My wife takes the Vanagon on it's = normal daily outting, school, stores, etc. Along the way she stops the Vanagon about = 4 different times for about 20 -40 min each time. At the last stop, boom, = dead battery, won't crank but maybe once (battery is less than 3 years old), = she calls me I think OK, batteries sometimes go dead quck, so I pick up a = new one and drive it over to her, install it and it starts fine. She hasn't = noticed anything different all morning, no warning lights, no smoke, no funny = noises. Off she goes, off I go back to work, 30 min later shes calls me and the = one time she turned off the engine (for less than 5 min) boom, dead = battery.

We pop the clutch and it starts so = now it sits in the garage, still won't crank. I've looked over the van and = can't see anything obvious, but I'm not sure where to look. It happened so fast it = has to be something simple, what could short out/kill a battery so fast? = Where do I start looking?