It is not necessary to leave the ammeter inside the vehicle, or connected. The procedures are well established, and have been posted here previously.

First, put a jumper wire with alligator clips across the battery terminal and post. The remove the battery terminal. The jumper wire maintains the circuit. Now put the ammeter parallel to the jumper wire. Now remove one clip from the jumper wire, and the ammeter maintains the circuit. Bingo.

You have to manage the issue that opening the doors triggers things to come on.

After awhile, it will go to sleep.

And the shift light has no bearing on whether or not it is in sleep mode. BMW techs posting here have confirmed that multiple times. On some models yes, on others no. My 2003 kept the shift light on for four years. Never had a battery issue, despite leaving it in airports for up to 4 weeks.

Edit: BMW bulletin on shifter light, courtesy killcrap

http://www.xoutpost.com/692305-post24.html

Edit: Helpful thread. See post 42, with the link, for a step by step.

http://www.xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-foru...es-fast-2.html

I think I have figured out the drain. After much fiddling about with a multimeter and fuses, got the car sleeping and it was still pulling between 3.4n and 2.8n (n being between 0 & 9), eventually found that by pulling fuse 74 (Telephone) the draw dropped down to 0.7n and then after so seconds or so, dropped down to a steady 0.04.

That go me thinking as in the front there is a broken iphone cradle for Bluetooth that has a switch on it. Anyway, know what the electrics where like on this car when I got it (DVD Player wired so constantly on and draining the power), I thought I would check the cradle switch and it was on. Switch off and drain dropped down to 0.04, switched back on and back to between 3.n & 2.n

I guess the kids must have switched it on when playing cars. So, have switched it off, all fuses plugged in and will now see if battery drains within a couple of days. If the battery remains charged, I will look at disconnecting\re-wiring the cradle. If the battery does drain...

At least I hopefully have saved myself a big garage bill.

Is 0.04 an acceptable rate?

Unplug the aux fan. They are a big cause of battery drain.

As JCL pointed out, and Killcraps SIB, the shifter LED is not a true indicator of the car going to sleep - if the light is on, and then it is off after 16 minutes of inactivity, then the car went to sleep. if the light stayed on past 16 minutes it does not mean it is not asleep - prior to 9/01 the WDS shows that LED wired in one way and after that date, it is wired differently. In reality we have established with the forum members that the date does not stand true, as some folks indicated a different behaviour.

And, after 16 minutes the car does not go completely to sleep, the GM module sends a "go to bed" signal and then some modules drop asleep and some modules start their internal countdown timer to go to sleep. when the internal lights are on, and/or the boot lights are on, they will remain on for another 30 minutes or after the "go to bed" signal and then will shut off... The car goes to sleep completely about 45 minutes after the last activity, as was stated before... the draw on the battery is minimal with alarm off, and about 35 mA with alarm on...

I understand that this will not help much with troubleshooting but at least will give an idea about electrical and electronic environment that you are working in - besides, JCL perfectly explained how to measure the amperage without disturbing the peace of the car...

:)

Looks like it was the after-market iphone cradle as after 3 days of the car sitting around, battery is fine and car starts.