Rapide S won't start

[skyebear]

My Rapide S hasn't left the garage in a fortnight but has had a battery conditioner plugged in the whole time. Took it out this morning to wash it and was off the conditioner for an hour. Wouldn't start when I went to put it back in the garage and threw up an error of "Child locks service required" or similar and windows remained partially down.

I managed to get the windows up by putting ignition to position 1 and lowering them all the way down then raising them.

The engine sounded like it was trying to crank when I tried starting it. It's sat on the drive with the conditioner hooked up again.

Is there any procedures I should do before trying to start it? The CTEK did indicate battery is taking a charge. Worst case it'll be a phone call to Martin's Astons after the bank holiday.

[phumy]

Put it on a proper 12V charger over night, give it a good boost of power, how old is the battery?

[skyebear]

Thanks. Any suggestions as to suitable charger?

[CSK1]

I had the same problem with mine, it was due to the battery needing replacement.

[skyebear]

Don't know how old the battery is, I've had the car less than a year (2013 model). Conceivably it could be the original.

I can't find my multimeter to check the voltage so Screwfix in the morning or is.

[Simpo Two]

skyebear said:

Thanks. Any suggestions as to suitable charger?

One of these brought my battery back to life from being as flat as a dodo:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Automatic-Maintainer-Suit...

[skyebear]

Simpo Two said:

One of these brought my battery back to life from being as flat as a dodo:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Automatic-Maintainer-Suit...

Cheers.

[LTP]

skyebear said:

Don't know how old the battery is, I've had the car less than a year (2013 model). Conceivably it could be the original.

I can't find my multimeter to check the voltage so Screwfix in the morning or is.

It probably is the original battery. Just replace it.

Last year I had the original battery on my 2015 V8V replaced at the service. It lived on a conditioner, and always started the car, but I can tell from the "Battery condition" check lights on my Ampmatic that the new battery is always in a better state than the old one was for the same usage.

And we all know just how much Aston Martins love poor condition batteries

[skyebear]

Think it's definitely the battery as the multimeter is showing 11.2V!

[phumy]

Get it charged up with a charger then see how it fairs, see how long it lasts, it might come back to life, then give it a decent run out to charge from the alternator. If it falls over again you`ll know to get a new battery. Good luck.

[skyebear]

Thanks to everyone for their input.

After a deep breath I took the rear seat off, changed the battery and got everything back together with no bolts or washers left over.

All seems well and nothing more sinister than a dud battery which was AM branded and likely the original.

Only snag I hit was jamming the manual seat release putting everything back. Few pulls at it followed by a window reset also reset the seat release button and enabled the seat back to lock.

[filski]

skyebear said:

Thanks to everyone for their input.

After a deep breath I took the rear seat off, changed the battery and got everything back together with no bolts or washers left over.

All seems well and nothing more sinister than a dud battery which was AM branded and likely the original.

Only snag I hit was jamming the manual seat release putting everything back. Few pulls at it followed by a window reset also reset the seat release button and enabled the seat back to lock.

All in all sounds like a happy ending! We'll done!

I kept reading around DB9s as it's closest to our rapide how dead battery can send all sorts of gremlins to the modules that would have to be rectified by AMDS.

Surprisingly one of the Rapides I test drove had the whole dash light up and die on the test drive as it was sat for too long.

Glad all worked out!

[skyebear]

Thanks, was quite pleased I managed to do it myself!

I will say the build quality is excellent. The battery retention "clip" is a solid piece of aluminium.

I did nearly get caught out by every battery seller listing the incorrect battery when entering the car reg. A battery 190mm height will absolutely not fit a 2013 Rapide S and needs to be 175mm. Kudos to Peter at Martin's Astons for his advice keeping me right.

[skyebear]

filski said:

I kept reading around DB9s as it's closest to our rapide how dead battery can send all sorts of gremlins to the modules that would have to be rectified by AMDS.

I think we read the same posts. I was fairly confident I'd avoid those Gremlins as I think on later models AM started fitting a non-volatile memory module to preserve settings. Certainly my seat memory was retained as were mirror dips. I also didn't have to do anything to learn in / reset system for the new battery.

[filski]

skyebear said:

I think we read the same posts. I was fairly confident I'd avoid those Gremlins as I think on later models AM started fitting a non-volatile memory module to preserve settings. Certainly my seat memory was retained as were mirror dips. I also didn't have to do anything to learn in / reset system for the new battery.

Ah good to know! as there very little in terms of info to pull from regarding Rapides, given their low production numbers

I was lucky to read through my paperwork that I got with the car, that the dealer deactivated the tracker gremlin thing and put a brand new battery last year! i did get the cig ctek attachment with voltage indicator dongle to test the battery and it is always in the green so i have not been putting on the trickle charge yet, but would recommend that one, although now that you have new battery it would be absolutely fine.

Only had a minor snag so far with mine being a stone or something stuck behind the rear rubber seal and auto window drop on the rear door scratched the window.... super annoying but no way of preventing