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Key fob not recognised then tyre pressure & Brake fluid warning and no power.


JJG
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Hi guys,

Went to go in the car today and had a message that the ford key was not recognised. I opened the covered ignition 'key' and inserted the fob. Then came the tyre pressure warning malfunction and brake fluid malfunction straight after it. I then tried to start the car but there is no power. No lights, horn etc and the strange part is the key inside the remote will not lock the door.

Anyone have any ideas? I connected my battery charger and it shows as being 100%.

It is a 2011 focus tdci titanium x with 16,000 miles (I use it two or three times a week but only to town (1/2 mile as I am unable to walk)).

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Are you sure it's not just as simple as a dead battery? Only doing half a mile in a diesel is sure to take it's toll on the car...

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Your car battery is dead. Remove it and replace it with a new fully charged battery and normal service will be restored.

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15 hours ago, unofix said:

Your car battery is dead. Remove it and replace it with a new fully charged battery and normal service will be restored.

Have put a battery charger on it and it ranges from 0-9; 0 being fully charged and it shows between the 0 and 1 and left it on for a few hours just to see (the manual says this is 100%). I used it the previous day and everything worked as normal but did have to go over some pretty large speed bumps. The start-stop worked as normal and on that Tuesday (1st) I had to take my sister for her chemo and so travelled 60 miles. Today, still nothing and am grateful the car is untouched as I can't even lock it with the key. A friend tried booster cables and still absolutely nothing. The battery is also only two years old. Last year I did have a similar problem but all the warning lights came on and I had to kangaroo the last 200 yards home. The following day it was working again as normal. Am thinking the speed bumps maybe loosened something?

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Hi James, did you disconnect the battery or did you charge it while still connected ?

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20 hours ago, JJG said:

the strange part is the key inside the remote will not lock the door

Do you mean you can't turn it or you turn it and nothing happens? Because the mechanical lock cylinder rarely gets used the tumblers can seize up. In this case the judicious application of a spray lubricant into the keyhole and working the key may free it.

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I cannot disconnect the battery as it is a start-stop one. This caused major headaches when I had to have a new one fitted the end of 2018. Every garage I called warned not to remove the battery or the car will not start without a full re-program. Fortunately, I was able to charge the battery sufficient to get it started and drove the 9 miles to the nearest garage that fit them. I just went and had another look to see if the phantom problem had gone and still the same; no power whatsoever to lights, horn etc. 

What made little sense to me (and I openly admit I know 0% about cars; was a PC engineer for years but can only add water/oil/air to the car) is that the key fob was not recognised, but when inserted to where a key would go actually got the dash on. Unfortunately, I had an immediate tyre pressure malfunction warning and then a brake fluid malfunction warning and everything went off.

Regarding the lock, the key turns both ways freely (a tad awkward to get out of the fob) but absolutely nothing happens. That said, at least the boot (estate) is locked and will not open.

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Just tried some WD40 and the key wiggles just as smoothly left and right but no locking action.

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10 minutes ago, JJG said:

Every garage I called warned not to remove the battery or the car will not start without a full re-program

That sounds like BS to me. I changed the battery on our 2012 Mk3 and tried to arrange a battery maintainer by plugging a power supply into the cigar socket. I'd previously done this successfully on our Mk2.5 but I discovered it hadn't worked on the Mk3 because the fuse was blown in the cigar plug. In spite of that everything worked ok after fitting the new battery.

Are you sure you're turning the key far enough in the lock? It's easy to think when you come up against some resistance that's as far as it will go but it may need more force than you expect to get to the limit of travel.

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Just got off the phone to Ford's and they also warned not to disconnect the battery as it causes problems when reprogramming the start/stop 'something'. I was told by the garage who fitted the battery to disable the start/stop but Ford's said it would make no difference. I can't say I really like keyless entry or the automatic engine start/stop but wanted the auto park as after spinal surgery have difficulty turning my neck to the right. Anyhow, Ford's reckon the speed bumps maybe loosened some wire from the battery to the fuse box as they have not heard of a battery working perfectly two days previous after a good run to suddenly have system errors and not have any power. If the connection to the fuse box is iffy, that would kill all power whatsoever. The nasty part is they want £160 +VAT to come out to get the car on a loader and take back for diagnostics. They did ask if 'service required' appeared and I forgot that it did just after the brake fluid malfunction warning.

Just in case Ford's were wrong, I phoned the garage who fitted the new battery again and he too doesn't think it's a battery issue but also warned if the battery is removed, the car's system will not work until a reprogram is done even If the battery was low/dead and was recharged. 

With the car not locking, my error. As I didn't hear anything, I assumed it didn't lock. The driver door is now locked, but the two back doors and passenger door is unlocked and I can't see a way to manually do this as there is no 'lock' button or switch on any door as on my old Scorpio.

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I just had a look at the car details, and the exact text it says is: FORD FOCUS 1.6 TDCi 115 Titanium X Sdr [App/Nay] Estate Manual. It is one of those ecoboost things that automatically stops and starts the engine if that helps.

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If you don't disconnect the battery you will never get the car to reboot.

Total bullshit about being told not to disconnect the battery. The only sort of thing that might want re-programming is your radio code.

A totally flat batery is no different to disconnecting the battery so by that logic everytime a car had a flat battery everything would need to br re-programmed, but at the end of the day its your car either keep it as "broken" or try and fix it and at worse case it will still be broken, but then again it might work !

 

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The two garages said the whole system is reprogrammed to the code of the special start/stop battery (cannot have a 'normal' one fitted they all claim). I'll get it removed and attach the charger and see if I get a different reading. As mentioned, while connected to the car the charger has it as fully charged.

thanks for your help,

James

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Saying the car needs to be programmed to the code of the battery is a load of rubbish. It is true that cars fitted with Stop-Start need a different battery from the silver calcium fitted to non Stop-Start cars though it's not a "special Stop-Start battery", it's just a particular construction designated as "Enhanced Flooded" or EFB. The only "reprogramming" that is needed when the battery is changed is resetting the Battery Monitoring System (BMS) and this is a very simple procedure that you can easily do yourself. Before doing so you need to ensure the battery really is charged to 100%. The procedure is as follows (this is for an Ecoboost Mk3 Titanium so should be right for yours):

Ign on for 10 secs,
press rear foglight switch 5 times*,
press hazard switch 3 times*,
wait 10 secs, Battery light flashes.
Ign off.

* this doesn't mean on-off that number of times, just that number of presses.

AFAIK if you're removing and refitting the original battery you shouldn't even need to reset the BMS. The only reason to reset it is to ensure it accurately detects the state of charge of the battery because the charging system tries to keep the SOC at 80%.

Hope this helps.

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3 hours ago, JJG said:

two garages said the whole system is reprogrammed to the code of the special start/stop battery

oh dear oh dear oh dear, what a total load of ************

Do they keep Harry Potter on standby for every time they change a battery ? 🤣

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57 minutes ago, unofix said:

oh dear oh dear oh dear, what a total load of ************

Do they keep Harry Potter on standby for every time they change a battery ? 🤣

Well, on the invoice it says they charged me £50 & VAT to 'reprogram' the car after the new start/stop battery was fitted!

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1 hour ago, mjt said:

Saying the car needs to be programmed to the code of the battery is a load of rubbish. It is true that cars fitted with Stop-Start need a different battery from the silver calcium fitted to non Stop-Start cars though it's not a "special Stop-Start battery", it's just a particular construction designated as "Enhanced Flooded" or EFB. The only "reprogramming" that is needed when the battery is changed is resetting the Battery Monitoring System (BMS) and this is a very simple procedure that you can easily do yourself. Before doing so you need to ensure the battery really is charged to 100%. The procedure is as follows (this is for an Ecoboost Mk3 Titanium so should be right for yours):

Ign on for 10 secs,
press rear foglight switch 5 times*,
press hazard switch 3 times*,
wait 10 secs, Battery light flashes.
Ign off.

* this doesn't mean on-off that number of times, just that number of presses.

AFAIK if you're removing and refitting the original battery you shouldn't even need to reset the BMS. The only reason to reset it is to ensure it accurately detects the state of charge of the battery because the charging system tries to keep the SOC at 80%.

Hope this helps.

Excellent; I'll have a try at that tomorrow. Ford's must also be sneaky as on checking, their handbook too says never to remove the battery but I'll get it out and get the charger on it. If it gives the same reading as while on the car (100%), that will really put me in the pickies! Any advice on how I can lock the back and passenger doors?

Thanks again.

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11 hours ago, JJG said:

Well, on the invoice it says they charged me £50 & VAT to 'reprogram' the car after the new start/stop battery was fitted!

Are you sure you've got a Focus?

The BMS reset on the Mk3 is just a few button presses that takes seconds to do.  Sounds like the garage were taking advantage tbh.

VW/Audi batteries have to be coded in.

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Hi guys,

Charged the battery all day and night (couldn't get the bolts off the bar holding it down as the bolt sticks up nearly 5cm so my socket set couldn't get 'down' to the nut so sat in the front room just watching and reading until morning!). Anyhow, there is now life. The battery shows as full while not connected but as soon as I started the engine the warning lights came on regarding the tyre pressure malfunction and brake fluid malfunction. Turned it off and tried again about an hour later and all was good. Decided to go for a 20 mile trip to see what happens and almost immediately had a new warning; engine management malfunction and the car 'kangarooed' for around a minute until I could pull over. Gave the car five minutes, re-started and it was back to normal again and didn't get any issues on the 12-mile trip home (turned off start/stop and didn't use the CD player).

The various warnings had only been going on a few weeks after an independent garage fitted new brakes for me (lack of usage I'm told as the last pre-MOT test (garage only MOT's or replaces tyres; zero mechanical work themselves) said it would fail as they were badly corroded/rusted) and two new indicator bulbs (Ford MOT 2019/2020 passed but said the units were faulty as the bulbs were pale. Instead of fitting orange bulbs they wanted to replace the two units for over £400 and with the brakes the estimate was over £1,200; Independent charged £650). Well, after the independent garage did the brakes, I every now and then had an ABS warning malfunction and again, the car kangaroos. I've learnt just to turn off, wait a minute and turn back on and the fault is gone. Did check online and found it is a common issue when non-Ford mechanics fit brakes as the sensors that clip on can be easily broken. With the latest errors, I'm not sure now if they were down to the battery too?

I don't really trust Ford in Bridgend anymore as they wanted £10 for a new battery for the keyfob and another £25 to 'reprogram' it to the car (seems this reprogramming is a favourite with them). Never done that with any car so just stuck a new battery in and it opened/locked the doors and started the engine fine; which is the reason I do not go to Ford anymore. After what you guys have said regarding the battery, the local garage who fitted it in 2018 will also be in the 'avoid' list with Bridgend Ford.

Hopefully, after a few good runs all will be fine (won't go to town every other day unless I use a taxi (five minute walk but I just can't do it) and just use the car once a week. If I get the same problem, I think the next step will be go to another garage and have a new battery fitted.

So, thanks guys for all your help and suggestions; it got me back on the road.

 

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Hi guys, back again.

The car is working as normal but have a problem with opening the doors. The doors cannot be opened unless I use the keyfob even though it is keyless entry. I haven't done the instructions by mjt as the car works and I am disabling the start/stop whenever I use the car. Any suggestions?

Thanks again guys,

JJ

 

 

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Hello James, I mean this in the best posible way, but are you sure you are trying to open the doors correctly?

Just put your hand through the handle, don't touch the outside top, wait just a second and pull the handle open. I know when I first got my Focus Mk4, I kept having problems unlocking because I kept wanting to touch the lock area on the handle, because that was how my previous car had worked.

I assume that the doors are locking ok when you touch the top edge

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On 6/17/2021 at 7:58 PM, unofix said:

Hello James, I mean this in the best posible way, but are you sure you are trying to open the doors correctly?

Just put your hand through the handle, don't touch the outside top, wait just a second and pull the handle open. I know when I first got my Focus Mk4, I kept having problems unlocking because I kept wanting to touch the lock area on the handle, because that was how my previous car had worked.

I assume that the doors are locking ok when you touch the top edge

I didn't know they can lock as well. That has never happened in the 10 years I have had the car; I guessed they only opened. I'm doing the same as I always have but believe it is battery-related.  I think I have either a battery problem or the alternator so a trip to a garage is now on the cards. Travelled 20 miles approx just for the sake of it on Thursday, came home and parked up. Went out to the car on Friday and the 'Ford keyfob not detected' was back to haunt me. Disconnected the battery again, put the charger on but this time the 'amber' light for charging turned green almost immediately. Left it on for almost an hour, reconnected the battery and it started as normal. Went another 10 miles, came home and parked up. As mentioned, the door will not automatically open (have to press the fob) and noticed the windows will no longer 'auto' open/close and I now have to hold the button for the windows to open or close again. Only took notice as I didn't want to use air conditioning if the battery is cooked.

Just to see what would happen, I tried starting it around five minutes ago and no problem. As the only local garage does not fit batteries with start/stop (no idea why after what you guys have informed me) I'll have a snoop in the yellow pages for the next closest and give them a call. 

 

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11 minutes ago, JJG said:

noticed the windows will no longer 'auto' open/close and I now have to hold the button for the windows to open or close again. Only took notice as I didn't want to use air conditioning if the battery is cooked.

I think by Disconnecting the battery you have reset the door modules used for the auto open/close (and global open/close on the keyfob). There's a post pinned to the focus section on how to "teach" it again, takes around 30 seconds to do.

You need to measure the battery voltage when it doesn't start. Otherwise you're just guessing at whether your car battery is dead or it's a keyfob problem etc. Saying your battery charger is green/amber doesn't really help.

If it is a dead battery then you can get it load tested, carry out a parasitic draw test or test the alternator. Cleaning up the terminals may also help.

I'm guessing your on the original Ford battery? At 10 years old it's probably on its last legs.

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On 6/20/2021 at 11:11 PM, Luke4efc said:

I think by Disconnecting the battery you have reset the door modules used for the auto open/close (and global open/close on the keyfob). There's a post pinned to the focus section on how to "teach" it again, takes around 30 seconds to do.

You need to measure the battery voltage when it doesn't start. Otherwise you're just guessing at whether your car battery is dead or it's a keyfob problem etc. Saying your battery charger is green/amber doesn't really help.

If it is a dead battery then you can get it load tested, carry out a parasitic draw test or test the alternator. Cleaning up the terminals may also help.

I'm guessing your on the original Ford battery? At 10 years old it's probably on its last legs.

No, the new battery was fitted in November 2018. Went to use the car again today and back to having zero power. Will get it charged enough to drive in the morning and get straight to a garage as I had to walk into town (1/4 mile) and took me nearly twenty minutes so need to get the car back to a reliable condition.

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Like I say you can't really find the fault unless you're going to get a multimeter out and start measuring the voltage.

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