Hi All,

I have a 2011 XKR convertible and the roof is down. The battery is completely dead and I attached a battery tender plus which is flashing red which indicates that it is not connected correctly. I know that it is connected correctly. Any ideas on how I can get the car started. I can’t get to the battery because the roof is down. Any ideas would be gratefully received.

Cheers

Joe

 

Failing all else you can erect the hood (top) manually. The instructions are in the owners handbook. If you don't have a copy, you can download one from a link contained in the stickies for this forum. If you belong to an affiliate of AAA or some other road club you can have your vehicle jump started through connection points located in the boot (trunk) Their locations are also indicated in the owners handbook. Good luck

 

I had this happen last week and a member on here pointed out there is a terminal under the rear behind the left rear tire that you could hook up booster cables to.

Randy

 

If your tender is flashing Not Connected, it may be that the battery is completely fried, burnt, toasted and kaput. OR, you really don't have it connected properly. If you can get hold of a REAL battery charger (10-20 amps or so), hook that up to the jump points and wait.

 

+1 on the 10-20A charger (to give the battery a shove, so it starts charging at all).

It's not forced to work as the battery may be terminally dead, but worth trying.

 

I had this happen to me and I used the remote terminals in the trunk to boost off another car. Mine is a 2007.

 

Battery Tender will register the red blinking while connected if the battery is overly discharged. I have had it refuse to charge a battery before with the red flash, fortunately I have a robust Schumacher with 2 and 10 amp settings, so I hooked up and let it chew away with the 2 amp for a day or so. When I hooked up the battery tender voila, blinked the green and went solid green in short order.

 

Thanks for all the responses. I was able to manually close the roof enough to get to the battery, so if I need to replace it, I can - there is an allen key bolt that I undid 1 turn for the hydraulic thing on the right in the trunk. I think my battery is completely dead, but will try getting a proper charger on it

 

Joe, you've omitted how old your battery is?

 

Hi Marky - I have no idea how old the battery is - it doesn't look really old - I've had the car less than a year, so not sure when this battery was put in.

 

Joe, if the battery is that dead and you don't know when it was installed, I would just go ahead and replace it. I replaced mine about a month ago under similar circumstances. I understand batteries are not cheap, but problems are and they tend to go on and on until solved.

 

Thanks again to you all for the advice - invaluable. As an update, I managed to borrow a jumper starter from a friend, and the car started straight away. The battery tender is now attached and charging (red light is on), so hopefully all will be well. If the battery keeps messing up, I’ll buy a new one.

 

[QUOTE=JackJohn;2279660]Joe, if the battery is that dead and you don't know when it was installed, I would just go ahead and replace it. I replaced mine about a month ago under similar circumstances. I understand batteries are not cheap, but problems are and they tend to go on and on until ....

Good advice, and please note: new batteries are NEVER fully charged off the shelf no matter what the clerk says. Charge the battery before installing it! Otherwise it may never reach full charge, depending upon your pattern of use.

 

Just lived this so I have it top of mind for you.

First of all you need to know about the charging terminal in the trunk. There is a ground terminal under the trunk floor and a positive battery terminal in the compartment at the left rear of the trunk. You may need to use your metal key to get the trunk open if the battery is really dead.

Hang a good charger on those trunk terminals and see if you can get a charge into the battery. Probably need a 5 amps or more charger to feed the drain from the car and have enough left over to charge the battery.

There is a way to get at the battery with the top down and no battery charge available to close the top, but it is not fun. You need to go into the compartment in the right rear of the trunk and release the hydraulic valve, then pull the loop to unlatch the tonneau cover. Once this is done with two people - one on each side of the car, you can lift the tonneau cover and while holding it up lift the entire convertible top to the intermediate position, exposing the panel over the battery. Four thumbscrews to get that panel released, remove it and you have the battery exposed.

Exchanging the battery involves removing a cross member, two clamps and the terminals. I did a photo essay of this as done through the trunk which is posted here.

After exchanging the battery if it was truly dead you need to reset the top and tonneau cover to the fully down position, close the hydraulic valve and reset the windows and parking brake and then recalibrate the ECU by some driving and warmups. All of that is documented elsewhere.

 

Which is why, when buying a car that's over 4yrs old (for the last 20yrs...before that I was young and stoopid) part of the deal is that they replace the battery foc...it's called 'buyers power' (pun intended).

IRRC all batteries (in the UK at least) have a sticker with date of manufacture on them.

What's the brand and specs of your old battery?