Old RAV4 battery dead if left standing for a week.

[hans hass]

My RAV Battery dies if left standing for a week. It is draining current at 175mA. If my maths is correct that's about 29Amp hours in 7 days, so that's a significant amount. Don't know what is draining it as everything is switched off & all the doors are closed. Others have this problem. Any suggestions?

[FROSTYBALLS]

How old is the Battery? Once batteries go completely flat, there is often a problem with them holding charge.

[Rav Rob]

Maybe its just bad and its not the current drain, cars shutdown systems in stages, on some models it can take a surprisngly long time to reach fully asleep and even opening a door or a bonnet (alarm sensor) can wake some things up and the current rises again for a while.

If you can, setup the current meter, lock the car and don't touch anything for a couple of hours then take a reading. Many cars can get as low as 30mA after a while. Then you know if its just the dying Battery and not an unexpected drain.

[philip42h]

45 minutes ago, hans hass said:

It is draining current at 175mA

How are you measuring this current drain? 175mA seems rather high - you might expect 10-50mA depending on the number and nature of alarm, remote entry and such-like systems fitted to the car. If someone had foolishly hardwired a dash cam to be always on you'd probably get a drain like that (not suggesting that you have - just an example of a retrofit accessory that could cause an issue).

If there is nothing 'obvious' causing the drain, one would expect a partial short circuit 'somewhere' and the approach to find it would be to remove each of the fuses - starting with those on always on circuits - to identify which circuit was causing the drain ...

[Roger_N]

Will you mind trying it with car double locked, I.E. pushing the lock button twice within a couple of seconds and see if the drain is lower.