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[Mr Skrunts]

Big screw up.

Having been laid up for a few weeks the car aint been used.  Battery dead, usual story, had enough power to get the remote locking undone.

Car starts first time from a booster battery, had a nice run round, popped into a local spares place and he confirmed the battery was complety stuffed.

Gets home, check every thing is turned off, wait for the cooling fans to stop, check one moore time, turn off, get out and DOHHHHHHH.

No power to lock the car.

Pondered a while, pulled the bonnet, hooked up the booster and locked the car.

Put the bonnet down gentally so I it wasnt locked.



Why did I do that, well here is the rest of the story.

Neither of the keys turn in the boot or the door as remote locking has allways been used, and the replacement battry I wanted isnt in stock for me untill tomorrow.



Then I gets a knock on the door telling me that my bonnet wasnt closed properly and he has clicked it shut/locked for me.  Hence the title.

Not knowing if the car will open tomorrow by remote or by key after being soaked in WD40 I am now wondering what the options are.



Hammer through the side window was 1st choice and suits my current mood (well sort of anyway)

Next choice would be finding a live feed somewhere on the car so that I can get power for the remote locking.  



Any idea's out there.

[Kevin Wood]

Crawl underneath and see if you can connect a charger to the starter motor positive terminal?

Kevin

[Mr Skrunts]

Cheers Kevin.  

[Lazydocker]

If you can't get the clips onto the starter properly you can, Very carefully, attach it to an old screwdriver and hold it onto the terminal whilst an assistant unlocks the car for you. I've had to do this many times when called out to breakdowns!!

Oh, and don't forget you need to connect the earth from the booster pack too!!  

[Andy B]

......
Neither of the keys turn in the boot or the door as remote locking has allways been used,  .....
Any idea's out there.

Have you tried giving the locks a good squirt of penetrating oil? My keys wouldn't originally open the boot but a good lub'ing sorted it out. I do try to use the door & boot lock with the key every now & then (usually more then than now   )  
When the battery died, with the car dead locked, despite the theory, there was no way on Earth my car was going to let me in via the driver's door.

[Mr Skrunts]

Cheer's guy's.

Fortuneatly I very rarely deadlock the the.  I only tend to do that when I am away from home.


I must admit I am tempted to run a fused live wire, insulate the end and hide it somewhere than I can get to it easily.  This is the first time the battery has been stuffed but I have suffered a few times over the years with a flat battery.

Hopefully it will never happen again, but just this once was bad enough.

[Andy B]

...

Fortuneatly I very rarely deadlock the the.  I only tend to do that when I am away from home. .....

 :-? Why? It's just another press of the fob within 10 secs of the first.  

[Danny]

pretty certain a good bit of force using the key will get a deadlocked door open as long as you're careful

dont give up yet!!

[Mr Skrunts]

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=98358&C=Newsletter&U=08P04-5&T=-10967729

Would one of these cuase any harm to the eletrics/system if wired up to an auxillry plug and left on a trickle charge for what may be a few weeks at a time due to ill health.

Idea is to plug it into a direct fused connector  as I park the car up.

[Kevin Wood]

You can't plug it in to a cigar lighter because they are isolated when the key is switched off. Wired across the battery via an appropriately rated fuse they might help, though.

Alternatively, if the car is often laid up for more than a fortnight, get a small mains powered trickle charger.

Kevin

[Abiton]

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=98358&C=Newsletter&U=08P04-5&T=-10967729

Would one of these cuase any harm to the eletrics/system if wired up to an auxillry plug and left on a trickle charge for what may be a few weeks at a time due to ill health.

Idea is to plug it into a direct fused connector  as I park the car up.

I bought one of those for my Mk2 Golf and wired it into a permanent live.  I then measured the current output on a fairly sunny day...t'was about 8 milliamps  .  I think their 1.5W rating may be a teeny-weeny fib.

Better than nothing, I suppose   :-/

[Kevin Wood]

Ummm. 8mA won't even compensate for the current draw of the alarm.

Chocolate fireguard...

Kevin

[Lazydocker]

Ideally you want a battery optimizer bp opposed to just a trickle charger. You can get them from most parts shops.

[MutantCav]

If all else fails...break the front grille, easier and cheaper to replace than a window...can reach under the bonnet and push the bonnet release aside to release it...pushing lightly down on the bonnet as you do this helps...

[Mr Skrunts]

Is this something that can be fitted /left in the car.

My problem is I dont have a garage or drive and the car is parked on the street, some times a few doors from where I live.

The battery thing would not normally be an issue as I have a great mate who will come and boost start me at any time as his shift allows.

When I have any signs of battery problem I get a new one fitted.

Just recently I have been unable to use the car as often as I would like.  The most I have done in the last 10 years in any one year was arround 9,000 miles and it averaged out over the year.

The last 18 months I have only covered 4500 miles, with probably 2000 of those done in the 1st 3 months.

I just had a thought, giving you an example of current milage I put £20 in the car a month and it's currently got 40 litres in it.  So you can see  it stands idle a lot.

The itention is to use the car daily, but the reality is it gets about a 15/20 mile run out every 3 or 4 weeks and unfortuneatly I never know the next time the car will get driven.

This time it was stood for about 4/5 weeks, it might get used every week as the weather is improving, but either way I am just looking at adapting for ease of use should it be stood a while, but I am not in a position to connect to the mains supply.