One thing to note, right on the day of delivery the instrument cluster showed engine malfunction warning. I refused to accept the car then.
BHPian applegrew recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
We own a Jeep Meridian purchased at the end of August 2023. Only fews week back it had its first servicing. It has completed 3700+ kms. Yesterday morning when I pressed its start button the screens (infotainment and instrument cluster) started having slow jerky animations then they would turn on and off again and again. The wiper also start running although slowly scraping the windshield (the wiper was set to auto). All control lights were turning on and off. Eventually all died down, first the screens then the control lights. At the end only the white ambient light (installed as part of “X” accessory pack) was dimly lit. Even the brake pedal had now gone completely hard and difficult to press. The car was completely dead. I had drove the car only the day before yesterday for many kilometres. In fact I was driving it daily.
Here is the video of the incident. This video was taken after trying for couple of minutes. By this time the screens have already stopped working completely.
I called up the Jeep service centre who asked me to call Jeep Road Side Assistance. At first RSA told me that since the car is not in an open area so they will need to bring in some equipment to move the car which can damage my 6 months old car and asked if I am okay with that or not! To which I strongly replied, no I am not and asked why can’t they send someone to jump start it. To which they replied that they only tow and have no such technician. Then they further said that I will then need to bring the car outside somehow. I was like; how? The car is in Park mode and my parking is extremely challenging. I need do multiple manoeuvres to bring the car out. Hell, even service centre’s own driver scrapped my this car’s bumper while taking it out from my parking for the service centre! (That was an ordeal in itself) After much argument the person over the phone requested permission to transferred my call to his senior. Surprisingly the senior operator proposed to first send a technician to jump start it and if that did not work then send a flat bed. I readily agreed to that. After about an hour the technician arrived on a scooter with a battery and simply connected its terminals with my car’s terminals and lo and behold, the car springs to life. He charged the car only for a min or two.
Then I immediately jumped into the car and drove it to my nearest Jeep service centre. When the car turned on it gave me couple of warnings, like Hold needs servicing, Traction control needs servicing and while I was driving, Dynamic Steering too needs servicing. It took me around 20mins to reach there. I parked inside the centre but kept it running. It took a while but when I got confirmation that I can turn off the vehicle and they have provision to jump start it, I turned it off. After few more minutes I got a Service Advisor assigned. When he turned on the car, it turned on with no issues and there were no warning lights, as if nothing had happened. I reiterated my ordeal and how I had to cancel two meetings etc. etc. They mentioned that it would take two days as they will have to make claim under warranty.
After attending a meeting from the service centre’s lounge when I was leaving they informed me that they did not find any issues with the car and the battery was 55% charged. Below are the images of the battery.
Day 2
Today, evening I spoke to the Service Advisor and he mentioned that yesterday evening itself they had taken out the battery and handed it over to Exide for inspection. When they handed the battery during evening it was still holding the 55% charge. As of writing this, today 7pm, Exide has not yet replied with their verdict – Is the battery faulty or not.
If it turns out the battery is not faulty then I will be in a very very bad situation, since that means the car has some issue, a ticking bomb, which can drain a completely good battery in one night, which means I can get stranded anytime. The service centre people claim that they have run their diagnostics and have found no issues. Only thing they can see is that an update is due for the PCM; however few weeks back during routine servicing only I think the PCM was flashed since my infotainment had lost its user profile info (but not all the settings). As per the Service Advisor flashing PCM may do that, but he was unsure.
I will post an update about the battery when I hear from the service centre.
Has any of the members here have experienced any such issue? Any clues as to what might have gone wrong?
One thing to note, right on the day of delivery the instrument cluster showed engine malfunction warning. I refused to accept the car then. That a being a Sunday, Service Centre was closed. During next delivery date the warning was gone and they told me the only thing the Service Centre did was disconnect the battery and reconnect it after few minutes and this is apparently a common issue!
Here’s what BHPian Bhokal had to say on the matter:
If the battery is not faulty then something (might be one of the accessories) is draining the battery even after turning the car off.
Here’s what BHPian manasr28 had to say on the matter:
Had a similar battery drainage behaviour on my Scorpio N, detailed post here on how I managed to prevent it in my case.
Infotainment systems in “connected” cars don’t turn off internally even after the ignition is turned off and the car is locked.
If a software process suddenly turned rogue, it will continue to run in the background and may drain battery.
Manually pressing the power off button on the infotainment system before turning off the ignition can help prevent this problem, atleast it did so in my case.
Here’s what BHPian R.I.P had to say on the matter:
As far as I know, this is a very common issue on the Compass as well.
I own a 2021 Compass model S and since the beginning, I have seen “Start Stop disabled/service battery” error on my screen. I even see it now pretty regularly. But once the car has run for about 10-15 minutes, it goes away.
I have taken it to the ASS guys and they have checked battery health every time and it comes out normal. They have even kept the car overnight to “reset” the car electronics but the error came back after a few months. So I have just learned to live with it.
I think there is a small drain on the battery when it is parked and there is no solution to it.
This is the solution they have suggested for me:
1. Don’t keep wipers and headlights on auto when parked
2. Start the car every few days so that the battery charges
BHPian applegrew had the following final update to share on the matter:
As far as I know, this is a very common issue on the Compass as well.
I own a 2021 Compass model S and since the beginning, I have seen “Start Stop disabled/service battery” error on my screen. I even see it now pretty regularly. But once the car has run for about 10-15 minutes, it goes away.
I have taken it to the ASS guys and they have checked battery health every time and it comes out normal. They have even kept the car overnight to “reset” the car electronics but the error came back after a few months. So I have just learned to live with it.
I think there is a small drain on the battery when it is parked and there is no solution to it.
This is the solution they have suggested for me:
1. Don’t keep wipers and headlights on auto when parked
2. Start the car every few days so that the battery charges
Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.
