Dead Xantia

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davewithington
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Dead Xantia

Post by davewithington »

My 1997 Mk1 Xantia 2ltr auto has developed a fault

Parked up at work this morning, locked the car as usual, and went out again a while ago to put a box in the boot.

Car won't unlock on the remote, and central locking does,nt work off the door locks

The red warning light to the left of the dash is flashing very rapidly, and both lights on the immobiliser pad are lit at the same time, red and green

Any thoughts?
RichardW
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Re: Dead Xantia

Post by RichardW »

Probably the battery has died - modern ones have a habit of doing that, OK one minute, cactus the next. Can you unlock it on the key? If not, then you are going to have break in, or get someone else to do it....
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davewithington
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Re: Dead Xantia

Post by davewithington »

Yes I'm in the car

Could be the battery in the locking fob then?

Would a lock/ unlock cycle reset everything?
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Re: Dead Xantia

Post by RichardW »

No, I was thinking of the main battery....
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Re: Dead Xantia

Post by shauny0305 »

Dave, I"ve had this happen in the past (when I worked as an AA Patrol) just try this before anything else.
put ignition key in ign lock, press the sonic overide button (on right of dash) and hold it in while observing the LED on left of dash. Usually takes about 30 secs or so, to come on solid, you may get some headlight flashing, just ignore that and wait for the LED to stop flashing. As soon as it does start engine as normal. If battery is flat, you"ll have to attach jump leads and repeat, (or it might start with a jump
davewithington
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Re: Dead Xantia

Post by davewithington »

Well I wouldn't have believed it, but a new battery fixed it.

Nipped down to GSF in the works van, bought a new battery, put it on and all is fine (the old battery came with the car so I'm happy to change it)

Never seen anything like that in 48 years of playing with motor vehicles.

I presume the battery voltage drops below a critical level, and nothing works?

I'll check the alternator output tonight, just in case.
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Mandrake
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Re: Dead Xantia

Post by Mandrake »

davewithington wrote: Never seen anything like that in 48 years of playing with motor vehicles.

I presume the battery voltage drops below a critical level, and nothing works?
Yep, that's pretty much it. Each ECU in the car has a minimum voltage that it will function properly at, and not all of the ECU's stop working below the same voltage, so as the battery voltage gets lower and lower more ECU's start misbehaving and symptoms become more bizarre until eventually nothing works.

Be thankful its a Xantia and not a C5 or later - Xantia's are quite forgiving of flat batteries and batteries being disconnected and reconnected - you can pretty much disconnect and reconnect the battery indiscriminately on a Xantia without problems, and although a flat battery will cause weird behaviour, as soon as you fit a new charged up battery everything will be back to normal without any special reset procedures.

Not so on some more modern cars like the C5 where if you don't follow the correct shut-down and start-up procedure before disconnecting and reconnecting the battery you can scramble one of the ECU's and end up stuck in a state where things won't work properly. They're also a lot more prone to malfunction with relatively minor low voltage issues, for example cranking with a weak battery.
Simon

1997 Xantia S1 3.0 V6 Auto Exclusive in Silex Grey
2016 Nissan Leaf Tekna 30kWh in White

2011 Peugeot Ion Full Electric in Silver
1977 G Special 1129cc LHD
1978 CX 2400
1997 Xantia S1 2.0i Auto VSX
1998 Xantia S2 3.0 V6 Auto Exclusive
davewithington
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Re: Dead Xantia

Post by davewithington »

I've heard this about C5s - a friend of mine owns a car dealership in Crewe, and he's had a couple of C5s in with odd problems

Rest assured I don't want to buy a car any newer than my Xantia, it does everything I want very well indeed

I probably would have got away without changing the battery, as the alternator is dead - swap that tomorrow when the new unit arrives - but the old battery was, well, old and was suspect. Plus being stuck at the back of our narrow and restricted car park at work was something I was happy enough to avaoid.

Sorted!
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