Having new battery fitted at home maybe tomorrow.  My stupid fault this has happened; car gets very much less use these days, yes I know I need to give it frequent runs, lesson learnt. Battery is the original from car new; therefore over 7 years old.  Been driving since aged 10 now aged 89 so should have known better!!, car has done less than 250 miles in EACH of last three years.  Only used for food shopping, have no option but to still run a car; horrendous cost per mile of course!  Cannot find a way to lock car doors overnight; discovered 'key blade' from fob won't.  Any bright ideas anyone? 

Micrexa

 

The key blade won't turn probably because the mechanism the blade fits into is seized.

It is difficult to judge from a forum how much you can safely "force" the blade to turn in the mechanism. Have you tried some reasonable pressure on the blade by trying to turn it with some pliers. Squirting something like WD40 into it may help.

I am up in Warwickshire so too far away from Essex.

For future reference a battery needs to be kept with a good charge in it at all times else it will fail/have short life. In your circumstances the best thing to do would be to charge and maintain it by using a CTEK MX5 battery charger, shop around, should be around £70. They are an excellent product. Owners of expensive vehs that don't get used much use the CTEK to maintain the battery. 

Thanks for post TrevorB, yes I did try to turn key blade with pliers, but with only reasonable gentle pressure.  Could it be that as there is NO battery power whatsoever that is the reason key blade won't turn?  In other words is the key and door lock linked to battery power would anyone know? 

Getting back to yesterday when I went to use the car.  (By the way the car had not been used for a couple of weeks and there had not been any hint up that point in the past that the battery was going to suddenly 'collapse' on me).  The car unlocked as per normal, pressed clutch pedal, then START button as usual and the only thing that happened was all lit indications went dim.  Tried second time to START, same thing happened, this time though a notice came up in central display saying 'System Closing Down' with an advancing progress bar, when that finished everything went dead of course and that is how it has been since.  I have got a Ring Smart Battery Charger which to date has never been used on my Focus; can anyone tell me is it safe to connect this, (or any other Smart Charger), charger to dead battery in situ in car, without risking the complex car electronics? 

I have not yet ordered new battery with fitting at home as this may take a two or three days, so would like in the meantime to be able to at least lock the car at night.  

I'm sorry, but I feel the need to step in. The CTEK is a fine charger, IF you have plenty of disposable income to throw at it. A more affordable option for most of us is the MayPole. At just over £20, it'll do everything you need, and yes, it's a 'smart' charger which you can attach to an even 'flat' batter for it to do it's stuff. If the battery is 'flat', it will take a long time to charge up (could be a full day), but don't worry about damaging anything, it won't. Yes too, it can be used 'in situ', I have never removed a battery for charging, even in the 70s when you were supposed to LOL

When charging, make sure you connect the -ve (negative) of the charger to your cars bodywork (an exposed nut or something) If you connect it to the battery direct, you'll bypass the BMS (battery monitoring system) and you car will not register it now has a charged battery.

Click here for an example where to buy it...

Rex, the fact there is no battery power is not the cause of your problem.

It is not unusual for modern day batteries to be ok one minute and suddenly fail the next without any warning

Connect a battery charger as per Stephens good advice - it is the correct way to do it.

Stephen, point taken about the cheap charger but according to Maypole it only does up to 2.5 litres and the stuff I get involved with is often higher.

Also, depending where you look, very varied reviews on the Maypole - some saying it will not charge a totally flat battery - who knows - ye pay yer money and takes your choice

Thanks Stephen for invaluable tips especially the last one re the Negative connection to chassis earth and the reason for!  Yes I too have always charged batteries in situ on all my older cars, but not on modern cars with complex electronic systems.  As I said in previous post the whole electronic system on the Focus has 'shut down', that is why I am a bit concerned in recharging battery will the system auto recover, can anyone here know for sure???   In general does an electronics system auto recover when a new battery is fitted??   Sorry to appear a bit thick about all this, as having been retired for some long time now I have not kept up with modern car design etc.. etc..

5 hours ago, StephenFord said:

I'm sorry, but I feel the need to step in. The CTEK is a fine charger, IF you have plenty of disposable income to throw at it. A more affordable option for most of us is the MayPole. At just over £20, it'll do everything you need, and yes, it's a 'smart' charger which you can attach to an even 'flat' batter for it to do it's stuff. If the battery is 'flat', it will take a long time to charge up (could be a full day), but don't worry about damaging anything, it won't. Yes too, it can be used 'in situ', I have never removed a battery for charging, even in the 70s when you were supposed to LOL

When charging, make sure you connect the -ve (negative) of the charger to your cars bodywork (an exposed nut or something) If you connect it to the battery direct, you'll bypass the BMS (battery monitoring system) and you car will not register it now has a charged battery.

Click here for an example where to buy it...

Stephen,

What do you classify as a 'Flat' battery, as the Maypole MP7423 Instruction and Information Manual shows "IMPORTANT: This model will only recover 12V batteries with a minimum residual voltage of 7.5V, or 6V batteries with a minimum residual voltage of 4V. If the residual voltage is lower than above figures, the charger will not operate."?

https://maypoleltd-my.sharepoint.com/personal/website_maypoleltd_co_uk/Documents/7423 instructions-2016-01.pdf?ga=1

12 minutes ago, YOG said:

...This model will only recover 12V batteries with a minimum residual voltage of 7.5V, or 6V batteries with a minimum residual voltage of 4V...

Yep, that's my definition of a flat battery! 7.5v is definitely 'flat'. In my last cat, I had a voltage reading (on a 12v battery) of 6v, the Maypole did charge it, but it took about 16 hours! If your battery is that done in, it would be better to try and get a jump start, and charge when the voltage gets a bit higher. The Maypole is a battery charger, not a miracle worker LOL I keep my old Focus battery 'topped up' once every couple of months, takes about 45 minutes.

2 hours ago, Micrexa said:

especially the last one re the Negative connection to chassis earth and the reason for! 

Modern cars have a battery sensor (BMS) fitted in the negative lead, between the battery terminal and the chassis earth point. You need to connect the negative of the charger to the chassis earth point so that the BMS knows that the battery is receiving a charge, and therefore the State Of Charge (SOC) will be known as the battery charge increases.

If the battery terminal voltage has fallen below 8 volts, I personally would consider the battery dead, and little point in trying to recover it.

Possibly worth mentioning that the Ctek-MXS 5 has a "recond" mode which I believe is supposed to help recover heavily discharged batteries. Can't testify to it's effectiveness as I've never needed to use it - possibly someone has and could comment?

The Noco Genius 5, which is about the same price as the C-Tek, also has a mode which it is claimed will start to recharge a battery where the level of charge is too low to be detected.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 2:58 PM, Eric Bloodaxe said:

Possibly worth mentioning that the Ctek-MXS 5 has a "recond" mode which I believe is supposed to help recover heavily discharged batteries

In this mode it just charges the battery at a slightly higher voltage to promote gassing and stir up the electrolyte. Quite how effective this is is open to debate. What I can say is my CTEK doesn't detect a known failing battery (an old one that I took off the Mk3 and keep for powering a tyre pump).

1 hour ago, mjt said:

In this mode it just charges the battery at a slightly higher voltage to promote gassing and stir up the electrolyte. Quite how effective this is is open to debate.

I guess that makes sense from the mode being labelled "recond".

The Noco sounds different, it's called "force" mode. According to the blurb, if the charger won't detect sufficient charge for charging to commence automatically, if you enter this mode it will "force" it to start charging and resume the normal charge cycle later.

 

On 6/13/2022 at 1:57 PM, unofix said:

If the battery terminal voltage has fallen below 8 volts, I personally would consider the battery dead, and little point in trying to recover it.

Likely, but not definitely.

I have had a battery which due to lack of use (and drain from an alarm system), dropped to about 5 volts. I experienced the 'smart charger' problem of my charger thinking it was a 6v battery  and would only charge it up to about 6.5 volts. So I had to couple it up to a spare 12v battery until it got to about 10 volts and THEN  I could use  the mains charger. The battery went on to work perfectly well for another 2-3 years.