D'Oh!
Someone really thought about the design of that. And, just as a related aside, if you can't get the bonnet open to jump-start it or charge it, how can you tow it with a flat battery and electronic parking brake?
Car Dead!
- Thread starter oldgitdave
- Start date
Someone really thought about the design of that. And, just as a related aside, if you can't get the bonnet open to jump-start it or charge it, how can you tow it with a flat battery and electronic parking brake?
OK, so I'm glad to say I'm back up and running thanks to a really great AA guy.
The first aim of course was to get the car running. He checked systems through the OBD socket, no life whatsoever. He was struggling tbh as the car was deadlocked and it's not the easiest to get past the front seats to get to the battery in the boot. By chance he tried the rear passenger door from the outside and it opened! I never thought to try the other doors when I was looking at it
. The other rear door, passenger door and boot remained firmly locked. His initial thought was that the passenger rear door lock may have been the cause of the battery drain which makes some sense, though I never had any indication of an open or unlocked door. It certainly looked fully closed.
So, now with access to the boot and 12v battery he checked the voltage... 3 volts! He connected a booster to the battery terminals and after 10 mins got me to start her up and sure enough everything burst into life. I've never heard so many bings and bongs or seen as many fault messages and warning lights!
I kept my foot firmly on the brake peddle, put it in hybrid mode, hooked it into drive and blipped the throttle and the ICE started up. He checked the charging rate which looked good. After a good 20 minutes or so he hooked his booster/charger up to the terminals in the engine bay and restarted the car (not the ICE). This kept the 12v battery charging whilst he looked through the error codes.
With so many fault codes on his OBD reader he tried to reset them. But his machine was unable to clear the them so I thought I'd be booking it in with the dealer. Anyway, he said there was something else he could try. He disconnected the 12v -ve terminal and connected a power drain (actually an electric tyre pump) to the -ve cable and the +ve battery terminal. This drained any remaining residual current out of the car which, he described as giving the cars systems a hard reset.
On connecting everything back up we started the car back up and once everything settled down all the fault codes disappeared. I had to select 'Dave' as primary user and all my settings were exactly as I'd like them so all good. I've been out for a decent drive and normal reality has resumed.
I will of course have to keep an eye on things to see if I get any further 12v battery drainage but, if I can get into the damn car at least I'll be able to get it going myself.
The first aim of course was to get the car running. He checked systems through the OBD socket, no life whatsoever. He was struggling tbh as the car was deadlocked and it's not the easiest to get past the front seats to get to the battery in the boot. By chance he tried the rear passenger door from the outside and it opened! I never thought to try the other doors when I was looking at it
. The other rear door, passenger door and boot remained firmly locked. His initial thought was that the passenger rear door lock may have been the cause of the battery drain which makes some sense, though I never had any indication of an open or unlocked door. It certainly looked fully closed.So, now with access to the boot and 12v battery he checked the voltage... 3 volts! He connected a booster to the battery terminals and after 10 mins got me to start her up and sure enough everything burst into life. I've never heard so many bings and bongs or seen as many fault messages and warning lights!
I kept my foot firmly on the brake peddle, put it in hybrid mode, hooked it into drive and blipped the throttle and the ICE started up. He checked the charging rate which looked good. After a good 20 minutes or so he hooked his booster/charger up to the terminals in the engine bay and restarted the car (not the ICE). This kept the 12v battery charging whilst he looked through the error codes.
With so many fault codes on his OBD reader he tried to reset them. But his machine was unable to clear the them so I thought I'd be booking it in with the dealer. Anyway, he said there was something else he could try. He disconnected the 12v -ve terminal and connected a power drain (actually an electric tyre pump) to the -ve cable and the +ve battery terminal. This drained any remaining residual current out of the car which, he described as giving the cars systems a hard reset.
On connecting everything back up we started the car back up and once everything settled down all the fault codes disappeared. I had to select 'Dave' as primary user and all my settings were exactly as I'd like them so all good. I've been out for a decent drive and normal reality has resumed
.I will of course have to keep an eye on things to see if I get any further 12v battery drainage but, if I can get into the damn car at least I'll be able to get it going myself.
If it hadn't been for the open back door (see my post above), the only way would have been to get into the back of the car over the front seats. With the electronic parking brake on and the dsg in park it would be impossible to move. There's a possibility to remove the trim maybe and pull the bonnet cable as @Wyld Stallyn suggested but you'd need to be a bloody contortionist to do either.
Had the same issue on a Kia recently, my friend came out to her EV and could not get in to the car, I managed to find the way to unlock the drivers door but when you put the key in the ignition nothing, They had to get the KIA guys out to fix it.
I like my old simple car.
I like my old simple car.
I want my Skoda Octavia with a gasoline engine and a webasto back
No extra bells and whistles and electronics that are endlessly buggy and bring so many problems.
Who will be wanting to be run any new car out of warranty at 3 years old?
I certainly wouldn’t.
I know there’s extended warranties but it all just sounds like a faf to me.
My VW is just coming up to three years old and I won’t be entering year 4 of ownership without an extended warranty - faff or not.
I don’t fancy the prospect of having to foot the bill for items such as a replacement water pump / thermostat housing (common failure items), digital instrument display, new infotainment unit or DSG transmission, so an extended warranty gives peace of mind to a degree. I accept that it won’t cover everything - but then neither does the original new car factory warranty.
No matter what "modern" car you have, I see this problem keeps coming up over various forums.
There is disappointingly nothing in the manual to say how to release the bonnet when the passenger door cannot be opened. On Ford, there is at least a way to expose the mechanism, I know this because I had to do it once!
I was thinking this would be a one-off issue, but now I believe it's an oversight on all RHD cars following a stupid security design of not allowing bonnet release without opening the door. This wouldn't be an issue on LHD models of course - with the release on the driver side, but the cost cutting on the RHD conversion often means the release handle stays where it is... and you're screwed.
Personally I believe the likelihood of having your 12V battery die is very likely these days, having experienced this twice on a 2019 and 2022 vehicle - ICE, PHEV, Hybrid or EV, no difference... something has clearly gone wrong with the manufacturing of batteries in the last few years, anecdotal as that is, I see a pattern. I now carry a jump starter with me.
If your battery drained to 3V, you should do a battery health check (but if it was me, replace it anyway). Dealerships will take weeks to do a parasitic draw test, likely not find a root cause then replace it under warranty anyway. Which is a difficult fight, considering it's a non-warranty part. Hint: you'll do well to demonstrate you kept a history of voltage over time so get the millimetre out.
There is disappointingly nothing in the manual to say how to release the bonnet when the passenger door cannot be opened. On Ford, there is at least a way to expose the mechanism, I know this because I had to do it once!
I was thinking this would be a one-off issue, but now I believe it's an oversight on all RHD cars following a stupid security design of not allowing bonnet release without opening the door. This wouldn't be an issue on LHD models of course - with the release on the driver side, but the cost cutting on the RHD conversion often means the release handle stays where it is... and you're screwed.
Personally I believe the likelihood of having your 12V battery die is very likely these days, having experienced this twice on a 2019 and 2022 vehicle - ICE, PHEV, Hybrid or EV, no difference... something has clearly gone wrong with the manufacturing of batteries in the last few years, anecdotal as that is, I see a pattern. I now carry a jump starter with me.
If your battery drained to 3V, you should do a battery health check (but if it was me, replace it anyway). Dealerships will take weeks to do a parasitic draw test, likely not find a root cause then replace it under warranty anyway. Which is a difficult fight, considering it's a non-warranty part. Hint: you'll do well to demonstrate you kept a history of voltage over time so get the millimetre out.
Imagine these cars at 10 years old, it just ain't gonna happen is it?
I'm hoping this experience is a one off but confidence is not high tbh. It'll be gone before 3 years of age I'm thinking.
In all my (nearly) 50 years of driving I've not had a breakdown that I couldn't fix myself, until now! I've had new cars and used cars, several between 10 and 20 years old too. Yes I've had cars dropping into limp mode, a wiring harness burnout, flooding causing electrical failure (bog roll and WD40 sorted that), clutch cable failure. Oh, I did have a total loss due to one catching fire, forgot about that!
I'll be checking the 12v battery daily for a while now but if there's a drainage it'll have to go into the dealers.
Just to say, I had a brand new Honda Civic and the first battery lasted 15 years! My wife's Hyundai is now 12 years old, 1 battery 2 years ago. It's not even had a replacement exhaust pipe. Just saying
.
I'm hoping this experience is a one off but confidence is not high tbh. It'll be gone before 3 years of age I'm thinking.
In all my (nearly) 50 years of driving I've not had a breakdown that I couldn't fix myself, until now! I've had new cars and used cars, several between 10 and 20 years old too. Yes I've had cars dropping into limp mode, a wiring harness burnout, flooding causing electrical failure (bog roll and WD40 sorted that), clutch cable failure. Oh, I did have a total loss due to one catching fire, forgot about that!
I'll be checking the 12v battery daily for a while now but if there's a drainage it'll have to go into the dealers.
Just to say, I had a brand new Honda Civic and the first battery lasted 15 years! My wife's Hyundai is now 12 years old, 1 battery 2 years ago. It's not even had a replacement exhaust pipe. Just saying
.
Consequence of not enough thought for RHD, as with LHD you can open the door manually and thus the bonnet.Is it possible to loop a cable tie or two, or packing tape or coat hanger and fashion a lasso or some such and loop over and pull the lever some?
Oh wait, I just looked at picture
That's a complete 4 course dogs dinner of a design flaw
For stupid try a Fiat 500 EV I had the misfortune to drive the other day. No interior door handle at all, just an electric push button.Thanks for that and your suggestions. And no, the passenger door won't open using the internal door handle. How stupid is that?
I'm too much of an old git to be squirming around inside the car unfortunately
Ridiculous isn't it!
I'll be out checking the battery shortly to see if it's getting low again. Im going to keep a log over the next few days until I'm happy everything is ok (or not). At least the red alarm light is flashing away as normal so that's a good start.
Looking good so far 12.4v with the car switched off. 14.7 with it running in EV mode (ICE not running)!
Yes I do Wyldy. It's a Thinkware Q800 Pro, front and rear. It's set to shut down if the battery drops to 12.4v I think.
Thanks for reminding me though as I will check it. Iirc the lowest voltage you can set is 11.7v which is far too low imho.
Update: it's set to 12.3v which is the highest setting.
Last edited:
I imagine some of the more basic consumables like alternators and starter motors etc on these is quite a faff to replace. I just hope they keep the parts supply chain going for a while (15 years, is that too much to ask ?)
A mate’s van had a flat battery last week, gave it a jump via a booster pack and all good except the headlights were on constantly and various warning lights were on, he went to Nissan who quoted £140+vat to fault find plus any repair time! No availability for 3 days, then the lightbulb moment, switch it off and back on like most electrical products, so we disconnected the battery, had a coffee and re coupled the battery, shock, all back to normal, think some vehicles don’t like a jump start or battery charge with it connected to the car without using the fancy anti surge system equipment to prevent confusing the ecu.
Must be a workaround for it - loop of material around the release cable near the handle (with the end coming out through the trim) you could pull in an emergency where you can't open the passenger door (or something similar).
Similar threads
