I have an issue and wondered whether anyone else experienced this.
Basically the car is not responding to either key fob, new batteries in both fobs, little red light comes on when buttons pressed on fob but red key light on dash just blinks. Unlocking the car with the physical key juts sets the alarm off which continues to go off repeatedly until the car is re-locked with the key. I tried pressing the key fob up against the start button once the alarm goes silent for 5 seconds but nothing.
Local Mazda dealer not that helpful as when you ring the service desk it goes thorough to a centralised phone operator who just wants to book the car in to the nearest service centre which is fine in itself but the car is totally immobilised so not sure how I get it there apart from ringing local car recovery firm.
Will visit local Mazda dealer tomorrow to see if I can speak to someone who actually knows a bit about cars.
Thanks in advance for any assistance you may have.
It did cross my mind but I drove the car within the last week or so, it is garaged, unlocked and with the alarm off usually. I’ll try and connect my trickle charger to it and see what the voltage shows on the readout. That will be fun getting deafened in the process tomorrow!
That was my situation too, but unless you’re doing some good mileage runs you’ll find the battery soon gets depleted! I’ve been told that for every engine start you need to travel approx 7 miles to replace the drain from the battery. As I only do short runs I now leave mine connected to a smart charger (Optimate 4), not a trickle charger, when not in use. Good luck! Don’t forget to let us know how you get on!
I have a cheap Aldi jobbie but it is supposed to be a “smart” charger and I have used it to good effect over the winter months when the car hibernates. I’ll give it go anyway, nothing to lose apart from my hearing!!
There was a design fault in early cars, might only be RFs but not sure. If the cruise control wasn’t turned off when the car was parked it drained the battery. An update was made to cure the problem. Could explain why it drained in a couple of days if the battery is the cause.
I checked earlier today and there was no light inside the cabin and it did come on when I opened the door, don’t think the boot light was on as I had no reason to switch it on manually last time I went in the boot, can’t open the boot to check as the car doesn’t recognise the key so the boot button won’t respond. I will have to try and open the boot with the emergency operation tomorrow.
The RF suffers from low battery if you leave the cruise switched on i:e the display on the dash although you cannot see it with the ING yurned of it is still using power and flats your battery…mazda are awere of this but not doing a recall but you can and should take it back to your mazda dealer and they do a software update…mine never went flat but you could tell on start up it was not turning over the same when I took it in and told them they told me there was no recorded faults …I told them mazda was awere of it and it is recorded by mazda when they checked there system it came up and all was sorted I left the cruise light on to see it made a difference it did no more low /flat battery
Don’t do anything that drastic! Just wait until the battery is charged and everything will work normally! When that happened to me it took the best part of 48 hours continuous charging with the Optimate to get it back to full charge. You seem to be inclined to jump to drastic, unnecessary actions, just be patient!
Modern cars suffer from a multiplicity of complex systems reliant on electrical power, the ND is no exception and the RF version (if that’s what you have) even more so, and generally speaking they are fitted with batteries that have very little spare capacity and so need to be constantly “topped-up” which is normally done through the alternator. However this requires the car to be used regularly and with adequate mileage on each journey to replace the power usage and from what you’ve said you only use the car infrequently and probably on fairly short runs therefore there is a constant drain on the battery which is not being replaced, thus you’ve ended up with this situation. I’m not preaching, I’m relating what I was told when I experienced the same problem shortly after I bought my SE-L, so now I do what many others do, as soon as I’ve finished with the car for the day I connect my smart charger (Optimate 4) and that keeps the battery in good order.
All good advice above but if it does not work and it is still under warranty you can call out the Mazda breakdown and they will sort it or recover it to the dealer.
If it is not covered this is a good reminder of how useful breakdown cover is. Autoaid at ÂŁ60 is an option, other brands are available, hope you get sorted soon.