Car won't start
Yesterday I took my Mondeo automatic on a decent run at speed to both put some charge in the battery and to burn off deposits in the exhaust. This morning the car won't start. It is as though the battery is dead, (2 year old battery). I keep the car in my garage but because of the car's length the front of the bonnet is under my workbench making it impossible to open the bonnet. When I put the car in the garage last night I had an idea that if I left it in Neutral and switched off I would be able to push the car back a bit should I need to open the bonnet. This is the first time I've parked the car in this way. When I parked up the screen showed that the gearbox wasn't in Park but then seemed to shut down normally. The first inkling that something was wrong this morning was when the boot wouldn't unlock although the other doors did and the mirrors turned out.
Although I've called Mayday / Green Flag they won't be here for some time. (Just for general info, Green Flag have a technical problem with their App this morning). Can anyone throw any light on what might have gone wrong?
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Do you have lights on the dash when you turn the ignition on?
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Modern cars use battery power for all sorts of background stuff, even when you turn off the ignition. (Our Jeep clicks and whirrs for a good half hour after we lock it up.) It’s sounds as though something has been left active, thereby almost draining the battery, giving just enough power to do a basic task like open the doors and turn out the mirrors, but no where near enough to power it up. We had a Jeep Cherokee that did this to us. Unbeknown to us, an interior light got left on, this was enough to drain the battery overnight and prevented starting. Extremely annoying as it was packed to go away. At that point we transferred all our camping gear into our other, less sophisticated Jeep Wrangler, and happily left the Cherokee to sulk in the garage🤣
Hope you get sorted quickly J20👍
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Yes, including the headlights that come on because the car is in the relatively dark garage. After only a couple of seconds it pretty well all shuts down. Only the alarm state is then shown on the dash.
Although the main door locks operate, why won't the boot unlock? It was this that alerted me to a problem. Better then than at 4.00pm when we're supposed to be going out. It's a real mystery. Hopefully Mayday will be here soon, they said 11.30am to 1.30pm.
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If the lights work briefly, I doubt the battery has completely died.
I've no doubt you'll have tried starting it with the brake pedal depressed so I'm out of ideas. Hope they get you sorted soon.
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I assume your Mondeo is like all of my autos in that you can't (routinely) remove the key from the ignition unless the car is in PARK ..... I suggest that you left the ignition switched on while leaving the car in NEUTRAL. If your car is keyless then I'm out of ideas 🤔
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Latest update. Green Flag's local recovery agent came about 11.40 so they were on time. The guy was very puzzled about the whole problem. I told him that according to the Mondeo handbook the gear lever can be moved from P to N by removing a panel and inserting a screwdriver to move a small lever forwards. This allows the gear selector to be moved into neutral. He'd heard of it but had no idea how to do it. Neither had I come to that. We couldn't determine which 'side panel' Ford were referring to. He then realised that as it had an electric parking brake, if the battery had, in fact died, then as well as locked in Park on the front wheels the rear wheels were also locked solid with the brake. And all this in the confines of my garage.
The major problem was that we couldn't get to the battery as the bonnet of the car goes under my work bench so the recovery guy wasn't able to check the voltage. He has gone away until Monday (agreed with me) when he'll bring a mate with hi., Meanwhile I've cut a piece out of my work bench and managed to open the bonnet. The battery was showing 8.0 volts ! No wonder nothing worked as it should. I've put the battery on charge and will see tomorrow what happens. The battery is only two years old with a 3 year warranty so on Monday I'll go to my local dealer and see what he has to say.
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I had a lot of problems with my little auto KIA Venga last year during the lockdowns when it wouldn't start. I could put it on charge which would mean I could start it but a couple of days later there wasn't sufficient power to start the engine. At the time it was only three and half years old but KIA don't fit massive batteries so I replaced it with a Yuasa with slightly more amp hour. All was going well until it started to play up again. Being a new battery I was convinced there was another reason for the loss of power. I would have taken it to my local KIA dealer had they been open. I tested all the interior lights which seemed alright but was suspicious of the light in the boot and the one in the glove compartment so I removed both of them and not had an issue since, sometimes not driving the car for over a week. I think the culprit was the glove compartment because it was more likely to have something in that would stop the light going out. It might be worth checking the interior lights. As a belt and braces precaution I purchased one of those lithium starter packs which has remained unused since purchase!!!
David
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.... He'd heard of it but had no idea how to do it.
That doesn't exactly instil much confidence in the recovery bloke .... my Omega had similar set up but a standard handbrake. Electric parking/hand brakes are the answer to a problem that never existed, I believe they are a common problem when recovery firms want to recover vehicles in multi-story car parks etc. Do you have the option of NOT applying the parking brake? I know that some will come on automatically .... my electric parking brake only brakes when I tell it to.
Anyway, why couldn't your Green Flag agent have jacked the rear of the car to lift the braked wheels from the floor so it could be pulled back on the trolly jacks far enough to pop the bonnet?
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Final (hopefully) update. I left the battery on charge for about 16 hours after I had got the bonnet open and checked it this morning. It was showing 12.28 volts. I started the car with no problem, the parking break came off OK and everything looked fine. I've left it off-charge for about five hours and the reading is now 12.27, even after starting the car. It looks as though everything is now OK but it is still a mystery why leaving the car in Neutral should flatten the battery to such a degree in such a short time (about 18 hours).
The recovery people were going to come tomorrow with a couple of trolley jacks and skates so that they could, hopefully, lift the back end and get the car part out of the garage. They aren't needed now.
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A good conclusion for you👍
I think of cars like the Terminator. Evolve until they finally start to do strange things for themselves🤷♀️
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