6 week old Battery dead

[OSB]

It's relatively easy to check if you have a constant drain from the battery - if you know your way round a digital multi meter.
If not, I suggest you go to either a good garage or an  Auto Electrician, who can check out the drain / charging for you.
I don't know where you are based, but I can give you the name of an excellent guy in Woking.
Not having a car you can rely on is a real pain!

[Airz182]

It's relatively easy to check if you have a constant drain from the battery - if you know your way round a digital multi meter.
If not, I suggest you go to either a good garage or an  Auto Electrician, who can check out the drain / charging for you.
I don't know where you are based, but I can give you the name of an excellent guy in Woking.
Not having a car you can rely on is a real pain!

Cheers mate im in manchester! Ive tried to have a go with a multimeter. But cannot work out which setting it should be on! Next step is probably to pass it on to auto electricion

[OSB]

No problem! Have a Google round - there is bound to be an Auto Electrician up there. 

[Dan_FR]

Have a read of this. Written for the mk4 Golf but the principle is the same
http://uk-mkivs.net/topic/10775-how-do-i-test/

[Airz182]

Cheers mate, will give it a read. Just gone to start it again and its flat. Totally peed off with it now!

[Airz182]

Would a vds scan show anything?

[wombar]

Sorry to hear you're still having issues. VCDS will potentially show an error, but it's not necessarily going to tell you what's causing it. My battery needed replacing, and I was getting low voltage errors through vcds, but it could have been something else causing it. It was just an old battery, which isn't your problem.

Doing a simple multimeter test (as shown in that link) would be my first stop. That'll give you an idea of whether your alternator is okay. Then it would be a case of finding what is draining the battery.

Working a multimeter isn't hard, just do a quick Google 

[Flyingscotsman]

Sorry to hear your woes. It does sound like you may have damaged the alternator with the power washing.From what you say it sounds like it is not charging. i.e works ok for 2 days with new battery then dead even after a jump start.

A VCDS scan should pick up an alternator fault.

Alternatively if you have a multimeter put it across battery in Volts mode, with engine running you should get reading of around 14 volts with electrics off. If you get 12volts or less alternator is not working.

[Airz182]

So far car has started everytime since last posting, so fingers crossed it stays that way!

[Airz182]

Right after my flat battery issue i got a new replacement battery, all has been fine for 3weeks now its flat again!
Looking through various posts ive come across 2 things,
1: the rcd510 headunits sometimes not turning off?? So i startes looking through my fuses in the driverside fuse box, looking for the stereo fuse, took every fuse out and the stereo still
Stayed on?
2: the gti is supposed to be fittes with a 72ah battery
Just checked mine and its a 50ah battery.

[Dan_FR]

That is the battery capacity. Yours is under spec yes, but it should still not run flat overnight. Even a 50ah battery should last weeks without starting the car. You have a significant battery drain issue, have you looked in to this with the multimeter yet?
When was the RCD fitted and what gateway do you have? part number?

[Airz182]

The rcd unit was fotted a year ago and i updated the canbus with a later one, and had it coded. I only tested the alternator which i was getting 14v from. My multimeter wouldnt go low enough to measure amp draw.
A mechanic seems to think the alternator could
Be decharging the battery? He hasnt looked at it. (Nobody seems to want to!)

[Dan_FR]

It is possible, a bad diode could cause it, along with anything else in the electrical system. You either need to get a better multimeter (£10 Maplin jobbies are more than enough for this) or you need to get an auto-electrician to look at it rather than a mechanic