van not used for 4 months and now will not unlock doors

patman99

Personal experience. When I had to change the battery, I had reason to go back indoors so locked the car. Unhooked the old battery then remembered I needed to retrieve something from inside the car. At that point I found that the key would not manually unlock the vehicle.
Once new battery was hooked-up, the key worked fine.

KTF

patman99 wrote: »

Personal experience. When I had to change the battery, I had reason to go back indoors so locked the car. Unhooked the old battery then remembered I needed to retrieve something from inside the car. At that point I found that the key would not manually unlock the vehicle.
Once new battery was hooked-up, the key worked fine.

Well that would make sense as the ECU would not be getting any power so your only method of entry would be to use the key rather than the 'plipper'.

patman99

I was using the key in the lock rather than the 'plipper'. It is part of the security system. Remove battery to disable immobiliser & the C/L gets disabled as well.

It is a bit like Ford's 'auto-lock' feature that will lock the car if you don't open the door within 5 minutes of unlocking it.

forgotmyname

If you unlock the doors and dont open one. It will relock. Dont think its 5 minutes though.

As far as im aware it doesnt lock itself if you forget to?

Ive had the car unlocked for hours, Same with my BIL's MK4.

securityguy

patman99 wrote: »

Some vehicles disable the manual lock if the battery goes flat or is disconnected. The Skoda Octavia is one such vehicle.

Are you sure? My Octavia (2005) remains locked when the battery is flat (yes, I've done this, with the help of a failed brake switch which jammed the brake lights on), but opens on the key. I don't see how it could do otherwise: if the battery is flat, it can't operate any sort of mechanism to either lock or unlock the doors.

johnjp

sniper786 wrote: »

Thanks,

I only have the electric key, i have no idea where the manual key is so i can simply unlock it the good old fashioned way - my own fault for being so unorganised!. It is a mercedes benz vito if that helps.

My friend is coming round in a few days to jump start as the battery will surely be dead, on the battery is ok should it then unlock alright?

So - what happened?

patman99

Op is probably still trying to gain entry into his van.

SirEcho

I have an Octavia II, It's brilliant on fuel economy but started costing money for repairs (EGR valve; Fuel injector; DPF) when I retired and most of my journeys became short and local. So I tended to use my wife's lovely petrol Micra instead ...and the Octavia was left unused for a month. Result: completely flat battery. I couldn't access bonnet release cable from grille, (and when I did gain access found that that's an impossibility).
Instead I removed under-engine cover and jabbed a tiny screwdriver into the thick cable that runs between battery and started motor. Attached charger to this and earth, and that was sufficient to allow locks to be opened. That was 3 hours ago; battery was so dead that engine wouldn't start even with jump leads from aforementioned Micra, revving strongly! I hope an overnight trickle charge will do some good.
It's also a pain in the backside replacing that under-engine cover! Lesson: don't let battery get flat.

EssexExile

And when you knacker the Micra battery there's a cover comes off the passenger side door lock only to reveal a key hole. I hope my Dad's Micra battery never goes flat, he parks it in the garage right up against the left hand wall. He'll need a can opener.

davybull

If it's a later model Vito the battery is under the drivers seat.

Dave.