Has Maplins destroyed my car?

[London Micra]

We have just had our first baby and my wife is not using her Micra at all.
I thought I was being clever by buying a Maplin solar panel
which plugs into to the cigarette lighter to trickle charge the battery to avoid any flat battery.

The panel had been plugged in for a week and I found the battery was flat
yesterday. The panel is meant to have diodes (etc.) to avoid reverse charging.

I charged the battery but the car simply will not start. Everything
else functions (lights, wipers etc) and the key opens the doors.
When I turn the Ignition switch, the car simply will not start
(even when using manual key).

Could the panel have damaged the crap Renault electrics?
Or has the flat battery "lost" the key memory?
Or could I have damaged the starter motor/ignition switch?

Finally I am not sure I am seeing the "key" indicator or "ignition lock"
indicator on the dash anymore...is this a sign of possible damage
to the electrics?

Any help would really be appreciated - especially with the costs
of a new baby as well at the moment,

Shanker
K12 Nissan Micra 1.2SX 2003

 

[ollyc98]

It will cost money, but put it into a garage for a check up, if the solar panel did damage the car get Maplins to pay for it as it was their device that did the damage.

The thing with solar panels is they don't kick out enough power to do any damage, fuses usually go 1st. I think the car might need re-coding, only Nissan can do this I think.

Also the panel wouldn't have worked, Nissan cigarette lighters turn off with the ignition so you weren't charging anything...

 

[Arnold]

Actually, that's not true. The car doesn't need to be on for current to run through it. You can buy those battery charging packs that charge on 12V from another person's 12V and they have to work with the ignition off. Certainly worked in my K10, and mine has a switched live system like the K11 & K12.

It could just generally be another fault and the solar panel isn't at fault. I don't quite see why you'd need one of these for a single battery car anyway as the alternator would do the job, and the battery should be good enough to hold charge for at least two or more weeks.

It does sound like the ECU needs recoding though for all the security / chip reading etc etc stuff to work, and i'm sure it isn't the first time a K12 has had to have this done. Some K11's also suffer when NATS decides to go wrong.

There is some patchy advice around about fault code reading from the ECU, which might tell you what's wrong, but it might be best to just let Nissan have some fun with it and find out.

 

[tse_adam]

yea i didnt think you would need that at all, i went on holiday for 7 weeks; came back and start first time.

 

[pjg1979]

Try This

Usually you'll need to have the ignition to provide power to the cigarette lighter, so if the ignition is off and no power comes out this means no power will go in.

Have you checked the Fuse for the cigarette lighter?

I had to buy a decent battery for my Micra as I had to jump start it every day using my powerpack for 2 months then I just bought a bigger battery. Your were proberly better having a powerpack or just disconnecting the battery if it's not being used for a while.

 

[London Micra]

Nissan diagnosed a faulty EPS (apparently a dongle in the power steering unit). The whole steering unit was replaced at a total cost of £708!

 

[Ed]

I was going to say, the solar panel would have nothing to do with it. I would still take it back and ask for a refund however, as they are next to useless imo.

 

[s-racing]

i had a new eps unit on my 160sr.they did it FOC under warranty even with my massive list of modifications

 

[NeX]

Nissan diagnosed a faulty EPS (apparently a dongle in the power steering unit). The whole steering unit was replaced at a total cost of £708!

that is such a rip off! well at least the car is alive again. there isn't any need to charge the battery cos it should be fine unless you are using the stereo. but in that case you can still bump the car if you need to. but its good you got it up and running again even if nissan did kick you in the crackers

 

[London Micra]

Update: My local Nissan dealer has VERBALLY told me that the Solar Panel was definately the cause of the damage. Apparently if a power source is connected to the cigarette lighter, it feedbacks through the control units (they checked with the technical department at Nissan HQ).

Maplin has been quite reasonable so far. They have asked for some comments or technical info from Nissan to show a potential link. The problem is that my Nissan dealership does not want to put anything in to writing ("don't want to get involved in any legal stuff - not our job"). My letters to Nissan HQ and resulted in replies that "our technical advisers are based at dealership level - so please return back to your dealership to get the info". I've shown these letters to the dealership, but they are not budging.

I have really stressed that I am not asking for a written statement saying that the panel was responsible for the damage (although that is what they have told me verbally). I am simply looking for some info about how potentially there could be a link, so that Maplin can consider their position (maybe even some relevant sections from the Nissan technical manuals)

Any suggestions???

 

[lewic]

Try the consumer pages of newspapers - e.g. Anna Timms at the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/consumer/story/0,,2159746,00.html email [email protected]. Or you could try Trading Standards http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/callist.cgi, BBC Watchdog http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/contact_index.shtml etc. Good luck - and thanks for posting about this, as I'd been thinking of buying one of these things myself!

 

[Ed]

My opinion for what its worth:

Nissan are using an excuse to get out of it. It would have nothing to do with the solar panel, but now you mentioned it they have a get out. That was the first mistake.

Those solar panels produce so little power you would have a hard time to light a small light bulb, its not enough to do any damage to the car no matter how hard you tried.

If you try this route of the solar panel being the cause, it would only take an expert 5 mins to examine a diagram of the K12 wiring and to say nonsense. FWIW The chances are that the cigarette lighter plug is also on the same wiring as the headunit, both of which are isolated from the battery when the ignition is off, so 1, it wouldnt charge the battery anyway, and 2, the such tiny current produced would most probably have all been used by the radio.

Anyone who wont put anything in writing has no proof, and knows it wouldnt stand up at the first slight inspection.

 

[Chrisxn]

Write to Dom Littlewood

I love that program 'Dont get done get Dom'

Sorry, for the irrelevance Just thought this post needed some comic relief?

If It was me, I'd see what legal action I could take. get some high power people involved and Im sure Nissan's mouth would move faster than any of its cars!