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[TheBoy]

To test if its the actual door switches, remove them all and waterproof them as best you can and tape them to the A/B pillars for a week.  Does the situation improve?

[Nick W]

as does changing the battery every month

But a necessary evil during the pandemic

Remember once you let a lead acid battery heavily discharge, its oppsed. Bust. Kaput. Shagged. Buggered. Screwed.  You may be able to get some charge into it to make it possibly appear otherwise, but its still oppsed. Bust. Kaput. Shagged. Buggered. Screwed.

And no amount of Ctek* conditioning will make it anything other than oppsed. Bust. Kaput. Shagged. Buggered. Screwed.


Did I mention that heavily disaharging a car battery leaves it in a state of oppsed. Bust. Kaput. Shagged. Buggered. Screwed.

Additionally, leaving a car battery partially disacharged for long periods (couple of weeks) leaves it oppsed. Bust. Kaput. Shagged. Buggered. Screwed.


*Other better brands available that claim similar, but once you have a battery to this state, its oppsed. Bust. Kaput. Shagged. Buggered. Screwed.

We've been trying to explain this to a friend who does about 4000miles a year spread across three cars. It's not uncommon for none of them to start due to battery faults.


She can't accept that the best thing to do would be to get rid of two of the cars, and won't accept her use is why she's killing new batteries. She claims to be a chemist, but I suspect she was actually one of the worst sort of managers: no practical ability and a closed mind.

[Doctor Gollum]

The Barge clearly doesn't leak ekectrickery at the rate an Omega does... Or it's got a magic self charging ekectron box

Three days unused was about the limit of the Omega

[TheBoy]

The Barge clearly doesn't leak ekectrickery at the rate an Omega does... Or it's got a magic self charging ekectron box

Three days unused was about the limit of the Omega

My Omegas have always lasted about 4-6 weeks before flattening the battery enough that it struggles to start.  Any car not managing 4 weeks has a fault.

Obviously, you don't ever want to do this, as you will shag the battery.

[VXL V6]

I have exactly the same issue on the daily. I know the car is suffering from damp issues as the same rust is evident as others have seen. Originally problem was dashcam staying on (it's hard wired to the rear 12V socket) so obviously the multi-timer wasn't timing out, this has got slowly worse with alarm triggering (no PS so not a problem really!) at random times and now I have the same courtesy light and dash rheostat problems as others.

I've checked the door and boot switches (both terminals) and they all check out ok for continuity and are dry so i've just done the same as others and just disconnected the courtesy light for now, car will be scrapped when it approaches the next MOT (Nov) so i'm not precious about fixing it but would like to get it to 250K (7 to go LOL) just because.....

I suspect when the car is fully dried out the problem will go away, but would be interested to check out the blue wire cam.in.head has mentioned just by way of diagnosis - i've not looked at the loom yet but presume it's the only blue wire there? or are there other blues with traces on them?

[cam.in.head]

hi.
it was the solid blue wire that went up into the drivers door connector plug. i actually disconnected mine where a bunch of them join up behind the passenger footwell( just in the loom above the big connectors)they all terminate there for some reason other than to waste wire !
that was on mine and has been fine since.( its still disconnected actually but everything works !)
obviously yours may not be the same but it was on mine.
various suggestions were offered to me which i went through and i found it in the end.
this 'blue' wire tells the ecu that the door is open so can have various effects on things that go live when the door is open and should 'time out' when its shut. if it has a partial short due to damp it can be enough to make the car think the door is opening and closing at various times !
if you remove your drivers side kickpanel trim you should see the wire and be able to produce enough slack so you could try cutting it .( rejoin it again if it isnt the fault !) if you want.

[VXL V6]

Cheers, if it's not raining at the weekend i'll take a look 

[cam.in.head]

let us know what you find.
im curious as a few people have recently had the same issue

[relluf]

Mine must be drying out a little as the seat has now started working again and we appear to be staying ahead of any battery drain.
Still a little confused about it all ,puddle lights don't come on when first open door unless car is running,but come on when you stop and get out.
Still left the bulbs out.

[VXL V6]

Floor is wet on both sides of mine so think best place to cut is where you have cam.in.head. Difficulty is tracing which blue goes to drivers door

[Doctor Gollum]

If you've a water leak, that might be more of a priority 

[VXL V6]

If you've a water leak, that might be more of a priority 

Not for this car, it'll be scrapped if anything fails (*) which I can't repair free / cheaply by myself before the next MOT (Nov) and it won't be presented for the next MOT anyway, it's served it's purpose now 

* Including catching fire through a short circuit, acts of God, Perils of the Sea and Air, acts of terrorism, freaks of nature etc etc. 

Agreed the only long term / car preservation solution is to fix the bulkhead rust issues that all these cars are now seeing so I guess i'll be looking into that on at least one of the other two over the summer period to see if they are suffering and what can be done. I also had the drivers door card off to check in there and that was quite damp (heavy rain last night) but accessing the blue wire in there is limited.

[VXL V6]

Identifying the correct wire at drivers kick panel area (Not fussed about this car so happy to scrape the insulation off the cable), I was too lazy to take the door loom plug off 


Identifying the correct wire at passenger kick panel area


Some crappy soldering while the weather decided to hail on me 


Heat shrinked and tucked away again

[cam.in.head]

You didn't need to cut it at both ends if it was just the section up to the door but the question is  .......... Did it sort it ? Or is it another issue ?

[VXL V6]

You didn't need to cut it at both ends if it was just the section up to the door but the question is  .......... Did it sort it ? Or is it another issue ?

It's not actually cut at both ends, just the insulation peeled back at drivers side so I could check for continuity to identify the correct blue at the passenger side 

So the interior light now goes off, the buzzing when adjusting the rheostat has gone, i've popped the fuse back in the hardwire (off the rear 12V socket) for the dashcam and that has gone off after the multi timer has timed out so will keep an eye over the next few days and see if the dashcam powers back up at random intervals etc.