Hi,

I've searched FBH and gone through the posts the search turned up. I could have missed something similar to my issue, but here goes anyway.

I've a 2010 Vogue SE TDV8 thats now done 130K miles. I have an FBH, remote fob and all seem to work when I activate it (green light steady slow blink) while I get the morning coffee. It used to work fine all the time.

Given recent temps in the morning, FBH should fire up fine and it does for one or two days (Heated engine, heated cabin, lovely stuff). Then on day three or four although I hear murmurings of activity under the bonnet, blowers operate and flashing red light on my heater control knob, no heat! No fumes coming from front NS of car, no defrosting!

Chap in local garage who had a FBH on his BMW said its a common problem, pull the fuse (which I know now number and location from forum scan) or disconnect battery. That seemed to work, giving me a couple more days of proper use until same thing happened and no heating.

Car does lots of miles so battery gets charged. It never struggles to start car, there's not even a hesitation. Press the button she fires up straight away. That said, at last service the tech ran a battery test/check. It said State of Health 70%, state of charge 76%. BAD & REPLACE.

Be interested to hear from the many who've gone grey over FBH issues if they think my battery is the problem or should I look at other areas.

Cheers

Kev

Battery I'd guess.

The FBH will only operate if the battery voltage is above a certain threshold and low temperatures also affect battery output. So I suggest that the battery is occasionally getting too low to allow the FBH to fire - it does take quite a bit of current

I've been told that the FBH locks out after three failed attempts to start. My local indie reset it, either by pulling the fuse (keep forgetting to ask which one on the 2010-12) or via diagnostics.

For reasons no-one can fathom, my heater refused to start despite every component apparently working as intended, as it were. A claim was submitted for whole new FBH and the warranty company sent someone down the following morning to assess and low and behold, it fired up!

Touch wood, it's been okay since.