Something hinky is going on with Jetta battery circuits. My 2013
TDi is sitting in the driveway with dead battery, I have had two
jump starts in the week before parking it.
I rented another Jetta in Mexico recently--woke up to a dead
battery one morning in La Paz, got blamed by the rental agency
(Cactus, at Cabo airport) and had to buy a battery which wasn't
reimbursed. The battery guy who sold me the new one said VW
puts 1-year and 2-year batteries in their new cars.
The web (and hemisphere!) is chock-a-block full of people trying
to find the cause of their dead Jetta batteries--suspects are the
radio, a short in the automatic door locks, probably a lot of other
things like, in your case, apparently lights.
All I know is, since it died at home this time, I disconnected the
battery and tried to charge it overnight. The green eye was dark.
Charging topped up at 12.5 and started losing charge
immediately when I removed the charger. That battery is dead!
I'm surprised that it went dead so abruptly, it didn't get weaker
over weeks or months, it just went dead three times in a week. I
think the problem is a drain, probably a intermittent short, that
does the battery in quickly when it gets jiggled and shorts out.
After charging I immediately wanted to start it (before it went
dead). Having had two jumps this week it seems it can run with a
dead battery, so I don't think the charging system is bad. As soon
as I connected the battery to the engine cables, I could hear a
click down low between engine and firewall. I put my ammeter
between the (+) cable and battery-- it was drawing 2 Amps with
EVERYTHING OFF. Battery was dead again in matter of
minutes. It was far to weak to start the car. I think the click I heard
was a solenoid, or maybe a relay.
My car is keyless locks/ignition and depends on power for
steering lock. It is pointed the wrong way in my driveway to be
towed (pointed nose in) and the manual says do not tow with rear
wheels lifted. I am trying to return this car to the dealer on the
buy-back program, they say it must be in running conditions
when they buy it back.
In so may ways I love this car. But having this problem and
seeing people describing the same basic problem here, going
back 16 years!! tells me Volkswagen has its head wedged, they
are rather badly gouging their loyal customers with expensive
and inconvenient troubleshooting in each case, instead of fixing
the bad design that is causing it.
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