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[Dave DND]

I think the estate version is just a GSM aerial ?

But not sure what electronics may be lurking within the base ?

[Slowmo]

I have an Elite 3.0 mini-facelift, my quiescent current drain is about 35mA, pulsing up a few mA when the alarm LED flashes every couple of seconds.

[Perplexer]

Here are my own measurements on an Opel Omega B 2.0 16V year 1998 with the following equipment:

- X20XEV gas engine
- manual transmission
- central locking
- 4 x electrical windows
- 4 x airbag
- sunroof
- automatic 2-zone airconditioning
- aftermarket Pioneer radio
- NO car alarm
- NO rear sunscreen
- NO rear leveling

Here are two measurement steps I took with stage-by-stage results (the two are actually very similar, you will see the difference yourself in steps 8 and 9):

Measurement 1:

1.  car off, key extracted, doors closed (0.03 A)
2.  insert key (0.03 mA)
3.  turn key to position I (0,13 A)
4.  turn key back to position 0 (0,13 A) (I did this just to see what would happen, you can skip this stage)
5.  turn key to position II (contact, system wakes up) (fluctuates roughly between 3.0 A and 8.0 A)
6.  turn key back to position I (30 to 60 seconds at 0,80 mA because the system is still awake; when it goes to sleep it drops to 0.23 A)
7.  turn key to position 0 (still 0.23 A)
8a. extract key (0.13 A)
9a. open and close door (open door: 1.26 A; when closed, 5 seconds at 0.78 A since cabin lighting is ON, then drops to 0.03 A)

Measurement 2:

1.  car off, key extracted, doors closed (0.03 A)
2.  insert key (0.03 mA)
3.  turn key to position I (0,13 A)
4.  turn key back to position 0 (0,13 A) (I did this just to see what would happen, you can skip this stage)
5.  turn key to position II (contact, system wakes up) (fluctuates roughly between 3.0 A and 8.0 A)
6.  turn key back to position I (30 to 60 seconds at 0,80 mA because the system is still awake; when it goes to sleep it drops to 0.23 A)
7.  turn key to position 0 (still 0.23 A)
8b. open and close door (open door: 1.34 A; when closed, immediately drops to 0.13 A because cabin light goes OFF instantly since key is still in)
9b. extract key (drops to 0.03 A)

0.03 A (which is 30 mA) is that ideal/normal idle current draw a car like this should have. All the measurements were done on the 20 A setting
on the multimeter which means that miliampere measurements are only exact to within one-hundredth of an ampere. 0.03 A displayed on the multimeter can
therefore mean 30 mA or 39 mA. The actual exact value is somewhere in between. I did not do an exact mA measurement since this was exact enough.

So what is important to note is that if I park the car, turn it off, then exit it and leave the key in the ignition, the current drain will stay
rather high at 130 mA which is over 4 times as much as if I remove the key completely ! This test was carried out on a cold car that has been parked
for days. It is possible that if the test was carried out on a car that just returned from a drive and was still hot, the ammount of time after which
the system goes to sleep would be higher than 30 to 60 seconds. The current the system draws while awake could also be higher than 0.8 A since some
additional sensor could be active which was not active in my case when the car (engine) was cold. For example some temperature sensor controlling
and deciding whether the big fan in front of the engine should run again or not. I would imagine she system could keep this sensor active for longer
than 60 seconds after the car was turned off in hot summer days and that would also use more current. Whether the car doors were locked or not was
apparently not important in my case. Perhaps that would be important in the car had a car alarm in which case it would use more current when locked
because the alarm would be active.

Again, these are the measurements on my particular Omega but yours should be very similar. The idle drain should be around 30 mA to 50 mA on a
high-end Omega with car alarm. Anything over that, especially over 120 mA would mean something is wrong. Either something doesn't turn off or some
relay is bad or the computer control unit is bad (doesn't tell the relay to switch the circuit off after 60 seconds or so).

I also checked my alternator while I was at it. I connected my voltmeter to the battery which read 12.4 V when connected to the car and the car was off.
Then when I cranked the car, voltage momentarily dropped to 10.3 V. That's still OK. If it would drop bellow 10 V, or to around 9 V or less, that
would mean that although the battery still has good voltage (12.4 Vor even 12.7 V), it does no longer have enough power to do it's job in the car.
It is probably old and needs to be replaced. After the car was running, the voltage went up to 14.25 V. That's the voltage the alternator is putting
out to recharge the battery. When I turned on the lights it dropped to 14.14 V and when I turned on the airconditioning it dropped to 13.95 V.
So that would be the voltage my alternator was at when I was driving around. It's actually pretty good, especially since I mostly take short drives
in the city. Otherwise the alternator voltage should be between 13 V and 14 V.

Hope this info helps you guys.