[Acadia]

Does anyone know if it is possible to unlock a Fisker with a shim? ( long flat piece of metal between window and door) to engage door cable?

Our dilemma we stored our fisker over the winter in our under ground parking stall. I believe the 12 volt battery has died so the key fob won't work. Second issue is the door lock on the passage side of door . The mechanism to insert the key has fallen of the inside of the door! This happen the day the car went into winter storage .... You see we are not allowed to wash our car here at the apartment building so had to take it through a touch less car wash. Did not have time to drive the car twenty miles across town to hand wash at my parents house.
One of the water jets hit the key hole straight on and knocked the mechanism off the door so I assume it is laying inside the door somewhere, probably on the bottom of the door.

So we can't access the inside of car to release the hood to charge the 12 volt battery.

Any suggestions would be helpful and greatly appreciated.

 

[Lormax]

It's been sitting so long, don't even bother trying to recover the battery. Just replace it. It's much less of a headache and you don't have to worry about getting into the car or popping the hood. The 12v is behind the fender liner of the front passenger tire. Do some searches, you'll find many many posts about it and how to change it.

 

[SoCalGuy]

Yes - agree with Lormax but note it is quite a pain to change (as a fellow Buzzer here can attest). For one of my Karmas, I'm leaving the 12v unplugged and with the hood popped up slightly to allow access to reconnect when I'm ready to use it. I lose the pre-sets on my radio but a worthwhile price to pay for not having to worry about a dead 12V.

 

[Acadia]

Terrific thanks so much for the information on location and access. Now we just need to figure how to slide the car sideways to get access to the passenger side front tire. The car is parked 6 inches away from a concrete wall.

Just to clarify passenger front tire not drivers side? I saw a video on boosting the battery and they were placing the jumper cable on to a post just under the fuse panel on driver side of car.

 

[Acadia]

I would have done the same however the first time we stored the car for winter storage not last but the previous I specifically asked the dealership if we needed to do anything special to prepare the car for storage. We were told to do nothing except keep the travel charger plugged in.

So obviously it only keeps the lithium batteries serviced and does nothing for the 12V. Wished I'd known that.... I own about 5 really good battery maintenance chargers and would definitely put one on the thing.

 

[SoCalGuy]

This situation happened to one of my Karmas as well - I keep that one in a secured garage and it was only 18 inches from the wall on the passenger's side. Luckily it was just enough room to get in there, jack up the car, remove the tire, and replace the 12V.

If you can't access it, what I might suggest which was also something that could have worked in my situation was to use the portable jumpers, connect it to the leads as Lormax pointed out in a graphic on the forum, and that should be enough to get the Karma turned on. Once the Karma goes into Ready mode, you can move the car forward so you can access the front passenger tire area. Word to the wise: do NOT try to engage your parking brake - there won't be enough juice in the 12V to fully engage it and you'll get a parking brake error (I learned this the hard way!).

 

[Acadia]

Did you have a low profile car jack ? The only time I've tried to jack up the car was to change the ...wouldn't you know it the front passenger tire and my rolling floor jack was too tall to fit underneath the car in its lowest position.

I'm going to see if the towing eye from our BMW X5 will fit into the Fisker to drag the car forward a couple of feet to get access to the front wheel well.

Incidentally we will have no problem getting into the BMW as some dumb ass broke into the back window with a full can of ginger ale on Friday night. After tiring to pry open the window post with a big ass screw driver which he eventually got jammed into the glove box destroying the dash!

So Happy Mothers Day !

 

[SoCalGuy]

Did you have a low profile car jack ? The only time I've tried to jack up the car was to change the ...wouldn't you know it the front passenger tire and my rolling floor jack was too tall to fit underneath the car in its lowest position.

I'm going to see if the towing eye from our BMW X5 will fit into the Fisker to drag the car forward a couple of feet to get access to the front wheel well.

Incidentally we will have no problem getting into the BMW as some dumb ass broke into the back window with a full can of ginger ale on Friday night. After tiring to pry open the window post with a big ass screw driver which he eventually got jammed into the glove box destroying the dash!

So Happy Mothers Day !

I would be careful dragging the Karma (I'm assuming parking brake is off?) - if you have the portable jumper, I'd use that before trying to drag it (although that does require being able to pop the hood).

 

[smoothoperator]

Call a towing company, get GoJacks put on the rear tires (or all four if the ground is level) and push the car to a more spacious area, jack the pass front wheel and change the 12v out and be done with it.

 

[Acadia]

Yes the ground is level smooth concrete so will get my hands on some car dollies and slide it over a couple feet so I can work in and around the font wheel to get access to the battery.

Thanks every one for all your helpful tips and tricks,

Cheers!