“Bricked” after Brake Fault

[EmiraHK]

So went to start my Emira up this morning and upon starting up the car, a brake failure warning popped up. ABS light came on. Freaking out, I switched the car off to see if it would go away upon restart. Car then could not restart and a warning message said something along the lines of “e-brake failure/needs to be serviced”. Car then was essentially “bricked”, despite shutting it off and locking the doors, the dashboard remained on and message stayed. Waited for 5 minutes and it didn’t go away.

Lastly, I did the oldest trick in the book: disconnected the battery for 5 minutes and reconnected. Warning went away and was able to start the car again.

Not sure if these are common gremlins but I think another owner here has had similar issues with being unable to start their Emira.

PS. Was freaking out so didn’t manage to get the photo of the warning as i couldn’t recall it after a while, but this red triangle logo did remain and I took a pic.

Just for future reference if anyone encounters anything similar, they can try this old trick.

 

[Pugwash]

I think a few of us have seen that. In my case locking it up and coming back 20 mins later it was all ok. Not sure if there is a definitive time. I have to say that that happened in my first few weeks of ownership. Since I started using the car for longer trips and keeping it on a CTEK charger when in the garage I haven’t seen any software issues like this..

 

[Kimmax]

This is probably the message you saw (localized). Had the same issue, including not being able to start. Locking and leaving the key range for a few minutes (Which gets the ECU to fully shutdown) solved it.

 

[TomAce]

Happened also to me, when I was driving away in the night from a Birthday party last week.

I ended up at a Gas station, finally left the car, closed the doors, smoked a cigarette. And after about ten minutes I could restart as if there hadn‘t been a problem at all. No warning lights.

But it was at a place where you usually don‘t want to stay for longer. So some adrenaline went through my veins I can tell you…

 

[EmiraHK]

This is great (sorta) and thanks for all the replies. At least glad to know I’m not alone on this and it isn’t a persistent problem, for now.

 

[shaank]

Had this several times - battery disconnect each time has cleared it, frustrating when your parked out in public having to do that though!

 

[EmiraHK]

Have a new one today!

 

[Wonza]

View attachment 27694
Have a new one today!

Don’t worry about this one. It will fix it self when the back up battery in the SOS module charges itself up. Need longer drives to charge up the battery.

 

[EmiraHK]

Maybe I need a stronger battery.

 

[deepblack]

View attachment 27651
This is probably the message you saw (localized). Had the same issue, including not being able to start. Locking and leaving the key range for a few minutes (Which gets the ECU to fully shutdown) solved it.

This week I had the same issue, which expanded quickly on to other issues.
I was driving on the german Nordschleife, when the "parking brake fault" warning showed up. Just short after that, the next warning said, ABS sensor failed, the next said, ESP sensor failed. Right after that, no more revs showing up, no gear is displayd and on top of that, the displayed speed qas totally wrong.
After finishing the lap, I stopped the engine and wasn't able to start it again.
The whole car was bricked. Both displays dead, nothing worked. Even locking the car wasn't possible.
I had to wait for a towing truck. When it arrived, the displays were working again and I was able to lock the car.
When we arrived at the workshop at Komotec, they said, that the control units had shut down and were getting up again one after the other.
They also said, that there were 2 softwareupdates to be installed on my car.
The next day, the car worked fine on the Nordschleife.

 

[Concept24]

Boy am I glad that you guys volunteered to be prototype testers. Oh wait............

 

[KAR120C]

This week I had the same issue, which expanded quickly on to other issues.
I was driving on the german Nordschleife, when the "parking brake fault" warning showed up. Just short after that, the next warning said, ABS sensor failed, the next said, ESP sensor failed. Right after that, no more revs showing up, no gear is displayd and on top of that, the displayed speed qas totally wrong.
After finishing the lap, I stopped the engine and wasn't able to start it again.
The whole car was bricked. Both displays dead, nothing worked. Even locking the car wasn't possible.
I had to wait for a towing truck. When it arrived, the displays were working again and I was able to lock the car.
When we arrived at the workshop at Komotec, they said, that the control units had shut down and were getting up again one after the other.
They also said, that there were 2 softwareupdates to be installed on my car.
The next day, the car worked fine on the Nordschleife.

It's good to hear they came back to life. How long did it take for them to start working again after they shut down?

 

[Porter]

FYI "bricked" typically means that a device is rendered entirely and unrecoverably dead.

If it wakes back up and starts working after 10 minutes of time to itself, or you fixed it by literally turning it off and back on again, it wasn't bricked.

 

[deepblack]

It's good to hear they came back to life. How long did it take for them to start working again after they shut down?

I had to look that up by the times I did some photos.
The car worked until around 11:00. It got towed at close to 13:00, at that point I was able to open and close it, but mostly it didn't work. for example the parking brake didn't release the brakes and the car didn't lock.
Half an hour later at the workshop, the parking brake worked. And the engine worked again, I don't know, if that was related to the car being on the OBD Reader and having deleted the error messages.

@Porter you're right. Bricked typocally means it's finally and forever f**ked up.
In addition, as I know and use it, it means, that you were tampering with it and messed it up. So it's not something, that just happens.

 

[lion shf]

Happened also to me, when I was driving away in the night from a Birthday party last week.

I ended up at a Gas station, finally left the car, closed the doors, smoked a cigarette. And after about ten minutes I could restart as if there hadn‘t been a problem at all. No warning lights.

But it was at a place where you usually don‘t want to stay for longer. So some adrenaline went through my veins I can tell you…

 

[Jimblob]

I had the same issue here… I left it 20 mins with the key out of range and it started right up.

 

[Wonza]

I had the same issue here… I left it 20 mins with the key out of range and it started right up.

View attachment 31577

Is that first time it happened? Have you had a recent software update? Happened to me recently, first time, very random and was frustrating.

 

[Jimblob]

Is that first time it happened? Have you had a recent software update? Happened to me recently, first time, very random and was frustrating.

Yes it was the first time. I had the recall work done around 10 days ago and they updated all of the software at the same time… hmm

 

[Kimmax]

Any touchpoints with water just before? A wash or cold night outside?

 

[Jimblob]

Any touchpoints with water just before? A wash or cold night outside?

Nope, lives in a garage and hasn’t been out in the rain for months.