Just learned something new about Keyless Entry!

Soooo, went to start the car this morning and...all electrics dead.

I couldn't find a reason, wife had gone to work in her car and I don't have a charger so I called LR Assist.

Very helpful chap comes over and starts the car and explains to me that if you leave your Keyless Entry equipped car unlocked the battery will drain and eventually go flat!

I've not heard about this before and LR are apparently trying to get Dealers to tell Customers as this isn't uncommon.

An unlocked Keyless entry car will continually be searching for the key and I had left my car unlocked in the garage for approx. 24hrs.

Anyway, battery appears to be holding a charge so here's hoping all is well! Lucky I work from home and didn't need the car this morning.

(14-08-2012 10:38am)Coolbanana Wrote:  Soooo, went to start the car this morning and...all electrics dead.

I couldn't find a reason, wife had gone to work in her car and I don't have a charger so I called LR Assist.

Very helpful chap comes over and starts the car and explains to me that if you leave your Keyless Entry equipped car unlocked the battery will drain and eventually go flat!

I've not heard about this before and LR are apparently trying to get Dealers to tell Customers as this isn't uncommon.

An unlocked Keyless entry car will continually be searching for the key and I had left my car unlocked on the garage for approx. 24hrs.

Anyway, battery appears to be holding a charge so here's hoping all is well! Lucky I work from home and didn't need the car this morning.

How did you manage to leave the car unlocked? Shouldn't it have locked once you moved away from it with the keys?

Nightfox, indeed it should have relocked itself but IIRC you can disable that. Seems odd though to leave your car unlocked even in your garage, I would imagine the insurance company would consider that you hadn't made all possible precautions should it be stolen from inside the garage.

The battery seems to be quite hardy if you don't completely flatten it, as I recently found out. I was aware about the keyless entry flattening the battery as RRS and FFRR can do the same thing. The batteries are also a special high capacity type and not your usual Halfords lead acid sort.

Guy's, it isn't usual for me to leave the car unlocked, even in the garage hence my only discovering this issue now.
That said, to steal the car the electric driveway gate would need to be disabled/broken, the metal electric garage door ripped open and the dog who sleeps in the kitchen next to the garage silenced!

As for auto-locking - never even knew the keyless entry could do that! It has never locked itself; I'll definitely look into enabling that now.

(14-08-2012 11:53am)Coolbanana Wrote:  Guy's, it isn't usual for me to leave the car unlocked, even in the garage hence my only discovering this issue now.
That said, to steal the car the electric driveway gate would need to be disabled/broken, the metal electric garage door ripped open and the dog who sleeps in the kitchen next to the garage silenced!

As for auto-locking - never even knew the keyless entry could do that! It has never locked itself; I'll definitely look into enabling that now.

Wasn't meaning to sound like I was having a go - just curious why your car wasn't auto-locking.

Once you get used to keyless entry/exit and keyless stop/start it's a nightmare when you go back to a 'traditional' vehicle - I've been using such an X-Type for the last 7 months and several times I've returned to the car in car parks to find I've left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition!

(14-08-2012 12:20pm)NightFox Wrote:  Wasn't meaning to sound like I was having a go - just curious why your car wasn't auto-locking.

Once you get used to keyless entry/exit and keyless stop/start it's a nightmare when you go back to a 'traditional' vehicle - I've been using such an X-Type for the last 7 months and several times I've returned to the car in car parks to find I've left the car unlocked with the keys in the ignition!

Nooo, never thought you were Just felt like explaining that I never knew I could enable an auto-locking feature; you have been helpful and hopefully this will prevent my battery from going flat again.

You can also unlock/ lock the keyless entry cars by keeping the transponder in your pocket and tapping the two ridges on the the door handle if it hasn't already unlocked because you are with-in a metre of the car.

I've only seen my car auto-lock itself if I unlock it and then don't open a door. That's pretty much what the manual says for the US version. No auto-lock if you walk away. Is that a UK feature?

There are about six receiver sensors on the car too and they generally only have a range of 3 feet (1 meter). I doubt they do anything different unless your fob is in range of one of them. Did you leave your key in the unlocked car? Maybe that would cause it to be "awake" the whole time? I actually thought I read somewhere but can't find it now that you should keep your key fob some minimum distance away from the car when not in use.

I think I've left the car unlocked in the garage a few times. Now I'm a bit concerned!

(14-08-2012 12:53pm)XFullFatTim Wrote:  You can also unlock/ lock the keyless entry cars by keeping the transponder in your pocket and tapping the two ridges on the the door handle if it hasn't already unlocked because you are with-in a metre of the car.

Yup, that I knew and like.

I'm used to popping down to the local Sainsbury's for example, pressing the door handle ridges to lock the car and then using the key fob to open the boot as I return with my trolley, load the boot, press the button on the bootlid to close it and open the still locked car doors by virtue of my having the key fob in my pocket and then, once parked at home, press the door handle ridges to lock - except I forgot to on this occasion and ended up with a flat battery!

Love Keyless Entry and this added auto lock feature will just make it all the better.

Hmmm. Just took a look at my US manual and a UK manual I downloaded last May and I see a few differences. For example, we have "global opening" but not "global closing" where the windows are closed automatically. We also don't have "double locking".

I'll have to ask my service manager if he's heard of the battery draining issue.