Theres a user of these forums who's almost brand new Honda CRV had a flat battery when we returned to it after just four days at Stanstead Airport - mobile phone battery charger left plugged in with or without mobile phone attached is what did for it.

My first question is where had he plugged it?
Most cars no longer come with a cig lighter they actually have a chargeing point instead and all the cars I have seen with them are dead if the ingition is off

There's another user of these forums whose Land Rover Discovery had a flat battery when he returned to it after just five days at Leeds Bradford airport - inside courtesy light left on after he'd been faffing about before dashing for his plane.

Indeed so I have no idea how someone can have flattened their battery by leaving their phone charger in a charging point when that charging point is effectively 'dead' when the key is out.

Yet another AA man I have to ask if they get their qualifications out of christmas crackers.

I'll try and get his phone number for you, it started with 0800...

I'm surprised no one has mentioned checking the alternator too. The battery on my old deisel wouldn't hold a charge, no matter how far I ran it, so I assumed the battery was going - it was in it when I bought the car and I had about four years out of it.

Turned out that the battery was fine as the new battery died within a few weeks... it just wasn't charging from the alternator.

Durr....





Or is it just me that's a fan of bangernomics?

Wouldn't the little red light on the dashboard come on if it was the alternator that was duff?

Fair enough but what car do you drive as I have never come across that being the case?

One of the items on the PDI list I have to go through on cars we sell is to check power outlet/cig lighter . There are lots that are live with the ignition off . Wasn't there supposed to have been something sorted about them being permanent live a few years ago ? IIRC it was after the newspapers went overboard about a couple of incidents involving children burning their fingers .
Which reminds me of a time when I was driving up the A1 with my lad . He kept passing sweets to me . I just kept accepting them and shoving them in my gob . Then he passed me the cig lighter .. OUCH

TBH I'm sure I've had cars in the past that had permanently live sockets in them, I had a Volvo V70 that had one in the boot because it came with a 12v cooler box plugged into it, a "gift" from the dealer that was probably added to the finance agreement - never used it once but the indicator light would stay on with the ignition switched off unless I unplugged it.

The Peugeot 307 SW (car from hell) that I had also had permanently live sockets in it because we spent 3 hours sitting on the dock of the bay in Roscoff waiting for a ferry one afternoon with the kids running the battery down watching videos in the seat-back thingys.