Central locking won't unlock (Tourer)
 

The car has behaved itself impeccably for the last couple of weeks but today it won't unlock. I've changed the button cell in the fob and the LED is flashing so I'm suspecting the car's battery? It has never opened manually with the key on the drivers door. Are there any other manual locks hidden away? It's an 02 tourer? Reading other threads I found one suggesting hooking the rear light cluster to a 12v dry cell to feed enough power to the system to trip the c/locking actuator. Would a battery charger do the same ........or do permanent damage to a). Me, b). the car? I would rather not break the drivers' door glass to lift the button, to unlock the bonnet, to charge the battery but....... I'm not sure if there is any other option?????

I'm sure there is - please!

Can you open the boot/rear door ??---You will need to, to get at the rear light cluster.

Do you have a tow bar? You can put a power supply in through the socket if you have one.

Using a charger is OK. Just make sure you have the leads the correct way round.

Connecting 12 volt to the starter motor works - the AA got me into my car when the battery died, and the drivers door handle was had become disconnected.

Try putting the earth lead to a metal part of the engine itself.

This will bypass the earth that should be there already in case it's not working. ie .Broken.

Following Colvert's suggestion I know I had a good earth this time. Clamped onto the bell-housing and when I activated the keyfob the indicators flashed, as they should, but still nothing unlocked. A post on fuses by Dingl200 (apologies if I remember you name incorrectly) says that the central locking on earlier cars (mine is an 02) is controlled by an interior fuse - 14. Surely you would have a split circuit, so they couldn't all die at once - wouldn't you??? Or a failsafe "open" default?

Bonnet cable access
 

Hi Darren.
You can access the boot cables from within the OS drivers side wheel arch, drop one of the mods a PM and they will pass on how to do it, personally i think it should now be a sticky.

The only reason its not public is due to security but i doubt anyone is going to bother with our old cars now anyways :shrug: hopefully you can open the bonnet add a new battery and the doors will open.

Hi Jon.
Yes i know but in his first post he states ( I'm suspecting the car's battery?) therefore if he get the bonnet open, he can add another battery. or put a charger on it.

The front bonnet cables will not open the tail gate on a Tourer.

Arctic, was your comment about opening the boot a typo (or autocorrect "helping" you out)? If you mean opening the bonnet - yes I have that info from the subscribers site.

But, as I appear to have power (lights flash when fob is activated) by clamping onto the starter and bellhousing, would a new battery help anyway? If you do mean the boot this would let me climb through and check the fuses, as well as seeing if anything else has gone down - some sort of general BCU failure????