Fiesta battery disconnection megaprobs

I locked my keys in the boot of the Fiesta on Saturday. The car was deadlocked. Eventually a locksmith managed to pick the door lock, so the keys were reclaimed, but the Green Flag men had disconnected the battery in their efforts (trying to get a window open, I think, by fiddling with fuses/wires) and now the car will not start and is showing warning lights. Basically the transponder key is not speaking to the engine.

The car will have to go into the Ford garage to be looked at today. God knows how much it might cost to be fixed. (Where cars are concerned my glass has only got a teaspoonful in the bottom.)

Any experience of this? Interestingly, before Green Flag looked at the car I had to sign a disclaimer absolving them of responsibility if they did any damage in the course of sorting it. This began to look increasingly sinister as the day wore on.

 

I think the inmoberlizer has come in when the battery was disconneced, not sure how to change it on a ford fiesta
you also may have locked the radio as well

 

Yes, the radio needs the code re-entering, luckily I think I can do that by myself.

 

I think @longk is good with cars , may be he can but some light on this for you

 

How old is it?

So the green flag got the bonnet up and tried opening a window via the fuse board with bits of wire?
TBH, it sounds like a nest of vipers I'm afraid.

 

I know some manufactures recommend one switch on the main lights before reconnecting the battery.
The lights create a "dump" path (and thereby diverting it from the main controller unit) for the surge created when the battery is reconnected.
Might be worth checking with the garage so that if the battery ever needs to be disconnected/reconnected or replaced in the future, the proper sequence is observed thus eliminating any potential problems.

 

Exactly what I think also. But you know, these situations suddenly develop. I thought Green Flag would have it sorted in 10 mins and I'd be on my way. But one thing led to another. And these guys are supposed to be professionals and I know next to nothing about cars......

The Ford garage left me a message this afternoon but have not answered the phone on any of my return calls so I'm still stewing. I popped in to the locksmith guy who used to sort my Corsa key issues, he said I should have phoned him because he can get in to any Ford in minutes. Humph.

Has anyone else had issues with signing a disclaimer prior to breakdown assistance? I'm not sure if GF do it as a matter of course for every callout or if it relates specifically to key issues.

 

My previous Volvo, Helga, broke down once. I was covered with Green Flag. I called them out. Basically the engine wouldn't start and the engine management warning light was on. The man turned up, took a look at the light (which has a lambda symbol on it, which is one of a number of common symbols to represent engine management), so the man said it was the lambda sensor without actually looking at anything else.

Lucky for me, while I'm no mechanic, I know a thing or two about engines. I told him that that light simply meant that the computer had detected an anomolous signal from one or more of many sensors, and that he should do some basic diagnostics to find out why, as it could be a simple fix. I had to show the man how to get the full diagnostic info out (early 940s had a crude built in diagnostic reader under the bonnet). The unit reported two faults. Faulty or missing signal from the oxygen sensor, and faulty or misleading signal from the mass airflow sensor. To this, the man said "oh that will be expensive, both the O2 sensor and the MAF sensor have failed". I had to explain, to a supposed mechanic, that the computer would get confused about both those sensor if, after several attempts at adjusting the fuel mix, it still couldn't get a close correlation between the readings from those two sensors. Such a thing would happen if one sensor was misreporting, or even if one spark plug had failed and so was no burning the fuel properly, leaving large amounts of oxygen in the exhaust gases. After much grumbling from the mechanic, I asked him outright. I said "look, I've not got my tools with me, do you have some basic tools I could borrow for 2 minutes, and I'll fix it myself". He wouldn't let me, but did at least agree to tinker knowingly under the bonnet.

I watched him disconnect the coolant temperature sensor, and shook my head subtly, so he reconnected it. Several other bits were loosened then re-tightened, before I kind of subtly pointed at the MAF sensor, which he then took off, blasted with some carb cleaner, and refitted. After that the car started, and he looked very pleased with himself and went away happy

I later discovered a couple of faults, both purely mechanical (knackered thermostat in the air box, meaning she was constantly breathing hot air - that cost me 20 pence to fix), and a knackered distributor cap, costing about £15. She never missed a beat again after that. The Green Flag man had wanted to condemn her as uneconomical to repair, as I'd have been looking at about £400 in parts, then labour on top to replace expensive sensors that were not faulty.

I terminated my policy with Green Flag immediately after that incident, and went to the RAC instead.

 

@clueless1

Get yourself a good OBD-II to USB interface, they are worth every penny if you have a relatively modern car that is no longer under the original manufacturer warranty.

I hope you told why as well.

 

No good to me. The standard adopted by Volvo in the era that my car was built is officially called 'not quite OBD-II'. No matter though, because the circuit diagram for the original diagnostic unit built into the early 940s but withdrawn on the later ones, is widely available on t'interweb, so I've built one

I did. The lady on the phone said simply "well I can't argue with that, sounds like you're right to want to leave us".

 

@clueless1

What I meant is for newer cars as most of them follow the OBD-II standard now.
It's only the physical connector and the pin-outs that vary and adapters are available to fit all new cars.

 

Newer cars are no good to me. I like older ones

The Volvo 940 has the 'not quite OBD-II' standard because it uses an OBD-II connector, but some of the pins are not as defined in the OBD-II standard.

 

I'm rather keen on them myself and there are some real nice ones.
Mitsubishi GT3000 and Honda NSX come to mind but I'm missing two key components in order to get them, space and funds.