Hello..

Kinda freaking out right now, but due to work had to go away for 2 weeks and just got back today. When walking towards my car, strangely my unlock button wasn't unlocking the car. No lights, nothing. I had to manually open it with the key to go in. You all know but usually when the door opens, it says "Hello Driver 1/2, etc" but doesn't say any of that. Put my key in and NOTHING happens in ignition 1, 2, or 3.. Tried my spare key, same situation.

I haven't had this car for long, about 2 months, has like 50k miles on it and ran perfectly fine before I left (short drives, long (on the highway), etc.

I tried opening the hood but it pops open but can't open it all the way.. same goes for the trunk. Can open the fuel door though.

Does anyone have an idea as to wth is going on? I had an inspection done when I first got the car and was green across the board T.T

 

battery dead

 

makes sense I guess.. do you have any recommendations for batteries? I also don't understand why the hood doesn't pop open whole way tho.. There was never any issue with that. That can't be normal just cause the battery is dead can it?

 

Everything adds up to being a dead battery - you were gone for a substantial amount of time without driving the car, and none of the electronics work.
A good replacement battery is the Kirkland Costco battery. I heard it's one of the best bang for buck batteries.

As for the hood - old hood struts won't keep the hood open, especially in the cold weather.
Change out the hood struts and they'll be good as new and make your hood fly open. You can go with OEM (Stabilus from rockauto) or StrongArm (Amazon).
They're cheap and easy to install. Good luck!

Also congrats on picking up a low mileage TL! Keep it clean

 

What do you mean your hood pops open but won't open all the way?

Are you un-latching the safety catch? Like on any other car....

 

So I release the hood lever and it pops open a little like it's supposed to along with a "thump" sound.. but I can't get it to open any further after that.. it's like it's caught or something and I'm not sure if I want to try and yank it open

 

If you have a slow charger that put anywhere from 2 Amps to 10 Amps try charging the battery. It may be dead but not bad. Trickle charging it can bring it back to life.

 

 

Is the safety catch broken or caught on something?

 

 

With only 25 minutes of charge time, it may still struggle tomorrow morning when you start it again.

You need to drive or let it idle for at least one hour or so.

 

 

Lol OP didn't know how to open the hood safety.
but your battery is far from perfect now that it has reached flat levels and you can't just go by age. Could be a crappy brand and abused. I wouldn't risk it for $100 vs. Having to get a boost in the winter plus wear to the alternator.
HFL is a potential issue. Look into that to prevent further batteries getting weakened.

 

 

 

Hmmm, the HFL in my 2006 works perfectly.

 

Great. So does mine in my 06 but I disconnected it anyway. Since I would never use it, why wait till it kills my battery to find out it has gone bad.. Notice I said almost all. Not all.
I would bet the failure rate of the hfl is greater than the auto tranny failure.
There isn’t a class action lawsuit thread for it for nothing.

 

The HFL is notorious for going bad and causing a drain on our cars. Unplug it and charge up the battery to confirm the culprit.

 

 

all batteries have pretty much a predetermined life span. I think most batteries today are 3 years. If it goes longer than the specified length of time, then you are fortunate. They die from just being old. Cold snaps are usually when you see a weak battery die completely.