# 2013 VW Beetle Turbo Fender edition Parasitic Draw from Amplifier



## Train951 (Aug 28, 2019)

Hi,

The shop just finished diagnosing the car and they said the amplifier is bad and causing the battery to drain.
Is there a good fix for this that doesnt involve paying the high price (around $1k part)
The car has the factory radio installed.
I tried doing a search but only found info pertinent to older models. 

Can anyone shed any light? 
Thank you


----------



## GeeZee (Sep 2, 2019)

I don’t have an answer for you but I’m also dealing with a parasitic draw on my 2014 beetle with the Fender sound system. 6month old AGM battery was down to 3.5 volts. I put an ammeter in series with a replacement batt and it starts out drawing about 3 amps. After about 20 minutes it’s back to normal (I’m guessing about 20- 40ma). I’m wonder if the subwoofer amp has some kind of auto ON/OFF that detects a signal from the radio (like the home stereo subwoofers do). If you can find the amp you could try unplugging it.


----------



## Train951 (Aug 28, 2019)

Hello, I just pulled the amplifier out of the car and the battery is yet to drain, so it looks like we found the culprit. My question is, can I just cut the constant 12V+ wire and splice it into the switched/ignition 12V+ wire? I'm thinking it should work, what do you all think?


----------



## GeeZee (Sep 2, 2019)

That would work if the circuit you tap into can handle the extra current draw. Not sure what the sub amp draws when it’s on and working (hard). Actually you could connect to the battery side of a fused circuit that is ignition switch controlled and put your own inline fuse on the sub power line. Just pick something that has a pretty high current fuse already, say 10amps or so. 
Where was the sub amp? How hard was it to get to? I may just unplug mine to see if that’s my problem as well. I’ve pulled fuses one at a time while looking at the ammeter and couldn’t really find a “smoking gun”. 
What I’ve seen:
Draws about 3.5 amps for about 20 sec.
Then around 2 for a couple of minutes then 1.4 for about 5 minutes then it seems to go back to normal (reads 0 on the 10amp scale so probably about 40ma).
At that point I have to stop troubleshooting.


----------



## Train951 (Aug 28, 2019)

It was directly under the front of the driver seat, underneath a plastic cover. Slide the seat all the way back, remove black plastic cover, and voila.


----------



## Train951 (Aug 28, 2019)

anyone have a wiring diagram available? The amp harness has over 40 pins.


edit: it looks like can-bus is turning on/off the amp. Does anyone have any idea if it's possible to rewire the existing setup to bypass the constant 12V that is draining the battery.


----------



## GeeZee (Sep 2, 2019)

Cool! thanks for the location tip. I don’t have a schematic yet but I’ve ordered one. Hope it’s not a rip off. Supposed to be the service manual from VW in PDF. You supply your vin and they are supposed to generate one for your car (as equipped according to the vin). I thought it was an instant download but they say it takes 12-24 hours. We’ll see. At least I paid with PPal so there would be some hope of getting my money back if I don’t ever see anything....
I should be able to send you the page for the amp.


----------



## Train951 (Aug 28, 2019)

Hey wondering if you had any luck getting the schematic


----------



## GeeZee (Sep 2, 2019)

I did get it, over 7000 pages! I looked briefly at the amp. It looks like it’s a multichannel amp for all the speakers. Seems like they changed it a little each year. Gimme a couple of days to find the power/ground for 2013.


----------



## GeeZee (Sep 2, 2019)

OK, I’ve been looking at the “current flow diagrams” as VW calls them. I’m not impressed. There must be additional info available to the techs. When I looked at my amp (under the seat) it looked like there was one big connector R12 I think. There are no wires that are labeled “power” going to that connector in the “current flow diagram” If I were trying to do what you propose I’d find the fuse to that amp (probably labeled radio and not just amp) pull it, then pull the connector and just take an ohm meter and find the power wire. It should be one of the larger dia wires. 
Sorry I couldn’t be more help. This 7000 page doc has a lot of info but I suspect it’s really just one of a set of docs available to a vw tech.


----------



## Train951 (Aug 28, 2019)

Thanks for the followup, the amp is disconnected for now. I will purchase a replacement when time permits. Hope you find out whats causing your power draw.


----------



## Jameskowski (12 mo ago)

GeeZee said:


> OK, I’ve been looking at the “current flow diagrams” as VW calls them. I’m not impressed. There must be additional info available to the techs. When I looked at my amp (under the seat) it looked like there was one big connector R12 I think. There are no wires that are labeled “power” going to that connector in the “current flow diagram” If I were trying to do what you propose I’d find the fuse to that amp (probably labeled radio and not just amp) pull it, then pull the connector and just take an ohm meter and find the power wire. It should be one of the larger dia wires.
> Sorry I couldn’t be more help. This 7000 page doc has a lot of info but I suspect it’s really just one of a set of docs available to a vw tech.


How did it work out. My 2013 Beetle just started draining my battery also.


----------

