Evoque just died, giving dozens of error codes, won't recognize key, etc

Hello all,
I set out today to change the rear brake pads on the car. Tried multiple times to put the car into brake pad service mode, but had no luck. Eventually decided to put the car into neutral, disengage the parking brake, and unplug the brake motors in case the parking brake decided to re-engage.

Got things put back together, all was well, turned the car off. It stayed in neutral. When I tried to turn it back on, I got error codes for

parking brake
neutral
transmission
hill descent
adaptive dynamics
stability control
terrain response
headlights
smart key
blind spot monitoring


and probably more. It appears every fault I could get, I did get.

The car now won't recognize the key at all, even if I place it under the steering column.. I can't lock/unlock the doors. When I can get the dash to power up, it won't even go into the error codes any more, just says no key, then illuminates both blinker arrows constantly.

I tried disconnecting the battery for a while to see if I could hard reset the system, but no luck. Pulled fuse 1 to try to reset the smart key system, but no luck.

Any thoughts?

Broken ABS sensor/ module gave several fault codes on my VOLVO?

Check the battery voltage first, apparently this is normal when the voltage falls. Did that to me first day I had mine, spent a long time in the garage playing with all the gadgets...

"Got things put back together, switched car off....."

Did you have it running or just left the ignition switched on? Sounds like you've flattened the battery. Charge it up or give it a jump start.

A dash full of warnings generally, but not always, is a sign that the battery is low. If you left any car doors or the tailgate open when doing the job that might have been enough to do the flattening too. Other option is to do the hard reboot by disconnecting the battery for 10 minutes and then reconnecting it and try starting then. It does a sort of Cnt/Alt/Del to the car's electronics and is often enough to return things to how they used to be.

Definitely ended up being battery related. I'm wondering if my battery is at the end of its life because it did not take long to run down.

Now on to why I can't get the brakes to go into service mode... Is there any trick beyond the obvious instruction list that is floating around?

Follow the instructions exactly and it works!

Having not put it in service mode, did you have any bother pushing pistons back?

I think he did it with just the ignition on and the engine not running - you can disengage the h/b and it will stay off if ignition on and in neutral.

(28-12-2015 12:41am)PhilSkill Wrote:  Follow the instructions exactly and it works!

Having not put it in service mode, did you have any bother pushing pistons back?

Unfortunately, following the instructions exactly refuses to work. I've tried repeatedly.

What I ended up doing was turning the ignition on and putting it into neutral. Basically following the instructions for towing.

I wasn't able to get the pistons pushed back in as I've been able to on other vehicles. I'm going to go in search of a better tool at the local auto parts store tomorrow.

Are these screw-back pistons?