I had a call for help today from a friend with a flat battery. "Could you come and give me a jump start please?" was the call. I duly arrived and connected up the jump leads and went to start the sick machine. Sadly that wasn't going to happen with the error message "Key ID not recognised" or very similar displayed on the info screen. Some online research told us that this was a possibility if the vehicle battery voltage was low, but of course with the jump leads connected we had 14.2V so not the problem. A second possibility was a flat battery in the keyfob, new one fitted two weeks ago and the third was that the fob was too cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!. It had been sitting in the car all day so that was a possibility.
At that point I decided to take the driver and her two daughters home and collect the spare key which was nice and warm. When we got home the key was nowhere to be found and a full house search ensued. I had a cup of tea while that was going on until eventually it turned up. To be safe we fitted a new battery into that one and then headed back to the car while her husband Paul (Bob's son) headed off to find a new car battery.
On arrival the spare fob seemed to be acceptable to the car but we still had to leave my car charging it for 15 mins or so before there was sufficient power to start it. Eventually we got there and it burst into life enabling her to drive it home where we would be able to replace the car battery and rid her of these woes. By then I had learnt that it was the third time the battery had let her down in the last couple of weeks. Unfortunately the car is generally only used for multiple short runs 4 miles at the most so the battery is on a hiding to nothing.
Sadly Paul was unable to find a battery in any of the four places he tried so we had to settle for an overnight charge for the battery and a replacement ordered online!! Hopefully the new battery and my instruction for her not to leave the fob in the cold should see the end of these problems!!
