[Mozza]

Hi all. I bought my Bmax at the end of June, it's a 64 plate 120ps ecoboost Titanium with all the bells and whistles and only 25k on the clock, in mint condition and I love it! But...
A couple of days ago I got to the car and got absolutely no response from the fob - it wouldn't even unlock the doors. My first thought was a dead fob battery, but my 2nd fob was just the same. Long story short... my car battery was dead. I measured just over 6v across it. I hooked up a kind neighbour's jump starter and the car started easily. Took it for a 40 mile run and all seemed to be ok. I then set about finding out why my battery had gone flat, and eventually I made what I thought was an amazing discovery!
Years ago, some cars were equipped with a facility to turn on/off single sidelights for parking purposes by use of the indicator stalk; I thought these were long gone, but no! My Bmax still has it! There is nothing in the manual about this so, a word of warning: when you park up, make sure your indicators are off, particularly if you are going to leave the car for any length of time! My battery completely lost its charge in about 12 hours.

 

[Wiggy]

I too thought that the parking lights via the indicator stalk was also defunkt.
Nice tip, cheers and welcome to the forum.

 

[cianpars]

I think these are called 'Follow me home: lights. They switch off automatically after a minute or two. Personally, I never use them, but there is a thread here on the forum about them from about three-and-a-half years ago.

 

[Wiggy]

[MENTION=1467]cianpars[/MENTION]
I think the Follow me home lights are when you can operate the headlights for a set amount of time so you can make your way from the car in the dark then they turn off.

My old Note had them but not sure if the B-max does or not as i've never found anything in the user manual about the subject.
What Mozza mentions is leaving your side light on ( the side furthest away from the kerb ) when parked on a road at night, by using the indicator stalk for whichever side you want the lights to be illuminated.

 

[Mozza]

You're absolutely right, Wiggy. My last car was a Kia Picanto that had the 'follow me home' lights. It meant that you could pull on to your drive (say) at night and your headlights would stay on for a couple of minutes or so to enable you to see your garage door or whatever. I'm pretty sure I must have reached across to the glove box and inadvertently knocked the indicator down. This would have been in daylight so I wouldn't have noticed the 'parking' lights on.
Whilst posting, I have another conundrum: When I lock the car, how do I know that the alarm/immobiliser is set? I've always had a little red flashing LED in previous cars, there's nothing of the sort in the Bmax.

 

[Wiggy]

[MENTION=4277]Mozza[/MENTION]
Not one i've pondered to be honest. i just assumed that since the car is locked then the imobiliser must also be on.
Not sure if it makes any difference but every car i've owned that had remote locking, i have always pressed the lock button twice, i got into the habit because we drive Transits at work and they require a double press to engage the deadlocks so i have always done the same with my cars.

 

[Gremlin]

Whilst posting, I have another conundrum: When I lock the car, how do I know that the alarm/immobiliser is set? I've always had a little red flashing LED in previous cars, there's nothing of the sort in the Bmax.

I know its locked when the 'power fold' mirrors fold in

 

[robit]

I don't have the B-Max any more but still read the forum. My Titanium locked and fully imobilsed by pressing the fob twice. If we left our dog inside, we only pressed once so that the internal security was disabled. Found this out when we left our yorkie in car with a double press on the fob. Result: alarm came on when dog moved