivers footwell. Ignition off.

With the battery all connected up properly I went through all the fuses touching all the test points on the top of the fuse bodies to see if any of them were carrying a current - none of them were.

I then removed each fuse in turn and checked the fuse for continuity between the blades of the fuse, all the fuses showed continuity ( the current passed through the fuse successfully) indicating they were all good.

 

I then turned on the AC as the seller had previously mumbled something about it maybe not working a bit like mumbling about the rear wiper not working...fortunately the AC seems to blow cold. I should really have checked fuse 22 to see if it was carrying voltage at the time , oh well.

 

So basically I am still thinking the battery is discharging when the engines not running.

So back to the battery and undo the negative lead from the battery terminal again and measure the current drain in mA.... NOTHING !!!! (well 0.002) I cant believe it......Hold on though now lets not go mental i think. I turned the dial to test for the voltage between the negative terminal and the negative lead and its still  12.8v flowing back into the battery. So i turn the dial back to test for current flow to double check and I seem to be getting 0.016 mA on the 20mA range of my meter.

 

Ive left the car alone for a bit , with the negative lead attached. Im going back out to check it now to see what the current draw is now.

 

 

 

 

"I went through all the fuses touching all the test points on the top of the fuse bodies to see if any of them were carrying a current". That does not tell you a fuse is drawing current. It only tells you if there is a supply voltage to the fuse, at that time. You do not get Voltage drain, you can get a voltage drop across a component or a current drain through a circuit. if the voltage across a battery drops when you put a load on it it must be drawing a lot of current or the battery is duff. The X relay is a relay that has contacts in several unrelated circuits.

I too use an intelligent charger, an AA 4A which has a Recovery mode which will charge a deeply discharged or sulphated 12V battery using pulse charging. It will charge a 12v battery showing only 2v. I used that on my battery and the car would start great. But next morning it was as dead as ever. I fitted the new battery on Wednesday and the car has been great ever since.

As a retired electrical engineer with over 50 years experience, I love to get back into fault finding in simple circuits like cars. It has been a while since I had my multimeter out. I use an old Iso Tech IDM203, similar to this 201.

 

Edited 21 December, 20241 yr by Jocko
Photo added.

Hi Jocko, cant say i enjoy electrics on cars myself, ive always been terrible at them, even struggle with wiring in a car radio ! lols Im fearless when it comes to mechanical things to the extent ive done a couple of engine transplants in my time but electrics have been a bane in my life . Ive just been looking up how to read my multimeter and understand what the ranges signify and therefore what the reading unit would be ! thats how little they taught us on electrics in my school .

Ive just been out and measured things again.

 

So, measured voltage between the neg terminal and the neg battery lead and it was 12.28 v

Also measure the amps between the neg terminal and the neg lead, started on the 200mA and got no reading, 20mA got 001 reading, range set on 2mA got 0.01 then set the range on what i think is 200micro amps and got nothing. The attached picture is an image of the ranges on my multimeter the range in red is the one i am thinking is micro amps but I can be sure.

 

The reading in the 2mA range of 0.01, is that .01 of a milliamp then ?

 

From what you said earlier i would not have got any voltage across the fuses unless A: I had turned the ignition on and probably had the engine running AND B: something on the other side of the fuse was shorting to earth and pulling a flow of electricity ? is that right ?

 

Cheers

To measure voltages you don't disconnect leads. Leave everything connected up and measure the voltage across the battery terminals. A good battery should be 12.6v. Your reading of 12.3 volts suggests to me the battery is not great. 0.01 on the 2mA range on your meter is just noise.

If you have a simple circuit of a 12v battery, a switch and a lamp all connected in series (wire from battery + to switch, switch to one side of the lamp, the other side of the lamp to the battery - ) then you will measure 12v across the battery and everywhere up to the switch. Close the switch and you will get 12 volts everywhere up to the lamp. This will still be the case even if you remove the bulb. To measure current you have to break the circuit and put the meter into the circuit. If you did you would not get current flow when you opened the switch or removed the bulb. You do get meters that clamp around a cable and measure the current flow but these are usually for large currents and impractical for measuring small current flows.

You cannot restore a sulphated battery. A sulfated battery has a buildup of lead sulfate crystals and is the number one cause of early battery failure in lead-acid batteries. Eventually, a battery starts to draw current internally hence the reason a fully charged battery, left overnight, even if not connected, can be discharged in the morning.

It sounds like your starter and alternator are both fine. I still think both batteries are knackered.

Hi Jocko, thanks for the explanation regarding the voltage, id forgotten the switch needing to be on as well. Ive been out this morning and good news (i think). I was able to open the car using the keyfob which was a good start, i then proceeded to measure the voltage of the slave battery which had been connected overnight (expecting it to be depleted) and it wasnt !, I got a reading of 12.89v (higher than last night !) I then put the meter between the negative terminal and the negative battery cable and got a reading of  0.008 on the 2mA range , so roughly the same as when i left it last night.

So i then swapped out the slave battery with the old battery that came with the car, having charged it overnight, in situ this battery gave a reading of 13.35v across the terminals which reduced to 12.98v after I connected the neg lead to the terminal and did a drop test by turning the car over. The results of the drop test were the battery dropped to 12.55v when i put the ignition on and then fell to 10.44v when i fired the starter motor. Thats leading me to believe the battery is sound. However I shall leave it connected till tomorrow now and check everything again.

I went on to measure the current drain between the negative terminal and the negative lead with the old battery in situ and got the same reading of 0.008 on the 2mA range.

 

Depending on what happens tomorrow should prove out if the battery is kaput for sure, if it is then its off to the scrapyard with it and I shall invest in a new one.

If it isnt kaput then Im wondering what exactly i have done to reduce the current drain from the first reading of 180.7 on the (presumably ) sub 2mA range ?

Ive now found something on the internet identifying this mystery range as “1.5V mA” setting on a meter is used to measure the current at a 1.5V voltage level, typically for testing how much current a circuit or device draws at this voltage"

I cant understand why this worked on my 12v battery however

 

The only thing I have really done is to leave cable 2 detached overnight accidentally, other than that ive simply pulled and tested all the fuses ostensibly. Maybe the original battery was simply very dead initially, maybe the cable 2 needed taking off to allow something in a circuit somewhere to go to sleep ?

 

I guess we will see how the old battery fairs tomorrow morning, I might just leave it connected and check morning and evening to log the battery voltage over a week or so.

 

Bloody electrics.

 

Just try starting the car each morning. A voltage check doesn't tell you a lot.

Ive now found something on the internet identifying this mystery range as “1.5V mA” setting on a meter is used to measure the current at a 1.5V voltage level, typically for testing how much current a circuit or device draws at this voltage"

I cant understand why this worked on my 12v battery however

 

I found that on the internet. It is another function on some multimeters. Nothing to do with the 2mA range on your meter. The range is actually mA @ 1.5v.

Morning Jocko, well, so far so good , the car measured 0.008 on the 2mA scale and still had 12.21v. And turned over first time !

So....problem solved....

Thanks for the advice so far, im going to just leave it connected now and fire it up every day for a week and see how she schoons.

 

Merry christmas

Dabber

Merry Christmas.

OK, im back and happy new year to all. Ive decided to invest in a clamp meter, a UNI-T UT203. These meters provide a DC amps current reading so hopefully i can check the parasitic draw and get me past my problems of reading the scale of my other meter.

Having left the car over christmas and new year I returned to it today with another as yet untried battery, my intention being to test the alternator diodes and output first before looking at the drain.

Firstly i opened the car using the key (as the car had no battery in to do the unlock), then i closed all the door deadlocks and the bonnet lock manually to simulate a locked car.

No battery installed as of yet.

So:

test 1:Battery not connected, negative lead on the alternator B+ post (B+post cable removed and isolated), positive lead on the alternator casing gave a reading 0.541v on the diode setting which is within the 500 to 800 range which all the you tube videos suggest a good set of diodes to be read,

 

test 2: as above but reversed the leads, negative to casing and positive to B+ post of alternator, reading was OL on the screen which i believe means no reading possible and again is correct according to the you tube tutorials.

 

test 3: Install battery and in doing so mount a voltmeter in series with the negative battery cable and the battery negative post and also mount the clampmeter to the negative battery cable. I did this because i wanted to see what the draw would be immediately upon installing the battery and also to see what my two meters compared to each other as. The clamp meter was set on the 40A DC autoranging feature and gave a reading of 00.76 with the battery negative lead running through the clamp, the other meter was connected to the end of the negative lead and then to the negative pole to complete the circuit and gave a reading of 0.009 on the 2A range setting. The problem I have is that I am still unsure as to what unit these translate into, my guess is that the 00.76A reading is actually 7.6 milliamps, as upto this point I had not triggered any electrical drains by opening doors etc (door locks and bonnet were already tricked), Using this logic I am then deducing that the other multi meter set in series with cable and post was showing me 0.009 in the 2A range which actually means 9 milliamps ? I thats right then thats a good current drain to have as its less than 10 milliamps. Im sure reaing these machines is easy but I cannot understand why the machines dont simply display the correct unit and the number rather than leaving it open to my crap interpretation. Am I right in what i believe these machines to be telling me ?

 

test 4: Voltage from alternator with engine running. Original battery voltage was 13.27 V after a full charge from its previous voltage of 12.97 V. Started the car and at tickover measured voltage with positive lead on the B+ post of the alternator and the negative lead on the casing of the alternator the reading was 14.52 V with the engine running, then moved the leads to the battery and got a reading of 14.53 V, so happy with that, my wife then put the radio and AC on and the lights and brought the engine to 2500 rpm and I read the output at the battery again at 14.48 V.

 

So far then everything is as it should be (i think - please tell me otherwise anyone).

 

Next my intention was to turn the car off and measure the current drain at the negative battery lead and watch it to see where it gets down to, again my issue here is I dont really know what the meter is telling me so some more assumptions to follow.

Immediately after switching of the engine at 13:10:00 the clamp meter read 5.08 A on autoranging, drivers door being open and not tricked and the car starting to go through the engine off cycle of its electronics,  this dropped to 01.10 A some 90 seconds later at 13:11:42 when i stopped the video. The next reading I took at 13:13 was down to 01.11 A , within another minute it was down to 00.89 A on the clampmeter. At this point i am guessing that this is a reading of 88 milliamps not 880 milliamps but again who would know as its not clear from the machines screen.Pic attached.

 Next at 13:28:00 I decided to break the circuit and put the multimeter inline with the negative lead whilst also running the clamp meter on the negative lead. Interestingly the readings dropped significantly to 00.26 A on the clampmeter and 0.004 on the multimeter on the 2A range setting. My guess is that this reading is 4millamps  or 4 thousanths of an amp as its 3 decimal places on the multimeter, quite how this relates to the ampclamp reading of 00.26 is anyones guess.Pic attached.

I am now going to guess that disconnecting the negative lead to insert the multimeter inline forced the car to shutdown briefly ?

 

So I removed the inline multimeter and put the negative lead back on the battery with the clampmeter, and the clamp meter is reading 00.88 again.

 

At this point the hailstones became to much to bare and I called it a day, leaving the healthy battery attached and the car all back together again, cold and dejected i sat down to type this saga. Tomorrow I will pop the bonnet and see what the battery is reading, hopefully its still at around 13V.

I did start testing the fuses again using the multimeter as per various you tube tuturials but I could not find any where the current flowing did not reduce to 0 after a second, as Jock pointed out in previous replies there should not be a current flow across the fuse unless something is earthing that fuse and any switches between the fuse and the earth point are closed (on).

 

If my diodes are good (which they seem to be) and the alternator is charging fine (which it is) and mone of the fuses have a massive current going through them when the engines off...then what else could it be ? Something thats not attached after one of the fuses in the fusebox, something thats on the fuses under the battery cover perhaps ... hmmmmm

 

 

0.009 on the 2A range is feck all. Probably Radio 2. It shows 9 thousands of an amp. And the reading on the clampmeter is shoite as well. It is designed to measure AMPS,  What you are seeing on both these meters is just dross. We used clampmeters in my work and if you wanted to measure an amp you would wind the cable through the clamp several times. They are not meant for the measuring you are trying to do. They are just cheap hobby meters, not professional equipment. Sorry if I sound negative but you are chasing false trails.

Edited 7 January, 20251 yr by Jocko