UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

So, i recently bought a 1.2 2009 Polo MATCH and it was fine for about 2 months but recently if i leave the car for more than a day it completely dies. When the key goes in, nothing. The problems i saw were - the mileage and clock stay on, the central locking seems to have a problem and the radio doesn't shut down when i take the key out. When i bought the car the battery was supposedly new and it didn't have this problem before. I feel it could be parasitic drain or whatever they call it but its my first car and I'm only 19 so i don't wanna take it to a garage and they say its something worse than it actually is. Appreciate the help.

EDIT: Reason i think it was the radio is because a couple weeks back one of my friends accidentally poured some pepsi over it and i felt that maybe the cause of it

Start by removing the fuse for radio and if it shuts it down. Then leave it.

amer6R wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 5:42 pm Start by removing the fuse for radio and if it shuts it down. Then leave it.

where would the fuse for the radio be and what will this do if i may ask? I'm very new to this so i barely have any idea. Thank you for replying though.

Look at this topic for fuse location
viewtopic.php?f=56&t=71052

If you remove the fuse for a certain component ( example radio) - it will cut the power going to it.
Meaning if you disable the take the fuse for radio, and radio turns off. And 24h later, your battery is still full that means your radio is not wired correctly or something is bad.

This is a really crude, and simple way. You can also do the draw test with multimeter if you have one.

amer6R wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 7:51 pm Look at this topic for fuse location
viewtopic.php?f=56&t=71052

If you remove the fuse for a certain component ( example radio) - it will cut the power going to it.
Meaning if you disable the take the fuse for radio, and radio turns off. And 24h later, your battery is still full that means your radio is not wired correctly or something is bad.

This is a really crude, and simple way. You can also do the draw test with multimeter if you have one.

ill try do the fuse thing tomorrow and see if anything avails thank you for the help. Ill update tomorrow

I tried looking at the diagram but i can't figure out which fuse is for the radio? Can someone point me to which one it is thank you?

It looks like being fuse 45.

Look at the fuse box for RHD - the diagram looks to be upside down because VW chose to fit the fuse box that way, which seems a bit illogical!

So that is the fuse box inside the car on the driver's side, once you have found that and looked at it, you will see that there are at least 2 sizes of fuse types in there, use that to find your way to the fuse 45, obviously if you pull that out and the radio stays on, something is not right or that is the wrong fuse.

One thing that can come in handy is a 12V plug in DVM, there are plenty on ebay etc and you can buy one from a UK based source(so quick delivery) for under £5, plugging that into the "ciggy lighter" socket will let you know if the battery is being charged correctly while you drive, just in case this is battery charging issue.

Understand if you end up finding that it is not the radio, or the light in the boot if it has one, or same for glovebox if it has one, it might end up being a software issue with the BCM which is the Body Control Module that controls the battery power distribution and most of the switching, if it is working okay, it shuts down all the power users that should not require power when the car is stopped - it does this to minimise battery drain under normal conditions - I've "been there done that" with a late 2009 SEAT Ibiza 1.4 SC which will have the same BCM as your 2009 VW Polo 1.2 - but you need to make sure that there are no other issues before getting a VW dealer to check your car and request info from VW mothership for where the S/W patch can be located and downloaded to your car. If that is what needs doing, it will cost an hour of Tech diagnostic time, then after they have located the patch in VW's resources, another roughly 35minutes of Tech time to download it and into the car.

Replacing the battery even for a slightly bigger one and using the car every day will mask this issue - but is not a proper fix.

so i checked out the fuse box by the drivers side and well i found this. I have no idea which fuse to take out

https://i.imgur.com/yTu53BW.jpg

also i wanna take the radio out completely but i don't have the right tools for it. Any other way i could take it out?

This is 9n? Not 6r?

Well if you want to own a VW, Mercedes, BMW, MiNi invest in buying torx bits.

If you dont have the right tools it will take ages, you will get nervous and brake something.
Get some cheap brand of tools it will do their job. No need for unior, BGS, ks tools etc, toptool...

You could grind of find a flatblade screwdrivers that fits into torx screw.

Also get plastic trim removal tool, cheapest will do fine and will help you a lot!

Vw is a s**t car maker , so they use from hex, torx, star bits all kind of s**t ( fockers)

so i tried locating the fuse today but i couldn't figure out which one it was. If anyone can help with that i linked a picture above

fixed it - removed the radio and car works fine now

Fixed it, removed the radio and car works fine now just without any sound at the moment.

Also, i apologise for posting here car i think is a 9N but i just read the years and posted in the corresponding year since my car is a 2009 polo. Thanks for the help.

Cheers