What did you do to your MK7 today?

740GLE

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
Location
NH
TDI
2015 Passat SEL, 2017 Alltrack SE; BB 2010 Sedan Man; 2012 Passat,
Used my Fluke to find a parasitic draw on my battery. The battery is new. The engine was slow cranking after only a week of sitting dormant. After two weeks, nothing and the multimeter showed 3V on the battery. Recharged fully and drove it around a bit. One week later, again with the slow cranking and ultimately failed to start. Waited for the whirrz, bells, and whistles to stop after hooking up the multimeter in series to check amperage, the car was pulling 260 to 320 mA with nothing on. Started pulling fuses and the draw dropped to 20 to 80 mA when I pulled fuse 46 (110V AC outlet in the back). Years ago I added a USB and DC power adapter to this circuit and routed under the back seat for the kids to use on trips. Tomorrow I will see if this is shorted out or if something failed on the converter itself.
If you drew down the battery to 3v, you have another problem vs a little parasitic draw.

How long did you wait for the BCM to go to sleep before doing parasitic draw test?
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
If you pull the factory display and the centre vents, there's gobs of room back there to route the wires. You can then have the wires come out through a little groove you can made in the bezel for the hazard lights switch. I did this for routing the USB-C cable for my MagSafe phone mount that sits in the vent. Much better than wires dragging all across the front of the centre stack there.
 

thundershorts

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jul 15, 2010
Location
west chester pa
TDI
2015 passat tdi sel premium 2015 golf s tdi gls tdi b5.5, 2002 eurovan,Peugeot 505 td,Citroen cx25 prestige
simple enough to just put switch in the rear circuit. If bat voltage dropped to 3v, the battery is most likely damaged as its not a deep discharge design so be prepared to have to replace it.
 

Cuzoe

Veteran Member
Joined
May 24, 2017
Location
Los Angeles
TDI
MK7 Golf S
Yup, that battery is unlikely to recover... time to go Lithium, haha, as I will be doing come January...
 

pedroYUL

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2011
Location
MI, USA
TDI
2015 Passat CVCA; 2015 GSW CRUA; 2012 wagon CJAA; 2004 wagon BEW
No way I would go from a 61Ah battery to a mere 12Ah, sounds like a painful way to find out it doesn't work well during a winter trip out of town.

I actually went from a 61Ah to a 72Ah battery (same one in the 2015 Passat SE).
 

Cuzoe

Veteran Member
Joined
May 24, 2017
Location
Los Angeles
TDI
MK7 Golf S
It's roughly equivalent to a 45Ah traditional battery. You won't want to sit around running the radio all morning I suppose. Although that's not something I do with my current AGM battery.
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
Not the Mk7 Golf, but MQB car, so I'm putting it here anyway...
Wife's 2016 A3 e-tron: Almost exactly two years since discovering this (literal) rat's nest under the hood...


..I open the hood to discover that the Bounce sheets I put in there to keep the varmints at bay have been put to use as building material.

(weird, though, that the black insulation-looking stuff isn't from the car (that I could find anyway). Figured it'd be hood insulation, but that's completely different stuff and the hood insulation is 100% intact. Was under the car doing oil change and didn't see anything there either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Anyway, no more "playing nice" from me; brought out the heavy hitter.
 

RIP TDI

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 16, 2000
Location
Santa Barbara, CA
TDI
'15 GSW SE 6MT...... '01 Golf GLS 5MT.... '96 Passat Variant....
Not the Mk7 Golf, but MQB car, so I'm putting it here anyway...
RE: the black stuff - check your neighbor's hood or firewall insulation. I have 3 cars stored outside side-by-side. The rats have come up with a very artsy mix-and-match upholstery scheme!

As for prevention, have you tried leaving the hood open when parked (if security and climate permit)? That's worked the best of everything I've tried.
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron

codyayrton

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 16, 2014
Location
Bend, Oregon
TDI
2011 Jetta Sportwagen TDI 6M (sold to VW), 2015 Golf S Sportwagen TDI 6M
If you drew down the battery to 3v, you have another problem vs a little parasitic draw.

How long did you wait for the BCM to go to sleep before doing parasitic draw test?
I was elk hunting so it sat two weeks. When I do the math, it seems reasonable that the 230mA parasitic draw would drain the H6 battery to 3V. I know it was 230mA because when I removed and replaced the fuse multiple times, it changed the draw that much each time. Then after removing the problem, my parasitic draw dropped to only 26mA.

I walked away with the multimeter connected several minutes, maybe more than an hour to allow the BCM to go to sleep prior to testing the draw.
 
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740GLE

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Aug 19, 2009
Location
NH
TDI
2015 Passat SEL, 2017 Alltrack SE; BB 2010 Sedan Man; 2012 Passat,
more of permanent damage has been done to the battery, while it was able to take a charge, I wouldn't expect the battery to last long.

Anything under 10V is damage territory.
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
RE: the black stuff - check your neighbor's hood or firewall insulation. I have 3 cars stored outside side-by-side. The rats have come up with a very artsy mix-and-match upholstery scheme!
Your suggestion reminded me of where I'd seen that insulation before - the belly pan of my Mk7 TDI (see - I knew I could bring it around to "what did I do to my Mk7 today" :D ). Shined a flashlight down in there, but didn't notice anything. But dropped one of those bait blocks down into the belly pan anyway just as a preventative measure.

Opened the hood today (30hrs later) and the block was mostly gone; what was left was up by the battery tray, and it looked like Mr. Vermin got hisself a nasty case of the upchucks.
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
As for prevention, have you tried leaving the hood open when parked (if security and climate permit)? That's worked the best of everything I've tried.
Not really an option where we live - cars parked outside, at least 200mm of rain per month through the winter (hence the critters looking for a place to camp out, I think). If this doesn't work, next step is to trap one and then post its carcass on a stake in front of the car. (jk of course)
 

GolfSW98

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 8, 2021
Location
USA
TDI
MK7 TDI
After failing to retrofit the VW front exhaust tunnel aero cover myself, noticing some funky stuff with the font subframe alignment I got one done at a trusted local shop. They moved the subframe slightly and found out the subframe collars(?) were flipped (left on right and vice versa) LOL. Cover fits perfectly now. Dealer must have goofed up. Car drives better than before Phase 2, always good to know a local reputable shop.
 

tdidieselbobny

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 4, 2005
Location
Stafford,NY (WNY)
TDI
'03 Galactic Blue Jetta TDI, '15 Silk Blue Golf Sportwagen TDI
Scheduled my 80k service online at VW of Orchard Park for 1/5/22. Checked dealer where I bought car from and service advisor no longer there, he went to BMW dealer down the road...wasn't too pleased with my 70k service at Dorschel( wait, Bob Johnson). Heard lot of long tenured techs left after transition....
 

RIP TDI

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 16, 2000
Location
Santa Barbara, CA
TDI
'15 GSW SE 6MT...... '01 Golf GLS 5MT.... '96 Passat Variant....
..and a couple weeks later, they've been active. :mad:
I've always wondered if any of those ultrasonic deterrence devices would be worth a try.

Although my garaged cars are left with hoods open, I've actually had fairly good luck with my outdoor cars just leaving the hood "ajar", resting on the latch striker. So. Calif. rats feel very entitled and apparently don't like even a small amount of sun- or moon-light intruding on their vacation accommodations. Rain intrusion is minimal and, fortunately, security is not a concern where I live, so this has proved to be a good solution for me.
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
I've always wondered if any of those ultrasonic deterrence devices would be worth a try.
I had a couple of those in the garage; tossed 'em in the garbage when I dug out (led by smell....not pleasant) a big-ass dead rat that apparently filled up on some of the poison I had nailed down in the garage.
 

whizznbyu

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 11, 2006
Location
Waxhaw, NC
TDI
2015 Golf Sportwagen 6 speed manual. B5 died at 302k miles.
Just looked into the Braille brand and saw a G30 for much more. Is "bigger better"?
 

Cuzoe

Veteran Member
Joined
May 24, 2017
Location
Los Angeles
TDI
MK7 Golf S
My battery is a G30, built to fit into a G20 size case. Note the G20S label on the top of the box. The G20S is not a "for sale" item from Braille. I ordered mount and battery from here...

If you select G30 you get the G20S. Simplifies Mele's production to just one piece for our cars. They have 4 battery options, all of which are basically the same size except the G30. Which they stuff into a G20 case for those who want a bigger lithium battery.
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
So, apart from saving ~40lbs of dead weight (which, on our 3400lb car is barely 1%), does the lithium battery provide any additional upside over standard lead-acid? Besides weight, I always thought the biggest upside of Li-ion was its ability to withstand multiple hundreds of deep discharges and re-charges, which is not the standard use case in a ICE car. (?)

And given what happens to the battery capacity of our A3 e-tron in -10°C the past week or so...gotta think that the lead-acid concoction would handle the coldest colds better than this?
 

Nuje

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Location
Island near Vancouver
TDI
2015 Sportwagen; Golf GLS 2002 (swap from 2L gas); 2016 A3 e-tron
Not "to" my Mk7 yet (gotta wait for the 15" of snow of the last week to go away), but *for* the Mk7 GSW:
  • AllTrack "fibre-reinforced plastic" belly pan (aka skid plate): Just under $500CAD all-in, including the mounting brackets
  • Costco.ca has a "20%-off any set of tires" sale for today (2022.01.01) only - so ordered up a set of Michelin CrossClimate2 in the AllTrack size (225-50-17) - slightly taller than the stock 225-45-17. Brought the per-tire price to under $200CAD, which is way better than anywhere else I've seen (usually ~$250).
 
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