XC70: Electrical Battery drain - any ideas ?

[Gachegache]

Hi everybody

Apologies if this is a redundant thread, but I did search the subject with no results. If this issue has already been solved, please bear with me and point to the right subject.

My car is a 2008 XC70 3.2 litre gas guzzler with (only) 50 000 kms on the clock, its imported from Japan and in mint condition.

However recently its been having issues with battery draining over a few days if unused.

Voltage drops to 11.5V to 11.2V after 3 or 4 days without driving. Its parked in a garage and temperatures are mild here in winter, in the south of France.

New battery installed in August this year after the old one suddenly died (it was actually the original Volvo brand battery so 13 years old, not bad...).

Engine will only just crank over, then fires and alternator quickly charges at 14.5V. After an hour or two driving, battery's back to 12.5V after switching engine off.

Now this may be a coincidence, but for what its worth, the park assist stopped working at about the same time. No, I didn't disable it accidentally with the dashboard switch. I spent most of my motoring life (70 years old now) without park assist, so that's not really an issue but it might be a clue.

Having suffered from the same problem (battery going flat) with a previous vehicle, a BMtroubleyou 530, I've been down that road, and finding exactly which circuit is draining is a nightmare ; there are several fuse boxes scattered around the vehicle and probably a hundred or so fuses. Takes forever to find out which one.

So I'm looking for some intuition here, rather than instructions on how to measure the voltage drop over each and every fuse to find out which circuit is draining, something I've already done on the BMW but would hate to go through again on the XC70 !

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks guys or girls.