2006 Jetta battery drain

I changed the battery Friday 12/10/10 for the first time and now for some reason it draws power thru the radio fuse now continusly. It pulls any where from 2 to 4 amps no matter if the radio is on or off or even if the key is off and pulled out of the car. It has the factory 6 disk indash CD player radio in it. As long as the fuse is pulled I have no battery draw until I put it back in and then Bang there goes the power draw again. Any info offerd to check for solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Do a search. Very common, you have an internal problem in the Delphi-supplied radio.

So if I replace the factory radio with an aftermarket unit problem should be solved? The factory unit I have looks pretty worn down. Most of the buttons have flakes off.

Kyle'sJet said:

So if I replace the factory radio with an aftermarket unit problem should be solved? The factory unit I have looks pretty worn down. Most of the buttons have flakes off.

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Yep, it should fix your problem. There is a fuse in the underhood fuse panel you can remove to isolate the radio. There is a TSB about checking battery drains, # 27-07-11, you can google search that number and you should get some more information.

Your local dealer can order you a new radio based on your VIN. I would NOT recommend an aftermarket radio due to the finicky CAN bus systems in these cars.

which fuse I have the same problem cars sits for more than 12 hours battery will be dead. i tried them all none stopped the drain

I believe it is the R8 fuse. 15 amp

Same problem with my car. Yesterday the car would not start after work. I had noticed for the past week or so, when it was really cold in the morning, the car would start like the battery was weak. I thought it was the cold weather. Reading this post and a few others, I checked the power drain on fuse 19 (15 amp), which on my 2005.5 is the radio fuse.
With the car off, and not is sleep mode, there was a draw of about 4mv. Most of the other fuses were zero or .1/.2mv.

I pulled the fuse for the night to see if the car will start in the morning.

What other devices does fuse 19 protect?

The next morning the Jetta started. Let the car sit for another day with the fuse out, and it did not start. Could be another circuit causing an electrical drain, or a faulty door harness as I have read elsewhere. Decided to take the battery back to Sams Club, where I purchased, and have them test it. They determined that the battery was bad, and replaced it.

The new battery died the other day (about 2 weeks old). Since replacing the battery, I have been monitoring the power level of the battery, and checking the car circuits for a drain. May still have a battery drain, to test, I pulled the fuse, and will check the battery later.

Besides the radio, are there any other circuits that are know to drain the battery?

Replaced the radio with one purchased from a local auto recycler. It is from a 2006 Passat, same Premium 7 radio, same model number plus a letter designation. Saved about $50 vs purchasing from an Internet vendor. I hope I get several years (at least) of service. It did need the radio code from dealer to activate.

After intstalling the radio, I checked the electric drain across fuse #19. After the car sat for about 2 hours, there was Zero draw.

One note, the faceplate of the used radio was dirty and scratched. I was able to carefully remove the faceplates from the two radios to put my clean faceplate on the replacement.

Sweet! Glad you got it fixed.

when you say the finicky can bus, what on earth are you talking about

Sella Turcica said:

when you say the finicky can bus, what on earth are you talking about

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The Controller Area Network your car, and pretty much every other car built in the last 5 - 10 years has linking all of its control modules together.

Google found me this:

http://www.canbus.us/

If you'd like to read further...

Battery drain

Battery drain is common in VW jetta 2005.5 to 2009, the car has CAN GATEWAY that checks all components that are connected to it, and if the return code is not what it expect it will keep all the systems awake. The radio by nature pulls more power than any other component in the car. Buying a new radio may not completely fix your problem. Check this link http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=303186&highlight=battery+drain it may help you find the solution.

My 2000 Golf has a CAN gateway, too. It just does not have the problematic Delphi radio that the A5 cars do. Even many newer GM cars' radios have the same problem. It is the radio. The Chevrolet Outlook (fugly facelifted Venture) and clones seems to be one of the worst for this, but I have also seen it on G6s, Impalas, and HHRs. Funny, you put crappy GM parts in a Volkswagen and they do the same thing as they do in crappy GM cars: die.

(FWIW, VAG is no longer using Delphi radios, and Delphi was also who supplied the first round brake lamp switches that were recalled).

ok - so when we say finicky can bus, does it mean that I can blow up the aftermarket stereo by using my VAGCOM (or something silly like that)? Or does it just mean I can't read aftermarket radio codes. Sorry for being a dumb*ss but this is my newest car, and the toyota is like duplo blocks, you can't screw it up.

Well, Toyota's also have a CAN-bus. And they pretty much work the same way now, since SAE decided the German Bosch protocols were the best. But anyways, the CAN system goes through the factory radio. The factory radio is just another module on the CAN.

Think of CAN as a LAN in your home or office (Local Area Network) in which all the PCs link together and communicate.

If the actual paired wires that carry the CAN data are not attached correctly (or bypassed) when a non-factory radio is installed, it can 'short out' the entire CAN bus, then the system cannot function properly and the modules won't be able to communicate properly with each other. Since the system can operate in 1-wire mode as a failsafe, most things will still work, but all the modules will be setting communications faults like mad, and some functions may be limited. You may also find a warning lamp staring you in the face. But keep in mind, not all modules can call for help, as they do not all have a warning lamp. The engine does (MIL), and the auto trans controller can generally send a signal to the engine controller to send a signal for MIL request to the cluster, so in a roundabout way, the TCM can call for help via the ECU too. ABS has its own lamp, SRS does, and so does the electro-steering (on cars so-equipped). But your CCM does not, nor does your audio system. That is where a scan tool comes in.

The CAN system has a CAN gateway, which is sorta like a router or switch on a LAN system, and it also is the liason via the scan tool to the other modules via the CAN bus. If you want to communicate via scan tool to the engine ECU, you actually talk to the CAN gateway, which in turn talks to the engine controller.

An aftermarket radio won't have any OBD intergrated into the car's CAN bus, so there won't be any communication with it, and various other modules in the car may set a DTC for "no communication with radio" but that won't necessarily cause any problems.

I hope I am making some sense....

wow that sounds like a nightmare. I understand the CAN/LAN analogy but I'm still fuzzy on whether installing an aftermarket stereo + using VCDS can actually hurt something.

Sella Turcica said:

wow that sounds like a nightmare. I understand the CAN/LAN analogy but I'm still fuzzy on whether installing an aftermarket stereo + using VCDS can actually hurt something.

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No, it was a nightmare BEFORE CAN, it is nice and simple now, as you can actually USE the OBD better.

There should be no problem with an aftermarket radio so long as it is properly installed, and the CAN wires are not shorted to power or anything silly like that. I've never seen the need for an aftermarket radio myself, but I am not a big audiophile either. So I cannot comment on the specifics of how it should be done, but it can be done.

The Jetta did not start this morning. It has been a week since I installed the new radio. When I scanned the car yesterday using VCDS, I noticed that there were a number of Radio errors, the treble and bass speaker errors, since I also have the Sound System errors treble speaker rear left and right errors (that do not seem to affect anything), I ignored the errors.

This evening after jumping the car in the morning to get to work and jumping it to get home, I put the battery on a charger, and was able to get the charge up to 12.50. The car started and drove fine.

After reading the fourms about the Radio treble and bass speaker errors, I found that I should check the coding of the radio. After changing the coding from 0040400 to 0040420, the radio errors would not return when cleared. Adding the 2 to the coding indicates that the Jetta is a "Sound System with Leather Interior (with Open Circuit Recognition)" vs. "No Sound System (No Correction)".

I hope this cures the drain (this time).

The car cranked this morning. But the temp was only 40 F.

I pulled radio fuse car started for a couple weeks now back at square one battery dead after 10 or so hours of sitting. Checked wires no broken wires. Anyone have anymore suggestions of what this could be. oh yea battery is 2 months old.

Scan your car using VCDS, if there are any faults found (probably would not turn on the MIL light), the faults are keeping the computer awake, causing the drain. Recoding my radio removed the radio errors, and I also fixed the broken wires in the driver door harness that cleared the CAN Gateway error (Combination comfort Databus in Single Wire).

If VCDS does not show any faults, have the charging system tested.

checked radio fuse after 2 hrs of sitting with and it was pulling 3.1mV which acorrding to the tsb matrix seen on here converted to 702mA so I think it is my radio. If i get a new radio will I have to get all codes cleared if there is any to get this drain to stop

If you install a new/used factory radio, you will need the radio code. If the radio code is not included with the radio, the dealer can provide the code based on the serial number of the radio. Depending on the dealer, and your relationship with the parts manager/clerk, there may or may not be a charge for this. The radio code is entered via the station selection buttons; VCDS is not needed.

I used this thread to remove the radio. Be careful prying up the top vent screen, the plastic clips that hold it down are along the right and left side, and they will break easly.
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=176218&highlight=radio+Balance+Problem

After installing the radio, you probably/should use VCDS to clear any faults and recode the radio to the car. The coding covers speaker monitoring, passive speakers, sound correction, and connections. Not sure what all the options mean. Changing the coding to match the car options prevented the radio faults from returning.

maddogg10mm said:

I'm having a similar issue with the brake lights coming on when the temp gets around freezing or below. It is always at night or early in the morning before the sun comes up. I have caught it a few times when leaving for work. What could be the cause of this? Brake light switch?

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Do a search, as this is well documented and unrelated to this thread.

what about getting a aftermarket radio then maybe this wont happen again or will a aftermarket make other things go hay wire.

Now you got me wondering. Our 2006 TDI just died a couple times.

I'm having an issue with our 2006 Jetta TDI also. The battery keeps going down. I recharged the battery and had it tested and it seems to be good. I ran a parasitic draw test but I'm getting a 0.5 mV reading across every fuse. Battery was at 13.5 volts last night and is at 12.5 today.

Hood and driver's door are open but the latches are latched and the alarm is set during the test. The front passenger door actuator does not lock/unlock with the remote or open from the outside but I manually locked it and the horn sounds when I set the alarm.

The car does have an aftermarket Blaupunkt radio that I installed a couple of years ago. We've never had an issue until recently although my son has had the car at college and it can sit for weeks at a time without being started.