Bongo Fury

We came to start the Bongo last week after a weeks rest and the battery was flat. At first we thought it was a duff battery but it holds a charge when not connected to the van, also it was brand new in February. So I interposed a multimeter between the battery negative terminal and the negative connector and, with everything turned off, there was a reading in excess of 250mA. In fact the meter went off the scale. The next step was to remove the fuses one at a time to try and isolate the drain. I checked all the fuses and did not isolate the problem. The only other thing is the alternator diode pack but with the engine running the alternator is putting out 14.5V and a half hour run has put the battery up to 12.82V. The only things we have changed from the van as converted are the addition of an alarm system, radio/satnav, and a tow bar. The van has a side conversion with a 240V hook up which does not have a battery charging facility. The van has a split charge system fitted and the leisure battery holds it's charge. I've now run out of options. Any ideas??

Does the radio go fully off when the keys are taken out? I re-wired mine so it went completely off when ign was off. Seemed to fix my probs, I also have. Leisure battery setup. My alarm and immobiliser are the only other guilty party and they come from the starter battery and use very little current.

The radio is wired so that we can use it with the ignition off. Can a radio on standby cause such a large battery drain?

The Aldi/Lidl ones are noted for a large draw when off.

Whip the in line fuse out of it and check.

Looks like the radio isn't powering down. The engineer that installed it is coming over to take a look. Thanks for your help.

Hopefully that will sort it. My van just stood for 8 weeks with the alarm and immobiliser on and fired 1st time. Before I separated my radio it was flat if I left it over a week.