Power Consumption: What is your idle current?

Hi,
I previously reported problems with the battery of my electric vehicle. I recently had a qualified electrician perform a quiescent current measurement. The result was 0.75mA, which is far too high in my and his opinion. I haven't made any modifications to the electrical system myself, so everything is original. If you remove the fuse for the interior lights (which are currently switched off), the quiescent current drops to 0.38mA, which is still high. (I'm aware that there's a relay for the interior lights that turns them on for 30 seconds.)
Otherwise, I did not have any consumers turned on during the measurement (the radio was off, although the MFD was on).
I'd be interested to know what the figure is for you guys.

Thank you in advance, Matthias.

Hello, so my Passat is drawing approximately 30mA of idle current.

Something seems to be wrong with your numbers: 0.75mA would be a great value, but it probably wouldn't occur in practice.

Or are you saying that 75mA is equal to 0.075A?
Or perhaps 750mA = 0.75A?? That would indeed be far too much!!

Okay, I understand. Please provide the German text you want me to translate, and I will replace "mA" with "A" as requested.

Hi.

On my prehistoric, bare-bones TDI, I can measure approximately 7.5 mA of continuous discharge.

Of that amount, the following applies to...
- The interior light consumes approximately 6.5 mA in standby mode.
- Instrument usage (LCD display, clock) approximately 1 mA.
- The leakage current of the LED diodes is approximately 40 µA.

Hi!

@matthiasTDI96:
Okay, 750mA is far too high for the actual idle current. The idle current should settle somewhere BELOW 35mA.

However, when taking measurements, it is important to note:
- Close the doors! (regardless of whether the interior light is on or off!)
-Fzg. Lock!
-Warten! Die Steuergeräte schalten sich zum Teil in verschiedenen Stufen in den Schlaf! Also Ampèremeter anschließen, Fzg. Verriegeln und mind. 20 Minuten abwarten. dabei natürlich nicht zwischendurch mal das Multimeter abklemmen oder so. Dann can be read.

Please let me know what you find out.

Best regards,
pretzelman01

Okay, I'm going to take another measurement using the 20-minute interval. After that, I want to disable the car by disconnecting the fuses in the fuse box, one by one, and then plug them back in, waiting a bit after each one. Since the Golf has the fuse box right in the dashboard, and you can only access it by opening the driver's door, I probably shouldn't plug in the fuses for the interior lights, alarm system, and central locking, right?

Hi!
Okay, so if you don't have any interior monitoring, I would just open the door and then bypass the door switch as if the door were closed. However, I don't know if the door switch is integrated into the lock (in which case you could manually lock it, for example, with a screwdriver), or if it's an external switch that you can simply press and somehow secure.

Good luck.

pretzel

I already mentioned that I received a new battery from VW (the ASZ is 13 months old and the battery was completely discharged). They also performed a quiescent current measurement, which yielded no results. I re-measured it myself and got a reading of approximately 124mA using an ALDI multimeter.
After a long search, I found that VW states that 25mA is the maximum value.

http://members.void.at/axel/Auto/Tips/Schaltplaene/Batterie%20entlaedt%20sich%20selbststaendig.pdf

I also tried the trick with the fuses, and it seems like the problem is related to the comfort control module: it affects the central locking, windows (4), and the remote control system, including the anti-theft alarm. Can anyone explain this?

The people at my VW dealership seem to understand even less about electrics than I do, and my knowledge is limited to reading a multimeter (or something like that).

Matthias.

Does the alarm system activate when the car is locked? If I remember correctly, this is indicated by the LED on the driver's door, which first blinks slowly and then quickly. Otherwise, I can imagine that a door or the hood might not be reported as "closed," which would prevent the system from going into sleep mode.
Or, to put it another way: Can you deliberately trigger the alarm system?

Okay, did you follow my instruction to close all doors, or simulate that, during the quiescent current measurement? I had forgotten: The hood is also monitored, so it should definitely be closed as well.


Best regards,
pretzel

My neural network seems to recall reading something about a software bug in the 'Komfort-STG' that prevents the deep-sleep mode, which manifests as increased quiescent current, leading to low battery life.

It would be a good idea to run a few search engine queries on that.

CU Gremlin.

Okay, I'll try that. The alarm system is working perfectly; it can be triggered (it only flashes when everything is okay when you lock it).

Okay, I'm going to search and hope to find something that will allow them to replace it, otherwise I'm worried about the winter!