Hello,

I came across this recently, I have the car for 4 years now and there weren't any issues like this before. I bought a Motorcraft battery in January and by April it was dead. I went to the local mechanic where it got measured and diagnosed that the battery was faulty because it's not getting up the charge 2 times out of 3 measures. I got a new battery a Varta, I have it since April and today it was dead. The interesting part is when I turned the key not a single sound came from the engine, but a strange one coming from under the glove box like a long humming sound and it hummed until I turned off the key. What can possibly drain the car for a period of weeks to flat out the battery? I was thinking about the factory Sony CD radio, because it always "dimms" just before it happens and the dashboard is crystal clear and everything electric works fine.

Any ideas?

 

Thank you!

If the Motorcraft battery was faulty in only a few months why did it not get replaced under warranty free of charge ?

It was a 43Ah one and I thought first that my car "accidentally" killed it and I requested and got a refund, then bought the Varta which is 60Ah.

Have you had the alternator tested ? what voltage is the battery at just after you switch off ?

If your car has the original alternator fitted then it could well be on its way out.

I don't have the measurements but the mechanic said the alternator is fine. By the way yes I have this one for 15 years now. However, there is charge coming from the alternator.

I've read in another topic that the factory radio was the issue and if you don't dial in the code the radio will not start to communicate with the system. I try this for tonight, did not enter the code, let's see what happens in the morning. 

What you need to do is remove the negative lead on the battery, get a multimeter set to amps, and put one probe on the negative battery terminal and the other to the negative lead. Ensure the car is locked and all accessories are switched off. Then measure the current draw.

If the current is high then start removing fuses 1 by 1 until that current draw drops off. At least then you can narrow down the fault to 1 circuit instead of just guessing that it's your radio at fault.

That's a bit like the power going off in your house and replacing your cooker because that's what someone on the Internet did when their power went off...

Okey that's a reasonable solution, I'm going to try this and fetch a multimeter from a friend. Thanks I get back with the results in the days.

Any one want to buy a cooker ?

I have this problem at the moment.

on Saturday i'd been using the car for most of the morning, only switching it off 2 or 3 times, popped to B&Q in the afternoon, came out and the battery was completely dead! dash lit up but that was about it! jump started and it fired up straight away. drove 20 miles, parked up and it started Sunday and Monday with no problems at all. But then this morning when i came out, completely dead again!

any ideas/suggestions?

2011 1.6d

I’d try what Luke said above, that’s a great start! 
For me I checked in the morning that my IC display is still on and read that it is a common fault in the mk2, so I might have the issue…but the question now is how to fix that ^^