Must be a short circuit if you know how to use an ammeter. Connected between
the battery pole and the wiring connector normally attached to it, but
disconnected for the test? Things should be getting warm somewhere! 100W is
being dissipated. If you just connected the ammeter across the two terminals,
the battery is rubbish and/or totally discharged or it would probably have
killed your ammeter.

Check how you're measuring this current, and if it's correct, check each circuit
in turn, as suggested.

--
Dave.
UK VW Type 3 & 4 Club
http://www.hallvw.clara.co.uk/
------
"Aldrich" wrote in message
...
Hi

I have a strange problem and would welcome any suggestions please.

The battery on my Golf Mk II 1600 Auto has twice gone flat within a week or
so. Today I measured the current drawn from a fully charged battery fitted
in the car and was surprised to see 7.5A drawn with the ignition and lights
off. The engine was cold and the radiator fan was not running. Of course,
things like the clock will be on but should draw much less current than what
I am seeing.

My plan is to take out each fuse in turn to trace what is taking the current
but today it fell dark before I could get far. At one point I did see the
current slowly fall as though a capacitor was charging somewhere in the
system, but a return to 7.5A later suggested that I was just not making a
good connection.

Tomorrow I can restart the trial and error way of finding the fault. But if
anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful. I am assuming that the
battery went flat because of a fault external to the battery, but maybe I am
misunderstanding the system, the 7.5A is a red herring and the battery is
faulty.

Thanks in advance

David