HELP C5 WONT START ALSO SHOWS ECON MODE

[tripletdad333]

OK this may be stange but HELP!!
i have a c5 2.0hdi 2006 estate hadnt driven it since tuesday ewvening,
came out lasdt night but two bags of stuff in boot to take to work today!!
came out today and the doors were unlocked ,but tailgate locked..
got in car to start
turned ign on and it peeped at me and showed faualty airbags and seatbelt pre tensioners.turned key to start car and nothing happens !!!
disconected batt for 5mins
reset ign etc lock and unlock
put keys back in and came up with same problem on the screen and no start in anyway .
pluged in my code reader which shows no codes !! argghhh dont know what else to check...
any help from anyone please were supposed to be going away for the weekend !!!
wifes not very happy with me !!

[addo]

I'd say the battery is flattish. Either it's dying or the alternator is rogered.

A load test on the battery is your only decent quantitative method - you should find a decent factor with a load tester (yes, plenty of shops value honesty; they don't have to sell you a new battery as you may spend the £60-odd "saved" on something else they're vending).

Re-sync the remote, lock, unlock, get in the car and try starting it.

[tripletdad333]

hi,already tried the resync but still no engine turning,im hoping its the battery ,going to try jump start after work then prob buy new batt as its still the orig one..
thanks for your input

[jgra1]

shame triple, nice weekend to go away too.. frustrating..

my C5 gave up recently, loose connections in the engine bay fuse area.. almost definately not your problem but worth a prod anyway, if not done already..

john

[tripletdad333]

ok,update called out breakdown people to recover car to garage for me ... the car batt reads 12.5v... dont know if thats good enough or not? but soon as you turn on ign big satnav/display bbots up fine ,but then says economy mode.... turn the ign key further to start car and all you get is a faint click in the fusebox located in glovebox....dont know if fitting a new battery would help??
.any help please !!!!

[Peter.N.]

12.5 volts from the battery off load is fine, any idea what it drops to when you try to start it? Sounds from the symptoms as though its expired.

Peter

[Bob1954]

12.5 volts from the battery off load is fine, any idea what it drops to when you try to start it? Sounds from the symptoms as though its expired.

Peter

Are you sure Peter ? I have not looked into modern batteries, but that 12.5v off load sounds dodgy to me.... On load is the important bit but I suspect it will be well under 12v...
With the electrical loading from C5 and it's creative technology, batteries are crucial.
I replaced mine 2 years after new purchase in admitedly a ferocious winter that sapped what was left out of the battery, and all the stupid and false alarms stopped immediately.

Perhaps it can be recovered with a charge up in the house, but I would not bet on it lasting through winter to be honest, and would get a decent make, Varta/Bosch and the uprated capacity one if it fits.

[Peter.N.]

Modern car batteries because of their construction will provide a short high current burst even when they are down to say 10% capacity they will still deliver enough to start but with very little reserve capacity, but the voltage will drop rapidly so if the electronics are very sensitive it could cause a problem.

A fully charged battery will read 2.2 volts per cell or a total of 13.2 volts when immediatly taken off charge but with the continious load that the electronics impose that will soon drop to around 12.5volts so that sounds reasonable to me. Sounds to me as though the battery is more or less completely flat.

Peter

[Gibbo2286]

I suspect you have a duff starter motor, try a known good battery and jump leads, if the starter doesn't turn then you can disregard battery faults and move on to the starter and the battery to starter leads.

[tripletdad333]

quick up date,fault was dead battery ... car reset asnd all works great now¬!!!!!
thanks for the help