Xantia lights left on- locks dont work - cant get in?

[fotobright]

Hi,

Perenial winter problem. Or it is for me anyway

Left Xantia lights on!

Neither key opens the door manually only the blipper locks/unlocks the car. Neither barrel lock has worked for a couple of years
and I only locked/unlocked with the blipper. Blipper works as just used it earlier to lock the car, with its lights on.

The lights have drained the battery so the elec locks wont work, or that seems the most likely explanation.

The puzzle is, how do I get into my car?

Any thoughts gratfully recieved as always

ps I just realised that this is one of those questions which implies it might not be mine and i'm half inching it. If you saw the state of the car and smelt the veg oil inside you'd know only the owner would have locked themselves out

[Lighty]

You will need to lube the locks, i guess they just spin around at the moment, a bit of lube and a few mins of working the lock should get u in.

[fotobright]

You will need to lube the locks, i guess they just spin around at the moment, a bit of lube and a few mins of working the lock should get u in.

The locks are spinning like a pair of yo yo's i think I might actually have disengaged part of the driver side locks but i'll look out the WD40 and have a go now.

[Xantidote]

Recently, I had to use a few good squirts of Holts Lock De-icer, when my door lock was spinning, not to de-ice it, but to try and clean out some of the debris, as key wouldn't quite go all way in. It now works, so long as key is pushed all way in, and turned gently

[wheeler]

If you dont have any joy with the locks jack the car up & from underneath you can either try to get at the bonnet cable or use a battery pack/spare battery with jump leads & connect the negative to the engine block & the positive to either the thick cable on the alternator or the starter motor, you should then be able to use the remote to open the car.

[mendedit]

Tailgate/boot?

[Xantidote]

If you have towbar electrics, and you say you left the lights on, then you should be able to connect 12 volts supply to the sidelights pin of the car's 7/13 pin socket, and earth to the earth pin or another convenient earth point

[Mandrake]

Tailgate/boot?

If its a Series one he can unlock the tailgate and climb in... if its a Series 2 there is no lock on the boot, just a button...

[Mandrake]

If you have towbar electrics, and you say you left the lights on, then you should be able to connect 12 volts supply to the sidelights pin of the car's 7/13 pin socket, and earth to the earth pin or another convenient earth point

Being careful to limit the current so that the fuse that supplies the towbar lights doesn't blow...

[Xantidote]

Being careful to limit the current so that the fuse that supplies the towbar lights doesn't blow...

Ah yes, hadn't thought of that - good point Simon (and I thought I'd found a viable solution )

Thinks.... how about connecting one of these fancy auto-sensing battery chargers. Come to think of it, if the car's fuse does blow, well, it was worth a try, and nothing lost

Or maybe initially connect a 6 volt supply, to just to put a small charge to battery to start with? I suppose it's feasible to investigate the loom that runs along close to the bottom of the radiator, though long term, I'd be reluctant to break into it because of the potential corrosion issue

If nothing else works, can always break a window

[Mandrake]

A small battery charger that can only supply 5 amps or so (a trickle/float charger) should work fine, (instead of just connecting another battery that could supply hundreds of amps) does anyone know what size fuse feeds the lights on the trailer socket ? Of course it might need to be left on for half an hour or more to get enough voltage to open the doors, however since the headlights are still turned on the drain from those would probably prevent the battery being charged without exceeding the current rating of the trailer light fuse.

I like wheelers idea the best - if you can get at the thick cable from the battery to the starter from underneath it seems to be a sure fire way to get the battery charged up quickly.

One nasty thought I just had though - will the fob need to be re-syncronised after the battery has been completely flat for a long period of time ? I've had the battery off on my Series 2 for up to an hour and not had to do anything to get the remote fob working, but I've got a feeling that Series 1 infrared remotes might require re-pairing after the battery has been off a long time. Does anyone know ?

fotobright: is your Xantia a Series 1 with infrared remote or Series 2 with RF remote ? If you're an RAC/AA member it might be worth calling them to see if they can get the door open without smashing the window, if all else fails...

[Xantidote]

since the headlights are still turned

Actually, I'd assumed it was just the sidelights. Where is fotobright when you want him

Good idea about the AA/RAC

[andy5]

... however since the headlights are still turned on the drain from those would probably prevent the battery being charged without exceeding the current rating of the trailer light fuse.

I think that's right, as a pair of headlights and 4 sidelights will draw about 10 amps, but a fuse for the trailer sidelights is probably less than that.

But it has made me think of something else. My car has a Citroen loom for the trailer wiring, which came with wires for a second socket (which isn't fitted on mine, so the wires are just taped up). And those include auxiliary power for a fridge and so on, so two of those wires or two pins on the second socket if fitted would produce 12 volts, just a question of testing.

I assume that some other towbar electrics don't necessarily include that though, and we don't know yet if this car has a towbar ...

[addo]

As Wheeler says, getting an alligator clip onto the starter terminal is probably simplest. The multicore that passes through the offside wheelarch is another rich in pickings; any one of the pinky-brown (not red) wires about 6mm thick feeds off a big fuse in the engine bay.

[Old-Guy]

One nasty thought I just had though - will the fob need to be re-syncronised after the battery has been completely flat for a long period of time ? I've had the battery off on my Series 2 for up to an hour and not had to do anything to get the remote fob working, but I've got a feeling that Series 1 infrared remotes might require re-pairing after the battery has been off a long time. Does anyone know ?

I've had the battery off/disconnected for over a day on a number of occasions; never needed to re-sync the plipper - radio? Yes.