Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

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dilby
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by dilby »

Thanks so much for the replies everyone. Please forgive my no doubt stupid questions, I just really want to avoid frying / being locked out of anything so am second guessing myself a lot. I managed to get a reading on the charger after jiggling some connections - perhaps the contact wasn't clean enough before - and the reading is hovering anywhere between 4 and 6 volts. If I put it on my car battery it shows a solid 12 as expected and gives me the option to select charge settings which it doesn't with the van. I'm presuming it sees the battery as beyond repair. Should I still attempt a last report charge and if so i'd really appreciate some more detailed instructions. To me it seems my options are to give up, to remove the battery and charge it from my car, or to connect my car to the van battery while it's still connected. Or is it worth getting one of those self container jumper packs such as https://www.eurocarparts.com/p/top-tech ... -529771211.

I've also read that I should not remove the battery without another battery connected or else electronics get reset. How true is that and would it not have already happened?

Thanks so much for persisting with me!
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

dilby wrote: 20 Sep 2021, 11:03 I've also read that I should not remove the battery without another battery connected or else electronics get reset. How true is that and would it not have already happened?

Thanks so much for persisting with me!
Ive just had a 12V battery flat, doors wont open scenario with My Nissan Leaf.

One good thing and why isnt it compulsory for all these fancy locking fobs, to have a last resort key for one of the doors?

Thank goodness Nissan have one.....like this
temp2.png
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by myglaren »

Daughter had a similar crisis with her Megane C+C yesterday.
It had rolled away - snapped handbrake cable - and ended up in a very awkward position.
They were unable to shift it, on a hill, steering on max lock, unable to turn the wheel unless the engine is running and unable to start the engine, reports of several problems including the boot and the cabriolet roof.

She did manage to get into it - the hidden key will open the boot but has never been used so the lock was rusted solid - it unlocks automatically when you are neat the car, normally.

Got a jump start from a neighbour and all was well.
She hadn't used the car for a week and suspect battery dying or a parasitic drain.
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by wheeler »

NewcastleFalcon wrote: 20 Sep 2021, 12:48

One good thing and why isnt it compulsory for all these fancy locking fobs, to have a last resort key for one of the doors?

Thank goodness Nissan have one.....like this

Image

Regards Neil
I've never seen or known a car yet that doesn't have an emergency key blade tucked inside the remote somewhere.
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

wheeler wrote: 20 Sep 2021, 18:19 I've never seen or known a car yet that doesn't have an emergency key blade tucked inside the remote somewhere.
Good to know. I had no idea there was a key in mine hence the expletives, when I automatically shut the bonnet after confirming the flat battery, and all the doors had locked themselves overnight, and the battery and the fob between them didnt have the poke to open the doors. Very pleased the emergency key was there :-D

The Leaf is the first car that has ever had a key hidden in the fob in my ownership. Previous cars and the current Micra, were all old fashioned key in the ignition jobs, also acting as an emergency key in one of the doors, after revealing the concealed keyhole, together with the normal "remote" fob, for normal opening and locking.

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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by Gibbo2286 »

iy looks like the zoe has the same.
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by dilby »

Thanks that’s good to know but unfortunately the relay doesn’t have one
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by wheeler »

dilby wrote: 20 Sep 2021, 11:03
I've also read that I should not remove the battery without another battery connected or else electronics get reset.
Total nonsense, what do they mean by 'reset'?
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by ml11ML »

By that they probably meant the time and date getting reset...

However I do wonder what actually happens to the ecus if you ignore the correct bsi reset steps and just disconnect and reconnect a battery?

On any other brand of car I would not give this a second thought however my encounter with the random u1000 code that took half a year to go away really gave me a good scare about these fragile french systems as I didn't follow the procedure a few times before and thought that it might have been linked?

But then again doing more than 5 correct bsi reset procedures did nothing to help it until it went away as randomly as it came so probably completely unrelated to any battery disconnecting. #-o
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

As a newbie with a Nissan Leaf I put a question up on the Nissan Leaf forum on just such matters after consulting the official Nissan Workshop Manuals, and finding the usual procedures and precautions, and finding a reasonably long list of resetting consequences.

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?t=31054

As it turned out with the flat battery problem, of course the nicities of the official procedure couldnt be carried out, and it was literally disconnecting the old battery...remove negative lead first followed by positive lead second, and reconnecting the new battery...connecting positive lead first negative lead second.

No reseting required as it turned out for anything I have noticed so far. Even the clock/radio stations/windows/charging settings etc were OK

Having re-read the original post, some of the salient points.
dilby wrote: 19 Sep 2021, 16:24
I can open the drivers door only
I can't open the bonnet as the pull is on in the inside of the passenger dash, and blocked by the passenger door,
I could disconnect battery but I'm concerned about screwing up some electrics,

With Dilby able to get into the vehicle, and with the battery under the floor in the cab, (but not able to get into the bonnet to the "Normal" charging point in the engine bay) was the straightforward solution not simply installing a new battery :?:

I put off changing my 12 V battery for well over a year, having bought a new one last March for the same sort of reasons and maybe more so because it was an electric car...did not want to screw something up and maybe require a dealer tool reset of some lost settings, so while it wasnt broke I didnt fix it and left it until this weekend's preventable failure forced my hand. :-D (and as it turned out the simple swap was just that and no settings of any consequence lost.)

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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by dilby »

ml11ML wrote: 21 Sep 2021, 06:54 By that they probably meant the time and date getting reset...

However I do wonder what actually happens to the ecus if you ignore the correct bsi reset steps and just disconnect and reconnect a battery?

On any other brand of car I would not give this a second thought however my encounter with the random u1000 code that took half a year to go away really gave me a good scare about these fragile french systems as I didn't follow the procedure a few times before and thought that it might have been linked?

But then again doing more than 5 correct bsi reset procedures did nothing to help it until it went away as randomly as it came so probably completely unrelated to any battery disconnecting. #-o
Thanks for the reply and this is the thing; for a BSI reset I need the driver's window down, but I can't wind down the window as there's no power!
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by Hell Razor5543 »

What I would do is replace the battery, check the van is working, and then go through the BSi reset.
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by Gibbo2286 »

I would just jump start it and let the alternator do its stuff. :-D
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by ml11ML »

Indeed, I would just jump start it too. After all if its so dead that the locks don't even work anymore then the situation is far beyond worrying about preventing system glitches as the ecus would all be off by now from low voltage anyway.

Just get it started by another car or new battery and hope everything still works...
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Re: Locked out of relay due to dead battery - can't charge. Help needed

Post by wheeler »

ml11ML wrote: 21 Sep 2021, 06:54

However I do wonder what actually happens to the ecus if you ignore the correct bsi reset steps and just disconnect and reconnect a battery?
What could often happen on early multiplexed cars is the BSI programming could get corrupted and/or the keys become un programmed.
Not the end of the world & can be sorted with 15-20 minutes on Lexia by re configurating the BSI & re coding the keys.
The newer models seem to be a bit more tolerant of not allowing the BSI to shut down before disconnecting the battery.
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