flat battery problem

[grantw]

hi all,

went out to my car this morning and the battery is as dead as a dodoo! 

this is not the first time this has happend in the 2 weeks since getting the car, I noticed the brake lights have been on when returning to the car in the morning, they only go off once i open the car and hit the brake, I think this happend last night and as a result flattend the battery. VW assist cam out (well the RAC) and jumped the car, VW will look at this under warranty obviously but will not be able to look at it for 10 days yet!!

not a great start to VW ownership.. thought it couldnt be worse than bmw/mini ownership.. ach well the usual Aberdeen specialist cars/john clark customer service problems!

anyone else had this problem as VW service are saying because it is intermittent they will just have to keep the car till it replicates the problem!

[phil1101]

IIRC, on the tyresmoke net GTI forum a while back this same question came up and the probable causes were a drain caused by tracker fitment or some kind of radio power drain that was eventually cured with a new software update. Perhaps try searching on the tyresmoke.net site under flat battery on the VW GTI sub section. Hope this helps...

[TeddyKGB]

Maybe your Golf is going out for trips at night, parking up next to the beach, listening to its own radio before returning home and resetting the miles

Are you sure when you return to the car in the mornings it's not just the "coming home" lights you've just activated?

Failing that the tracker/radio issue seems likely

[Hector]

Yep - this happened to me and I think it was due to leaving the IPOD in the dock.  I noticed that even when the car ignition is switched off, if the IPOD is left docked (ie red bar showing on IPOD) it seems to still charge  (and hence drain the battery).

Realise that it's not much of a drain, but since I stopped leaving the IPOD in the dock - no problems. 

[TagnuT]

Maybe your Golf is going out for trips at night, parking up next to the beach, listening to its own radio before returning home and resetting the miles

Are you sure when you return to the car in the mornings it's not just the "coming home" lights you've just activated?

Failing that the tracker/radio issue seems likely

You mean this:-   

http://www.night-driving.com/

[grantw]

Maybe your Golf is going out for trips at night, parking up next to the beach, listening to its own radio before returning home and resetting the miles

Are you sure when you return to the car in the mornings it's not just the "coming home" lights you've just activated?

Failing that the tracker/radio issue seems likely

ha haa ha!! yes sure the little b@gger is doing that too!

I think the Ipod may have somehting to do with it.. i.e its something new that was installed in the car recently.. but as you say, its only an ipod and that should not drain a battery in less than 10 hours.

the brake lights (including the high level LED) stay on, not the front lights etc, so not the see you home lights comign on..

car boooked into perth dealership tomorrow, will let you all know the outcome.

regards

g.

[08micsta]

GrantW.

Im not sure if this applies but in SA there was a recall on the batteries of our GTI's. My moms car did the same thing and apparently the cause is a faulty battery that makes the car do wonky things....

Not sure if Im much of a help but that could be a probable cause. IF you have the highline computer on our GTI then try resetting that. Perhaps the battery was changed or something and the computer is confussed.

Mike