Land Rover Repair: 95 range rover battery & high ide prob., charge battery, battery cable

Question
always had battery prob w/ this car- if you don't drive it for a day or two, you have to jump start it. recently it sat for about 4mos but now we need to get it on the road again and it won't take to charge. battery is fairly new- dec 2007-and we've driven it only a couple of hundred miles since, if that, but we jump started it, ran it for 15 to 20 mins and won't start again.  also it's idling very high, about 2000 rpm, it feels unsafe.  any suggestion?? thank you.

Answer
That sounds like you have a short or other extra load on your battery when it's sitting.  Like a window motor trying to go up constantly.  That will kill a battery pretty easily.  Your batt is probably shot, especially since it won't hold a charge.   you can hook up an ammeter inline with the battery cable (after putting in a new batt. leave the engine off), then unplug fuses one at a time until the amperage drops.  Leave that one out and track down the problem in that circuit.

The high idle may be what the alternator needs to keep running from the load, or it may be un-related.