Ewing
Active member
So I get home from work Friday evening and shut the car off. I'd been driving with the city & fog lights on as I usually do but forgot to turn them off when I got out of the car so the lights stayed on. I never touched the car on Saturday as I used my wife's car. Come Sunday afternoon when I went to make a Home Depot run the car's battery was dead of course. I saw where I had left the light switch and realized it was my fault. I thought no big deal, just jump it.
Take jumper cables from my wife's car onto the Passat and let my wife's car run a little bit while it gave the Passat a charge. I got a little too impatient and after a few minutes I pressed the start button on the Passat and I heard the natural clicking sound you hear when you try to start a car with a battery that doesn't have enough juice so I gave it a few more minutes. I try to hit the start button again and after some clicking complaints again it actually fired up. I thought great...Let it sit idling for a while so the alternator can charge up the battery before I head out. At this point the CEL, TPMS and Traction Control lights are lit up but after a dead battery I expected this and thought they would just go away once I got rolling. After idling 10 minutes I take off to Home Depot and sure enough after a few blocks the TPMS and Traction lights shut off but the CEL stays on. I figure it just needs to be cleared as something remained in the memory regarding the battery failure....Get to Home Depot, hit the start button to shut the car off and NOTHING. Car will not shut off. When I hit it once the steering lock light comes on, I hit the button again and the steering lock light comes off again but the car stays on. I walk out of the car with the key and the car won't respond to the key. Now I'm stumped. Luckily my VW dealer opens Sundays till 3PM and it was 1PM so I headed straight there.
When I got there I figured they must've seen this before but the service advisor and tech on duty were both stumped as well. The tech said he'd drive it back to the shop and would see if there was a way to shut it off through their scan tools but that I shouldn't worry, "they'd find a way". I got a loaner and left.
It's obvious to me that something about jump starting the car messed up the KESSY somehow? Anyone else seen this on this car? I searched around and couldn't find this happening to any other B7's.
Take jumper cables from my wife's car onto the Passat and let my wife's car run a little bit while it gave the Passat a charge. I got a little too impatient and after a few minutes I pressed the start button on the Passat and I heard the natural clicking sound you hear when you try to start a car with a battery that doesn't have enough juice so I gave it a few more minutes. I try to hit the start button again and after some clicking complaints again it actually fired up. I thought great...Let it sit idling for a while so the alternator can charge up the battery before I head out. At this point the CEL, TPMS and Traction Control lights are lit up but after a dead battery I expected this and thought they would just go away once I got rolling. After idling 10 minutes I take off to Home Depot and sure enough after a few blocks the TPMS and Traction lights shut off but the CEL stays on. I figure it just needs to be cleared as something remained in the memory regarding the battery failure....Get to Home Depot, hit the start button to shut the car off and NOTHING. Car will not shut off. When I hit it once the steering lock light comes on, I hit the button again and the steering lock light comes off again but the car stays on. I walk out of the car with the key and the car won't respond to the key. Now I'm stumped. Luckily my VW dealer opens Sundays till 3PM and it was 1PM so I headed straight there.
When I got there I figured they must've seen this before but the service advisor and tech on duty were both stumped as well. The tech said he'd drive it back to the shop and would see if there was a way to shut it off through their scan tools but that I shouldn't worry, "they'd find a way". I got a loaner and left.
It's obvious to me that something about jump starting the car messed up the KESSY somehow? Anyone else seen this on this car? I searched around and couldn't find this happening to any other B7's.
