Airbag email whilst on drive and car dead

[hamd01]

Had this email 30 mins ago. Gone out to check the car....the key fob does nothing when pressed, but all the doors are open. Everything dead inside...car won't start or respond to anything.

Charger is plugged in....but won't unplug. No lights at all on charger port.

Gutted

Anyone any ideas?

Update. Ive seen another thread here with someone who had a very similar issue.

Now reported to MG Assist who will be here first thing in the morning. Ill be phoning the dealer, but have also emailed them ahead.

Very concerned that the airbag has either tried, or could try to deploy.... just glad this happened whilst it was on the drive in an evening and not whilst we were driving it.

 

[Ian Key]

Had this email 30 mins ago. Gone out to check the car....the key fob does nothing when pressed, but all the doors are open. Everything dead inside...car won't start or respond to anything.

Charger is plugged in....but won't unplug. No lights at all on charger port.

Gutted

Anyone any ideas?

There is an emergency cable release in the boot so you can remove the charging cable.

 

[FiFi]

Hi there, if you look back a page or two you will find that this happened to my Trophy on 15/16th December. Have you had your car updated recently? This resulted in my car being returned to dealer and remained there for 3 weeks (some delay due to festive period). MG have been very cagey about the cause of it and have not released info to dealer and therefore to me but they have fixed it - permanently I hope as I only got it back at the end of last week. I suspect that it may be related to an update which the dealer added to my car on 14/12 when it went into them to review chassis panel/heating sensor called FLSM - Front Left Seat Module which I suspect in the UK might actually be Front Right Seat Module due to our driving position but no info provided on this.

My car was also dead - MG assist initially thought the 12v battery was drained & that was the case due to the car alerting this and other supposed faults all night but they couldn’t explain the white dust etc I had on the steering wheel. Your car may not have charged at your point either as mine hadn’t. As others have said you can remove the casing on the drivers door handle and use the key to lock & unlock the car. MG assist put a low voltage charger on the car and that got it up and running again and ok to drive. He then drove my car to the dealer (which I did not expect, he said mainly because they did not have enough knowledge of our car on their system to even understand how to tow it). My car was updated by MG via instructions between them and dealer on their SNOW system which I understand is how the dealers communicate to MG and it has been fine since, I was getting all types of fault alerts to my app but they have stopped now so MG are aware even it is just my car as the only other it has happened to - so hopefully they can fix it for you a lot quicker than mine.

 

[hamd01]

Hi there, if you look back a page or two you will find that this happened to my Trophy on 15/16th December. Have you had your car updated recently? This resulted in my car being returned to dealer and remained there for 3 weeks (some delay due to festive period). MG have been very cagey about the cause of it and have not released info to dealer and therefore to me but they have fixed it - permanently I hope as I only got it back at the end of last week. I suspect that it may be related to an update which the dealer added to my car on 14/12 when it went into them to review chassis panel/heating sensor called FLSM - Front Left Seat Module which I suspect in the UK might actually be Front Right Seat Module due to our driving position but no info provided on this.

My car was also dead - MG assist initially thought that it was the 12v battery drained & that may well have also been the case due to the car alerting this and other supposed faults all night but they couldn’t explain the white dust etc I had on the steering wheel. Your car may not have charged at your point either as mine hadn’t. As others have said you can remove the casing on the drivers door handle and get into the car using the key and the car should start. MG assist driver drove my car to the dealer (which I did not expect, he said mainly because they did not have enough knowledge of our car on their system to even understand how to tow it). My car was updated by MG via instructions between them and dealer on their SNOW system which I understand is how the dealers communicate to MG and it has been fine since, I was getting all types of fault alerts to my app but they have stopped now so MG are aware even it is just my car as the only other it has happened to - so hopefully they can fix it for you a lot quicker than mine.

Thank you. Yes I did read your thread....glad your sorted.

I've had the car 28 days. Picked up on the 12th Dec. It hasn't been updated since, but I'd assume had the latest updates at pdi.

I'll see what mgj assist do. I certainly wouldn't be sitting in the drivers seat of a car reporting airbag alarms...but we shall see.

 

[FiFi]

FYI I just updated my post as only my husband was there for the 12v charging bit so I changed it to better reflect how we got it going from unlocked as my post insinuated it was in fact locked when it was actually in the same state as yours

 

[hamd01]

Update. The AA have just been, and he tested the 12v battery, it was completly dead. Kudos to the people who said that could be the problem.

The AA guy charged the battery enough to get the car functioning.

Now obviously something has gone wrong for the battery to go to zero in a couple of hours between me last driving it.

When he got some charge in and we switched the car on, the dash was full of warnings....airbag....traction control....sensors...lane assist etc.

As he charged the 12v the warnings all went away. So Im now assuming the airbag warning is just part of all the other warnings....it just so happens that the airbag warning triggers an email.

So the problem is....why did the battery end up at 0%. Ill be driving it to the dealer shortly, to leave it with them to investigate.

 

[FiFi]

Identical issue to mine and is now thankfully resolved (fingers crossed) so hopefully they can do the same fix on yours!

 

[Lovemyev]

When he got some charge in and we switched the car on, the dash was full of warnings....airbag....traction control....sensors...lane assist etc.

As he charged the 12v the warnings all went away. So Im now assuming the airbag warning is just part of all the other warnings....it just so happens that the airbag warning triggers an

The Christmas tree affect of warning lights on the dash, is triggered when the 12 volt battery state / voltage drops to low.
Charging the battery will usually clear the faults automatically.
When your car is in READY mode, with a healthy battery you should be seeing around 13 - 14 volts SOC on your battery.
Is there any chance you left something still turned on in the car, or left one of the doors or the boot slightly open ( leaving the interior light on ).
The dealer will no doubt charge the 12 volt battery to full and they check its condition, while scanning the car for any fault codes.
The battery could just be a faulty unit ?.
Good luck and report back !.

 

[turntoport]

Airbags/warnings; for info only (as it's a bit off-topic):
Airbags are pyromechanical devices, i.e. they are the baggy-bit which is 'explosively' inflated with gas (not 'air', but usually Nitrogen - N2), the latter being supplied by combustible propellant in a 'gas generator'. The propellant is electrically initiated by a 12V pulse, this in turn enabled by a 'g'-switch (accelerometer, probably mems on a dedicated circuit-board). To prevent unintended initiation by 'stray voltages', i.e. current flows in wiring/circuit boards that are induced by external radio signals (e.g. mobile phone...) and other spurious crap etc, the initiator probably is of a design that requires a minimum current and a minimum power to allow it to function - anything less and it won't 'initiate'. (Often expressed as, for example, 1A 1W, i.e. 1 Amp current and/or 1 Watt power). The particular system may have different values depending where the designer sets their go/nogo threshold and the power system voltage, but the outcome is that if the nominal power supply is deemed unable to supply the initiator power requirement, you get a warning. i.e. your airbag won't work 'cos there's insufficient battery grunt to light-up its initiator.

Another outcome of this is that should you manage to 'bump' your car at threshold 'g' but with sub-threshold battery power, the initiator is likely to be permanently 'dudded', i.e. it will get warm but not warm enough to light-up the propellant, but in doing so will 'burn it's bridges' (literally). You'll still get an 'airbag warning', but this time it will mean something else (the airbag will never function). Heed the warnings.
Hope that helps - ttp

 

[hamd01]

As above.... the faults regards the air bag were a complete red herring. the real issue here is that the 12v battery was at close to 0% and thus nothing could function.

The dealer now has the car, and a full explanation of what happened. An initial theory there end is a door locking fault that perhaps meant the car was still powering the interiors.
they are going to be getting the battery sorted, and then running some tests to see how efficiently it behaves.

I cant fault the support MG gave me today....hopefully its swiftly diagnosed and resolved.

 

[turntoport]

one suspects quite a few forumers (?) will be interested in the outcome of the investigation - could I ask that you pls keep us informed?


Similar 12V issues are widespread across most ev's. One of the 'backstop' solutions is to keep a backup 12V Li battery to hand (likely a thread on the forum for this), e.g. RPPL260 Fast Charge Lithium Jump Starter
atb

 

[hamd01]

one suspects quite a few forumers (?) will be interested in the outcome of the investigation - could I ask that you pls keep us informed?


Similar 12V issues are widespread across most ev's. One of the 'backstop' solutions is to keep a backup 12V Li battery to hand (likely a thread on the forum for this), e.g. RPPL260 Fast Charge Lithium Jump Starter
atb

I post updates here.

 

[FiFi]

I just wonder why when the 12v battery is drained it manages to find the energy to unlock the entire car and why in my instance that there was white powder around the steering wheel and a white piece of something protruding through they centre piece of the steering wheel all very odd!

 

[turntoport]

FiFi; the 12V battery is probably not 'drained' but just at a low charge state, i.e. low voltage. Depending on the circuit resistance, it's possible there will be sufficient charge/voltage to operate some of them. Rcall the days when an ice would light-up the ignition circuis etc, but fail to 'turn-over' the crank.
atb - ttp

 

[siteguru]

I just wonder why when the 12v battery is drained it manages to find the energy to unlock the entire car and why in my instance that there was white powder around the steering wheel and a white piece of something protruding through they centre piece of the steering wheel all very odd!

I think yours is a subtly different case and you have indeed had a real airbag issue. Other people have simply had warnings.