Battery Dead - Open Hood from Outside of Car

[SatiricFX]

Hopefully someone can help. Our Ford C-Max 2013 Hybrid's battery is dead. We cannot unlock the doors. We bought the car used mid last year and did not realize there were key blades inside of the fob. Looking in both of the fobs, there were no key blades.

 

Anyone know any way to either pop the hood from outside of the car, or get inside the car without the key blade? Appreciate if anyone can help.

[raadsel]

Hopefully someone can help. Our Ford C-Max 2013 Hybrid's battery is dead. We cannot unlock the doors. We bought the car used mid last year and did not realize there were key blades inside of the fob. Looking in both of the fobs, there were no key blades.

 

Anyone know any way to either pop the hood from outside of the car, or get inside the car without the key blade? Appreciate if anyone can help.

 

Go to a Ford dealer; I believe they can cut a key based on the VIN of the vehicle. Hopefully they'll have a way of just cutting you a new blade that fits inside the fob; I'm afraid they may try to sell you a whole new fob and charge you for it and the programming.

Edited June 3, 2018 by raadsel

[SatiricFX]

Go to a Ford dealer; I believe they can cut a key based on the VIN of the vehicle. Hopefully they'll have a way of just cutting you a new blade that fits inside the fob; I'm afraid they may try to sell you a whole new fob and charge you for it and the programming.

 

Thanks. I was thinking that may be my only option. We actually had the issue little over a month ago. Took it to the dealer and they replaced the rear battery per their recommendation to resolve the problem. I will call them Monday to see what they can do. Hopefully they will help either at no cost or super cheap since it is supposed to be fixed. Thanks for your reply.

[homestead]

I would try a new fob battery and all 5 doors before calling a tow truck.

Here is picture of the release mechanism.  I could see the ground behind &  below the release cable for the hood.

 

[obob]

When I had AAA auto service I had a rental car and locked my one set of keys in the trunk.  Called them up and they were able to get in.  This was about  17 years ago.

 

Not really useful here but it did come into my thinking: Though it is a while ago I recall in a urban area the person I was with locked keys in car.  A person walking on the street offered to open the car up for free, happened to have break in tools.  Gave him $5.  Though it was long enough ago that cars probably were easier to break into.

Edited June 3, 2018 by obob

[SatiricFX]

I would try a new fob battery and all 5 doors before calling a tow truck.

Here is picture of the release mechanism.  I could see the ground behind &  below the release cable for the hood.

Looking through the front grill, I think I see the yellow lever that is in your picture. I tried to move it both left and right with a screw driver, but did not pop open. Not sure if that is it, unable to do outside, or there is also another latch.

 

Just found out today that the baby car seat is in there, so not taking the baby out today... I will retry all the doors, which I have done multiple times.

 

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

[homestead]

The cable in the picture releases the latch so that it can be opened.  Then you can push on the yellow lever to pop the hood.

[SatiricFX]

Thanks all for your help. My service center was able to create me the emergency key that goes in the fob. Only $12 too. Hopefully I won't have the issue again. Will take my car to the dealer again. Also read some people had issues with the radio not going off. I pulled the fuse to reboot it as I saw in the forum, so will see.

 

Again thanks for everyone's replies.

[plus 3 golfer]

Thanks. I was thinking that may be my only option. We actually had the issue little over a month ago. Took it to the dealer and they replaced the rear battery per their recommendation to resolve the problem. I will call them Monday to see what they can do. Hopefully they will help either at no cost or super cheap since it is supposed to be fixed. Thanks for your reply.

Do you know if the dealer reset the 12V Battery Monitoring System when they replaced the battery?  You can time how long it takes the radio to shut down after you turn the car off.  Stay in the car with the radio playing and push the stop button to turn off the car.  Don't open / close door.  If the dealer reset the BMS, it will take 10  minutes for the MFT and radio to turn off.  If not and the replaced battery was original or very old, the radio will shut off very quickly maybe in 90 - 120 seconds.  

 

BMS reset is important because the charging algorithms use battery age and a measured, accumulated estimate of declining storage capacity as the battery ages in determining how to charge the battery.  So, it's possible that the new battery is being kept at a very low state of charge. 

[Trish]

Hi!  Your keyfob has a metal key in it for manually opening the driver's door.  Here's a video on where it is: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rCEV87SL0M

 

My keyfob looks slightly different, but I just slid the slider on the top of the back of the fob and pulled up on the top part and the key came out.  It worked.