Why having jump starter kit in car is essential; Learnt it the hard way

The car is just 14 months old, not sure how the battery became so low.

BHPian gladiatort1000 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Sharing a bit of a scary incident I suffered yesterday morning due to a low battery in the car. My learning from this incident is that having a portable jump starter kit is essential. Planning to purchase one. There are lots of options on Amazon. There is one from MGA (Maruthi Genuine Accessories) as well. Any recommendations are welcome. The description of the incident and my experience with emergency RSA is given below.

My Car is 14 months old now. It is used mainly for highways and when full the family goes out. It is taken out once or twice a week. I also have a Toyota DVR installed in the car (which is internally wired, can wake up on the impact of certain Gs and start recording. It is also supposed to turn off when the battery voltage drops below 12v.

Yesterday morning around 8:15 AM I got into the car and tried starting it (the car was last used for a short city round about 4 days ago). It was not starting and the parking brake light was blinking. The message "Parking brake unavailable" was flashing in the centre of MID. Using the EPB button to disengage the parking brakes did not have any effect. I tried the whole sequence of turning it off, waiting for a few mins and then trying to turn it on for the next 10-15mins.

I then called the Toyota RSA toll-free number. It prompted 2 options: 1) self-service and 2) talking to an executive. I chose the latter and was immediately connected to an executive and he confirmed my contact/vehicle details and then sent an SMS. I was supposed to open the link in the SMS and help them get my location. But the SMS did not arrive. He asked me to manually specify the nearest landmark in Google Maps and punch that address for the incident. The executive got the description of the incident and promised that a technical expert would call within a few minutes.

I was waiting for the call sitting inside the car. After 10 minutes of waiting, decided to get out of the car and lock it. Tried closing all windows, but the power window buttons did not work. Tried turning off the ACC mode of the car and turning it on again, but no display was coming on MID, hence was not sure what was happening. Tried power window buttons again with single clicks, and windows started raising a few cms for each click. After numerous clicks, managed to close both front windows. Clicking on the start/stop button was not give any indication if the car was turned off. Got out and tried locking using the key. Nothing happened when I pressed the lock button on the key. The doors were not locked also. Car was completely vulnerable. Since the car was at home, I did not try removing the manual key from the remote and trying to lock it (Not yet sure if this is possible, have read about manual unlock).

I got a return call after 20 mins. This person again asked for the details, I explained what happened since morning and the latest status. He told me that a technical expert would come and investigate the car ASAP. I got another call in about 30 minutes and was asked to share my location on WhatsApp. This person came in the next 30 minutes. Overall the duration was 60 mins from my call to the RSA toll-free number and the person standing in front of my car. This person was on a bike with some tools and a battery on the pillion seat. He was from a company called Allianz. He measured the voltage of my car battery with a multimeter. It was showing only 3V. He connected his battery using jumper cables and asked me to start the car. With the jumper cable attached, all things inside the car sprang to life and MID started working. I was able to start the car. He asked me to keep it running for an hour. As we do in good old manual cars, I could not press the accelerator to make the car idle since the system did not allow me to do so (even in neutral mode). I just left it on in the parking area with the key inside the car and the engine running. The engine ran for a few minutes and went to EV mode. After a few mins in EV mode, it went to running on the engine. I kept the car like this for about 90 minutes. I was able to start the car without any issues and use it later in the day.

During this whole ordeal, no warnings related to low battery or anything else were shown in the iConnect App.

This is a relatively new car and battery. Not sure why the battery became low. I plan to visit the service centre and get things checked, especially get the DVR checked to ensure that it is not sucking all the power.

This post on the same topic published on the news page is also a good read.

Given that these cars are totally useless without a battery. I will feel a lot safer with a jumpstart kit. This thread seems to be the latest on jump starter kits

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