My friend has a 2005 S-Type. It was sitting for about a month, and yesterday the battery was dead. After he charged it the car wouldn't start. I hooked up my WDS and read about 30 DTC's. Of course, I don't know how long they had been there, but a common thread was "battery voltage out of range." I cleared the codes, and the only one that stays is the drivers door module, battery out of range. I reset the immobilizer and reprogrammed the key (the only has one) and the car started.

The problem is that the key fob only locks and unlocks the left rear and right front doors. The trunk button and headlight button work. It does arm and disarm the alarm, but when you press the arm button the turn signals flash 5 times instead of the normal 2. When you unlock the first press does nothing because he has two-stage locking enabled and the drivers door doesn't unlock. The second press opens the left rear and right front.

This just started yesterday with the dead battery. The voltage with the car off is 12.1, and with the engine running 14.2. It does this even with a charger hooked up to the battery. I'm guessing the low voltage code on the door module is not a coincidence, but I'm not sure how it might be related. Diod the module fail and cause the battery to go dead? Did the battery die and fail the module? Do the five flashes mean something? Is there something we are missing that can be reset?

Another oddity - the key doesn't fit the driver's door lock, so if the RKE fails he's locked out. He just discovered this yesterday also. The car has been wrecked at some point in the past. The guy he bought it from said it had never been wrecked, but the front fenders, hood, and bumper cover are not the same color. He bought it at night (and he's a little color blind) and the first time I saw the car I asked him if he noticed that the car is black but the front is brown. It's not a big difference, but obvious (at least to me) in the light. Now, four years later all the clear is flaking off the front end, so it's obviously been repainted. The driver's door matches the rest of the car, but that doesn't mean it's original. That could explain the lock not matching the key. I don't know how that would affect the door module.

 

It's pretty common for the key to not fully insert into the driver's door. Are you certain it doesn't fit? They have to be exercised regularly to remain in working order (and when I say regularly, I probably mean 1x/week or more often) Not an easy mechanism to unstick and it will feel like a brick wall with the key half-way in. I've had the problem on both of our S-types. I've spent more than a few minutes with a pc. of baling wire and a bottle of Teflon getting those things to work. Best tool was a syringe with a long curved snout on it...but I've lost that somewhere...

Otherwise - a weak battery creates a lot of ills....I'm suspicious that may be your real problem, despite your voltage readings.

 

Thanks for the tip. He said he put a battery in it two years ago, but of course that doesn't mean anything. Ever heard of the five flashes before?

 

Multiple flashes means that a door or the trunk is not properly shut.

 

Nope - but I never pay attention to the flashes, primarily b/c I've not faced a security module problem yet. Check the diagnostic pages in JTIS, it may tell you what the flash-count means.


Interesting you programmed a single key and it worked. You were aware of the "wrap another car's key in foil" trick or is there another way?