I have an 05 C6. I have had some minor issues like the seat not retracting every time, but didn't think anything of it. One day after cleaning the inside, apparently I accidently turned one of the dome lights on and didn't notice. This drained the battery completely dead by the next day. For some reason I thought the car sensed this and turned them off after something like 5 minutes, but must have been mistaken because it didn't.

Well, this is when things got goofy. I put a charger on the battery and brought it back up to speed. The drivers window was then out of synch and wouldn't park that last 1/2" or so when you close the door. In fact it was about 3 inches down and would park, but was still about 2inches down. I disconnected the battery again and it took a couple times until I figured out that if I put both windows all the way down, then disconnect and reconnect the battery, I could get them to go all the way up.

A couple days later, the drivers window stopped parking again, and after a couple battery disconnects and reconnects, I have not been able to get it to work again. I have to use the switch to park it when I'm in the car, and can't park it when I'm out of the car for obvious reasons. If it rains hard enough, it will leak.

Well, this morning, I got into the car and hit the start button and the starter engaged but didn't turn. I thought I may not have had the clutch in far enough, so I let it out, pushed it to the floor and had the same result. I got two messages on the dash computer, one was steering lock needs service, and the other a little later was no key fob found. The volt meter read around 8 volts. I put a digital volt meter on the battery and it read a little above 8 volts with the cables connected and 11.9 volts with it disconnected. I would think that would be enough to start the car. I reconnected the battery to get something out of the car and trunk because obviously I wasn't driving it today and both windows went all the way down. I thought maybe something reset so I tried it again with the same result, starter engaged but didn't turn.

I haven't load tested the battery, but the car isn't that old. Maybe it has voltage, but no cranking power. Seems a little far fetched, but possible. I put a charger on it at 2A charge and will try it again after lunch.

Any advice?

Is there a way to reset everything electronically to a null or factory state so a person can start over in case something somehow got set improperly?

Oh, I almost forgot, I don't have a dealer within 100 miles that is certified, or that I would trust to work on it. The local GM dealer didn't even know how to open the door or start the car....

Any help is appreciated.

TeaMan

 

try a new battery or get it started (via jump) and run it for a bit (15/20 mins.) above 15k.

resetting the windows is very easy, simply hold the button up, let the window close then conntinue to hold the switch in the up position for an additional 3-5 seconds. you have to do this anytime the battery is disconnected.

a fresh battery or sufficient charge will resolve the 'steering lock' message, when the volts get low you will get all sorts of odd behavior and or messages.

 

The interior lights do go out after about 20 minutes, so I doubt that's what drained your battery. I'd bet on just a bad cell; replace the battery, re-index the windows and you should be good to go. The battery really isn't that new, its two or three years old and its not uncommon for an OEM battery to give up that soon.

 

Your battery is toast. If your battery voltage gets below 9v the battery is fully discharged. Anytime your battery goes dead, it looses some of its charging capacity. The more it's discharged, and the longer it stays discharged, the more it looses it's capacity. Go to Walmart and get a new battery, keep the receipt. The next time you discharge it, take it back to Walmart and get a new one. Walmart never does a load test, and the warranty starts anew on the new battery.

 

With a 2A charger it will take forever, well, more than 2 days to really charge the battery completely. If you can start the engine, take a drive for at least 1 hour or more. Voltage should be up to about 13V, engine off.
If you can, find a place to have the battery load tested. You could do the also by yourself, turn on the lights, radio, window heater and check the voltage. Should stay around 12V and slowly go down. Around 10.5V the battery is considered to be empty.
Your battery may be damaged by the earlier deep discharges, resulting in a low capacity left, no enough to start the engine.

 

Their suppose to go off but they don't always. I was cleaning the inside of the front window and turned on one of the mirror lights accidentally and didn't see it. The next morning I discovered it was on. I have a new Optima battery and it did not totally discharge and it started up with no problem. Others have reported the same issue.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I got a new battery and it seems to be working fine. I'm pretty certain that one of the mirror lights is what discharged my battery. It was from Sat afternoon till Monday morning when I was going to work when I couldn't start the car. I tested it last night and it did go out this time, not sure how long it took.

I'll watch this closer next time.

Thanks
TeaMan

 

Friggin mirror lights don't go off automatically w/ a timer... That sucks. Just a matter of time till that bites me.

 

A good and fully charged battery should supply one mirror light for 3-4 days. But it would be enough to drain an old battery during the weekend. Unless you check the capacity from time to time, you will only find out when it's already too late. Almost no one check's the battery this way recurrently.

 

You're absolutely right. Out of sight, out of mind.

My battery was stone dead after only a weekend. Battery shouldn't have been that old. 2 years. I had to get into the car through the trunk. Couldn't even open the doors, nothing.....

Later..
TeaMan

 

ppsssttt... you can pop the hatch with the key, then pull the door cable to open the door. the cable is on the left wall of the hatch directly behind the wheel well.

 

When you're cleaning the inside of the car, be careful about pressing the dash dimmer button to the left of the steering wheel. It's designed to allow you to press it one time and at night, it'll turn on (or off) all interior lights. During the day, it'll turn on the map lights, no matter what position the map light buttons on the bottom of the rear-view mirror are in.

Only about half the forum members with C6s have done this - hit that button by accident. Sometimes the map lights will shut off after 20 minutes, sometimes they won't.

Also, I hope you got the window indexing reset okay, since the instructions in a post above seem to be slightly in error. Here is the correct set of instructions.

 

Thanks Zig, that is what I meant about having to get into the car by going through the trunk. The car is a convertable, I don't think it would be possible to crawl through the trunk, kind of got a chuckle thinking of trying though...

JimTN, yes, I did get the indexing to work again. Didn't follow the instructions as you posted, but it seemed to work anyway. I guess I should have tried the manual first. I read through most of it once, but it's been a while.

Pushing the dash dimmer by accident could very well have happened. That is also something good to watch in the future.

Thanks for the great feedback. I've definitely learned about some things to watch closer in the future...


TeaMan