Electrical Issue, any pointers or advice greatly received!!

[baviaannl]

Some honest back story....

 

My touchscreen died a year ago and I only recently ordered the part in to get it swapped out, last Sunday was the day so I disconnected negative on my Battery, removed the system and carried out the screen swap, everything went perfectly well although I ran out of daylight hours so put the unit to one side, connected up the Battery and used it for work that evening, the car ran perfect as always.

 

On Monday I woke up sick... Very sick, to cut a long story short, I've been housebound until now and half way through a course of antibiotics.  My brother offered to fit the unit back into my car so it would be ready for when I'm back on my feet, I wasn't too keen although the Mrs advised we were going to need the car over Christmas and it may be a good idea.  He had a go for me although reported back later that the car wouldn't start and that the system wasn't booting!  Spoke to my wife who told me that she'd noticed that the car lights had been on almost all day plus while he was working on it, got her to check and the stalk was in the wrong position so yeah, I thought Battery was probably drained and forgot about it.

 

I checked my cars history and it dawned on me that the Battery hadn't been changed in 12 years, there is nothing on the service reports indicating that it had been done, unfortunately no sticker on the Battery indicating its age either.  Decided to buy a Bosch S4 068 as it seemed long overdue. 

 

Felt good again today and found the system screen unit on the passenger seat unconnected so I removed the old Battery and connected up the new, tried to start and nothing...  There is a sound like it's trying, 3 lame attempts and nothing!!  Phoned my brother to find out the full story and wanted to check how he did it, he then told me that he felt bad and it's been on his shoulders since Monday that he forgot to disconnect the Battery before starting work!!  I'm wondering if something has blown?  I checked the fuse box next to the Battery, everything seemed good, found the starter fuse although couldn't determine if that was damaged due to being sealed.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions here?  It was working fantastically well until this moment 

[Texas]

Wow, what a palaver! Where to start.... 

Was the 'Old' Battery that was removed the original factory fitted Panasonic black top/clear case type? Then if so yes you had your monies worth ( 10 years plus) out of it!

So to start fault finding what you have now I recommend that everything is put back as it should be.

Is there any chance that the Battery terminals may have been connected up to the car with reverse polarity?

 

[baviaannl]

Just connected up my code reader and found 2 codes reported:-

 

B1248 - AVC-LAN communications impossible (makes sense as it's not connected)

B1660 - P Seat airbag active mode indicator (confused with this as haven't been playing with anything else except the head unit)

 

The terminals were 100% not connected with reverse polarity, it wasn't touched

 

The Battery was indeed a Panasonic black top clear case, so yes, its done well 😄

 

Out of daylight again, as you suggested, I'll connect it all up again tomorrow and see what happens.

[Texas]

Just googled B1660 and found this https://www.troublecodes.net/bcodes/b1660/ does this make any sense in your case, Ie seat may have been attempted to move and got jammed by something? Or totally useless info on the old inter web!

[Texas]

Brain fart....on the central display iirc there is an indicator light ( near hazard switch) to note that passenger airbag is ON/OFF, could this be the cause as it ain’t there!

[m4rkw]

It's quite common on some cars (BMWs in my experience) for the occupancy sensor under the passenger seat to go out. This tends to happen because the seat is moved back and forth and eventually breaks a connection as the wires get old. On the beemers you can buy cheap bypass modules that clip onto the sensor connector which just tell the system the chair is always occupied. So anyway, I doubt this is related as even a serious airbag issue shouldn't stop the car starting.

It's not clear from the description if the starter is turning over or not, what happens when the key is turned? Is it just clicking or is it turning the starter?

Is the Battery the correct specced one for the vehicle, i.e. cold cranking amps is up to spec? I don't know where the starter is located on one of those but you could get a multimeter and check there's voltage at the connections to the starter when the key is turned.

[baviaannl]

2 hours ago, Texas said:

Brain fart....on the central display iirc there is an indicator light ( near hazard switch) to note that passenger airbag is ON/OFF, could this be the cause as it ain’t there!

Good call, you could well be right there.  I'll be out first thing in the morning to get it set up again, fingers crossed it works!