Nemo battery draining

[Sl4yer]

Hi.

The Mother-in-law has had some issues with her Nemo. It's a 1.4 petrol (09 plate I think). She's had it about a year.

A couple of months ago, she went to start it, and it wouldn't go. The AA were called, who fitted a new battery. (I could mention at this point that I said the same would happen unless the root cause of the drain was tackled, but I won't ) Needless to say, they contacted the Cit dealer they bought it from, to be told that the battery wasn't covered by warranty (no great surprise there). They eventually contacted Citroen UK, who told them to get the old battery back from the AA, send it to Slough, and they'd look at it.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago it wouldn't start again. The dealer told them that under no circumstances should they let the AA change the battery again, and to recover it to the dealer. I haven't heard the complete story yet (there was a suggestion that the boot catch was releasing, possibly lighting the interior light) but the dealer has sent it back today saying that absolutely nothing is wrong with it! I can see this ending up in court, and without doubt it will be another customer who tells everyone they know never to buy a Citroen because they're crap.

I know it's a long shot, but has anyone had experience with battery drain on Nemos (or Berlingos too I suppose)? It could be something simple, but then you'd expect the dealer to find that, wouldn't you?!

Thanks,

James

[spider]

Could be anything, its not unknown for batteries to develop a faulty cell and drain themselves over a short time period though, I had one that would go flat if left (even off the car) for three days.

The interior light theory is quite plausible though generally, it won't be a massive drain or it would be flat overnight.

What's needed is a check of the current drain with everything switched off that normally would be, any more than say 100ma, maybe 200ma is probably a bit too much.

Rarer are internal faults in the alternator rectifier diodes, if one of these fail it will still charge but when not running will run the battery down.

I'd start with a simple current drain check myself.