Battery draining

[Oma]

Hello I am new to fordowners club 

I have a Ford kuga 64 reg Diesel in January the battery kept draining so had to get in the car with manual key then jump start as often as once a week . Garage suggested a new battery and possibly a new bluetooth module which might be draining the battery . New battery purchased and module renewed . Recently in the last 2 months the battery has been draining again so car returned to garage but they have found no solution 

Has anyone got any suggestions please ? 

[Luke4efc]

You need to do a parasitic draw test.

Get a multimeter, remove the negative terminal and put one lead on the battery terminal and the other lead on the negative cable. Set your multimeter to amps and check how much current you have. My guess is you'll have a draw above 200mA if your battery keeps going flat.

Start removing fuses 1 by 1 till the current drops off, then you've identified the circuit at fault.

When you do the test, make sure the doors are locked, all lights etc. are switched off and you've left the car for half an hour ish. You'll get a false reading if you don't, as some of the modules will be awake and drawing current.

Unless you do this test you're just guessing as to what's at fault.

[Oma]

Thank you for the prompt reply 

I am over 70 years of age so really do not know what a multimeter is and sounds complicated with instructions 

 

[Oma]

Surely a Ford garage would have at least looked into that power drain issue 

The garage did replace the bluetooth module originally 

[williamweb]

1 minute ago, Oma said:

Surely a Ford garage would have at least looked into that power drain issue 

The garage did replace the Bluetooth module originally 

How often are you using your vehicle ? Are you travelling on short trips or long trips?

[Luke4efc]

23 minutes ago, Oma said:

Thank you for the prompt reply 

I am over 70 years of age so really do not know what a multimeter is and sounds complicated with instructions 

If you can't carry out the test then you're just guessing at faults (that's if there is one!). You're best just finding another garage who knows what they're doing.

22 minutes ago, Oma said:

Surely a Ford garage would have at least looked into that power drain issue 

The garage did replace the Bluetooth module originally

Who knows 🤷‍♂️. Did the garage tell you that it's faulty or did they guess because it's common?

[Oma]

We use the car at least once a week on short trips then once a month on longer trip 

[williamweb]

On 7/16/2021 at 8:31 PM, Oma said:

We use the car at least once a week on short trips then once a month on longer trip 

Using your car every 7 days doing a short trip and then a long trip every month, isn’t ideal in my opinion.
You could use a battery charger and trickle charge in between the times your not using it, if you have off road parking to fully charge your battery.

You could find an auto-electrician that specialises in diagnosing.

 

[Luke4efc]

9 minutes ago, Oma said:

We use the car at least once a week on short trips then once a month on longer trip 

That's probably not helping. All cars have a small draw on the battery, but because most get used every day it's not a problem. Leave it for a week and the alternator has to do more work to recharge the battery. If you only do short trips, you don't give it time to re-charge properly which can lead to premature battery failure.

Then again you could still have a large parasitic draw so if you definitely think there's a problem you need to get it looked at.