Having had a flat battery, the usual slow turn over and non firing, a headlight malfunction showed on the dashboard, when i came home and tried to start it the car was dead so i recharged the battery for 24 hours. Tested the battery was showing 12.5 volt charge. Tried to start the car and now it shows an immobiliser active sign in the dashboard display.

I have tried disconnecting the battery for 30 seconds to see if it clears the memory (and fault) to no avail. has anyone got any suggestions or could this be a plain old knackered battery...? oh and by the way the headlight malfunction warning had displayed on the dash in the preceding 2 weeks(ish) but always went straight off.

Are your headlamps of the auto-levelling variety?

Why I ask this is if they are, there is a fair chance an error showing up has been known to be a tell-tale sign of impending battery failure...

Headlamp fault means the motor struggled to self-level - presumably because of low battery power.

battery charge voltage should be about 14.5

Thanks for this advise Scudney, they are self levelling, and fully charged after a 24 hour charge the battery still only showed 12.5 volts. The second and most important issue is that the immobiliser is now active and refusing to let the car turn over. It has been suggested to me that the flat battery has allowed the immobiliser to forget the keys and, even though it allows the doors to unlock and re-lock and turn the ignition on it will not allow it to crank over the engine. :( Since then the battery has drained further and the car is now suggesting that there is a fault with the power steering, headlights and the immobiliser plus telling me that the battery is low, ( don't you love having the !Removed! obvious stated to you ). I have three possible solutions to try involving some procedures with the keys and unless you can suggest any other ideas i will post any good news I may have tomorrow once the battery has charged. Once again thanks for replying.

Regards Nick.

Further to your suggestion of an impending battery failure I recharged the battery last night but had little success with only 11.5 volt by this morning. I purchased a new battery and everything is now tickety boo. The car started straight away and no immobiliser messages or any other messages come to that. Interestingly enough the self levelling headlights no longer have a hissy fit when I turn the lights on.

Thanks Scudney for your advise as I was being given a lot of well meaning but incorrect time-wasting advise.

Regards Nick.

Wasn't that the intent of my post (and 13799's) too, to hint of impending battery failure - and to imply that you needed a battery change - which you held off till the last minute (which you envisaged as the time wasting portion). The issue of the autolevelling throwing up an error with a failing battery is well documented in the SmaxOwnersClub forum, which is why we brought it up in the first place.

Had you heeded it, you wouldn't have wasted any time, would you?

Anyways, you're welcome.

BTW, impending battery 'failure' was meant as just that... FAILURE - which is meant to imply that there isn't any real point in attempting to charge the battery, or did I not word that correctly...

I'm not contributing to this site anymore as I feel that valuable insight that's more appropriately SMAXOC's proprietary information painfully gained from real life S-Max owners' experiences should be made 'public' anymore.

I'm not wasting any of MY time here anymore, so bye, guys.

Sorry, typo - 'should' be 'should not'.

Well sorry guys !!! I have'nt meant to cause any offence but when I said lots of well meaning advise I was refering to the oral advise I was being given by well meaning workmates etc. the advise you all gave was spot on and I did not realise that there were three of you posting and I did not intend to upset anyone.

With kindest regards Nick.