Immobiliser issue

[hodnic]

I have a 2007 Mk4 Tdci. I thought id replace the pollen filter myself and in doing so I had to move the fuse box on the passenger side by disconnecting the terminals so that I could get to the cover screws where the filter resides. After I had done all that I reconnected the terminals to the fuse box and went to start the car and got the message "Immobiliser active". The car now wont start. I wouldn't have thought that disconnecting the fuse box would have caused this problem. I would be grateful for any feedback suggestions anyone might have - without having to take it to Ford. Thank you.

[bovva66]

Mondeo electrical and computer system does not take it well if power is disconnected. My battery went flat and was without car for 2 days at dealer to fix the problem's the loss of power caused. Lesson learnt-do not let the system lose power, if replacing battery you need to set up a secondary power system, so there is continuous power.

[nevetsg]

I performed the same action as you a couple of months ago with no issues.
Maybe climb under there again and recheck all the cables are plugged in fully? From memory there were about 3 cables I had to disconnect from the little unit under there.

It could be that my car is unusually resilient to power issues. My battery died on a long w/e and I couldn't replace for 2 days so I used a jumper kit to start every time. Lost complete power a few times and never had an issue.

[hodnic]

Thanks. I rechecked all of the connections and the relevant fuses - just in case and they were all good. Fortunately I remembered that my mates son worked for Ford and he advised me to just disconnect the battery for about 2-5 minutes and reconnect it. That did the trick and the cars fine now. Thanks again for comments.

[Dusty1]

I had the same thing happen years ago with mine (http://www.fordforums.com.au/showthread.php?t=11282776). Terrible time.

That work around should be published far and wide, as it would have saved me getting the car towed to a dealer like bovva.

[bovva66]

Don't know if would have worked with mine, as I had no power to system for at least an hour, RAC guy tried jump starting, tried new battery still would not start...from memory it came up with immolibiser message. Dealer had clear error messages ffrom system before able to install new battery, and this took several hours.

[hodnic]

Apparently the battery disconnections resets everything and it certainly did the trick with my car. Unfortunately I had to then fix up the radio and the power windows went out of their normal program and I had to redo them also.