Bloatbag Stu

Hello. OP here. Thank you everyone for your thoughts. I'm so car un-savvy that I don't even have a multimeter so I haven't investigated the drain myself, I only know that when the AA came out that the draw on the battery was considered in the normal range. ie just enough to power the alarm. The alarm, incidentally, I had fitted 10 years ago. This problem has only surfaced in the last 6 months. Excuse my ignorance, but if there is an intermittent drain on the battery that has gone undetected when the AA have conducted the tests, how would this explain the ruination of the battery after such a short period of time? The battery(s) don't seem to be able to hold a charge after this two week period. BTW the batteries have all been under warranty so I have inly paid for the original one but you can imagine that I was a bit sheepish when taking the fourth one back. PS on one occasion I made a point of letting the car idle for about an hour, and still the next day there was nothing in the battery so I don't think it can be caused purely through under-use. So to me the problem seems twofold; a) there is something draining power from the battery that has gone undetected, and b) something in the circuitry is damaging the battery.

Hi. I have an electrical fault with my G60 that I have owned for 16 years. I fully expect that it will need to be looked at by a specialist auto-electrician (particularly in view of my complete ignorance about car matters), but I thought I'd ask here for some insight so that I can at least be somewhat informed about what the problem could be. The problem has manifested itself in the following way; I install a brand new battery in the car. After approximately two weeks, the alarm starts sounding usually in the early hours of the morning, signaling that the battery is in the last throes of life. Sure enough in the morning the is not even enough power to activate the central locking. I call the AA for assistance and one of their operatives checks for any unusual parasitic drain. He can't find any. He checks the health of the alternator and finds that it is kicking out the correct amps consistently. It is. However when he hooks up the battery to his tester the printout tells us that the battery needs replacing. OK, I tell myself that I've been unlucky, and received a dud battery. So the supplier concedes that the battery is defective and they replace it. But the situation repeats itself verbatim. Actually, I've had four new batteries in succession and they've all shown up as defective after about two weeks. So I think that I can rule out a battery problem as the original source of the problem. I've also disconnected the alternator for a couple of days and the battery is still being drained. My worry is that if I have it seen to by an auto-electrician, that I will rack up a hefty bill in labour costs and still be none the wiser. Any Ideas folks?