hewitt330

Hello fellow rennlisters, I hope your cars are doing well. As for my car I seem to have run into another in a seemingly endless string of problems. I pulled my car out because the weather is finally warming up where I live. The battery was dead. I charged it and went for a wonderful drive. Two days later the battery was dead again. The car seems to be drawing 70 milliamps of power. It drops to almost nothing when I pull the DME relay. What could be causing this? No other fuses or relays do anything for the draw.

Thank you.

hewitt330

Also I've noticed something humming in the engine bay when the relay is plugged in. It sounds like its under the intake manifold.What could that be? Maybe thats what is causing the drain.

divil

Ah...that sounds like the electric water pump. It suppose it must get it's power from the DME relay. It's located near the turbo - you should be able to touch it with something (screwdriver, piece of hose etc.) as a sort of stethoscope and verify that that's what it is. It's supposed to be triggered by a temperature sensor, so maybe that sensor or the wiring harness has gone wrong somehow. You could also open the expansion tank and look for movement in the coolant - that would verify it too, but if it's a humming sound from under the intake, I can't see what else it could be.

EDIT...it should also run for 30 seconds every time you switch the car off, regardless of temperature.

ttAmerica RoadsterAWD

If it's your turbo water pump you can actually see your water reservoir burble/agitate when its functioning. You can also just disconnect/unplug the line to your turbo water pump. Just grasp both sides of the connection and pull. If this stops that sound you are describing then it is your turbo water pump. Let us know what you find.

Jaime

Tom M'Guinn

If it is really "under" the intake, then it could be the ISV malfunctioning (or the circuit in the DME that drives it). You can just remove the 3-pin Junior Timer connector that goes to it and see if the noise stops. (But the turbo water pump and/or the temp sensor that turns it on, as mentioned above, is a more common problem, albeit not actually "under" the intake....)