Update, and hopefully the last I need to make.

This morning I went out to the car and got everything open and out for me to get to work on the loom. I'd left the battery out of the car all night, so once I had my tools and stuff out, I was curious to see what the tester would show. Tester showed 9.9V, ok not where it should be but at least it's not giving me problems like it was before. I then decided to put the charger back on to see if it was still being dumb, and to my surprise instead of saying 100% and turning itself off, it showed it was between 75% and 100% and then proceeded to start charging the battery, result!

So, whilst that charged for a bit, I got to work on the loom. Like I said yesterday, I needed the car to be usable today and tomorrow and so I was only doing a temporary fix for now until the other stuff I need arrives during the week. After about 2, maybe 2 and a half hours, I connected the last cable. My hands were sore given the huge lack of space in that area, and with the cables having no slack at all you're at the mercy of how little room there is. I'd removed the boot off the hinge temporarily to bring the loom to the other side to make it easier. Once done, I got in the car with the key and held my breath as I waited to see if that was the only thing I needed to fix.

I put the key in and turned it, nothing. No lights, no sounds. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw the stupid battery still sat there in the garage on charge! My mistake out of the way, I put the battery in, and as soon as I heard the little spark of the negative terminal touching, I knew I was getting somewhere. Back in the car, ignition on and we were a go.

I tidied everything back up, got the loom back on the correct side of the hinge and tightened that back up before taking her for a little drive just to make sure the power wasn't going to vanish over the first bump. Everything went well, and after a stop at McDonalds for lunch, all was ok.

Next week I'll have to remove it all again anyway to do a more permanent fix still I suspect, but I'm happy and I'm thankful for all the advice and input everyone had on this thread. It's this sort of engagement and community that keeps these cars alive.

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Notanumber wrote:

You are doing very well, dont knock yourself at all. You have asked, you listened, you have looked how to apply that knowledge and you have learned. That's how all of us on built up knowledge and confidence.

Well done for uncovering the boot hinge wiring problems. Unless you have already been to buy the cable I would suggest you order a metre of automotive wire in each required colour rather than general wire from a general DIY store. Wire made for automotive use is a bit more flexible which is quite important for the hinge area which is subject to vibration and movement. The insulation layer is thinner but more durable than ordinary knock about wire. It's also best to match the existing colours. Joint are best soldered and covered with heat shrink tubing

One more quick update for now, because I feel like an idiot and I want those who said this before to get the validation they deserve; having left the battery for a few hours whilst I worked, I just went back to it and threw the tester on real quick to see if anything had changed. Immediately it was giving me a reading of 9.8V, 9.7V, 9.6V and going lower and lower, presumably from the stress of the tester being connected.

I put it back on the charger which as had done so far, immediately said it was full and when I put the tester back on it was at 10.1V, 10.0V, 9.9V and so on. So something is happening there that doesn't make sense, either the battery can't hold a full charge or the charger is crap like others have eluded to.

More importantly for this update though, and the reason I feel like a moron. So many mentioned checking the boot wiring loom, and I had looked - AT THE WRONG ONE. I just opened up the actual one on the hinge that you all so kindly pushed me to and it like a horror movie in there, see attached image. Of the seven wires I can count, 4 are cleanly disconnected with the others hanging on for dear life. I'm surprised it took this long for issues to arise. As soon as I finish work I'm gonna head to B&Q and grab a bunch of smaller gauge wire, as I only have big mains power style stuff, and go to work repairing them all and extended them too as others have suggested to ease the pressure on them when opening and closing the boot lid.

 

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Notanumber wrote:

+1 For Airportable's advice. Put a pair of jump leads between yours and a 2nd battery. Then attach the battery charger and leave it like that for an hour or ideally several. Then take one of the jump leads off and leave the charger working on just your battery alone. Check that the charger is now applying a charge and if so now leave it to charge for several hours.

You mentioned you had got/ were going to get a multimeter. What is the voltage reading across the battery at present ? This would quickly confirm why the load tester could not show a reading.

David Aiketgate wrote:

The boot hinge loom has already been highlighted. You need to open this up and check for broken wires. This happens to virtually every one of our cars due to bad design. Broken wires in there can cause a plethora of strange electrical issues!🤔
 

Another quick update, the battery tester came quite early this morning (gotta love Amazon) and immediately I wanted to see what was going on. Wanted to be as concise as possible, so pulled the battery again and put the tester on. Weirdly enough, the screen just flickered on and off. I reseated the clamps and got it into a position where the screen stayed on and it could 'start up' I suppose you'd call it.

Immediately though, "Er3" which according to the book means "This symbol indicates the tester is abnormal or the battery capacity is beyond the test range." Now, that last part is what threw me off as it's a tester for 12V lead acid batteries, and it has a test range of 5-20V so that would tell me that it's likely below the 5V threshold. But then it makes me curious as to how my charger again immediately told me the battery is fully charged.

I'm waiting for a friend to come over and I'll be using the charger and the tester on a known working battery, just to rule out a failure with them (very unlikely, but you have no idea h ow unlucky I am). Assuming they work, I will likely have to get a new battery but that scares me as there were no signs of degradation on the current battery. It's an Exide EB602 that came with the car but doesn't look too old.

Considering I was getting the strange door open beep on Saturday evening after an uneventful 2 hour, 77 mile drive, I don't want to spend £80/90 on a new battery only to have a fault kill it within a day again.

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You are a star! I had already been using your fuse/relay guide for help to find all possible blown fuses, I should've guessed you'd made an earth guide as well.

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I won't single out any messages to thank, but I really appreciate all of your advice and guidance. I've got a battery load tester coming tomorrow (today now I guess) as I didn't already have one, and a new multi-meter as I've misplaced that as well 🙄

Just to touch on a few things that were mentioned/suggested, in regards to door switches and lights etc, I was able to rule those out on the first day, when I still had power. By simply latching them I could see the interior lights go off, as well as the boot light going off so if the battery is genuinely dead (which I don't think it is) then it won't have been because of a light draining the battery.

Similarly, when I first tried to use jump leads from another working car, I still had zero ignition lights. It was as if the key just wasn't doing anything. I'm still optimistic that it's going to be something relatively easy to resolve, but I'm also expecting it to be a problem that plagues this car forever, which would suck as I intend to daily it.

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Thanks for your input Cobber, important insight to these cars that I needed for this.

I can give a little update; went out and bought a battery charger. Figured it was a good investment anyway. Removed the battery from the car, hooked the charger up and surprisingly, the charger let me know the battery was already fully charged.

I double checked the connectors, and the booklet to make sure I hadn't got anything mixed up and again confirmed that the battery is fully charged - strange.
That then leaves me with even more confusion.

Yesterday when I was trying things, I noticed that with the key turned to full ignition, I was getting a very faint oil light shining red but nothing else. Today that is no longer the case.

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Hi all!

I'll preface this post by just being clear from the get go that I'm only now really trying to get into the more hands-on part of car ownership. Despite being 35, until now I've always been a straight-to-the-garage kinda guy. However, I purchased a 2005 MG TF in August and now doing the upkeep myself. 

That out of the way, to the issue at hand and I apologise for the length of the post, but I like to be concise. Saturday evening, I got in my car at the same time as I always do every Saturday to do a 77 mile drive from my sons house back to mine. I unlocked the car, got in and started her and then proceeded to do the full drive with no stops. When I got home though, that's when the weirdness started. I got my things and closed the driver side door and as I pressed the lock button on the fob, I heard the horn been once and no sign of the usual alarm arming noises - weird, never heard that before. I was tired so left it as it was and continued the evening as planned.

The next day, Sunday, I knew it was time to get working on it. My first instinct was to assume it was the car warning me that a door or similar was open, so I reopened the driver side door and closed it again before checking the passenger door as well. Again, the car beeped on lock. I unlocked it once more and tried all four possibilities, the rear boot, both doors and the front bonnet, all of which closed firmly like they always do.

With the car still beeping once on lock, I assumed the issue was still not resolved and so I started to do some Googling and, as expected, found myself directed here towards a couple of related threads, but they were unfortunately unhelpful.

I decided that maybe it was something power related, so with little effort, I removed the black cable from the battery for a few minutes to let the system drain out before reconnecting it. Upon reconnecting, I started the engine and despite everything being closed, I noticed a new light that had never been illuminated before, the door open warning light. Back to Google and results suggested that one of the latches wasn't latching properly, so I opened everything and using a screwdriver, was able to latch both doors and the rear boot lid, with the interior lights and the boot light all going out, suggesting that the car was satisfied that they were properly closed. I couldn't work out how to 'fool' the front bonnet though, but with it closed properly and normally, I put the key in again and started once more to find that the door open light was still on.

With it getting late and dark, I was getting fed up with the problem and new it was something I needed to look into another day, and living behind a locked gate, I was comfortable leaving the car unlocked for the time-being. I drove to the Tesco Express near me, and there were no issues with the drive or the starting/running of the car. Got home, didn't lock it and that was that.

Fast forward two days later to today, Tuesday, and I was getting something out of the boot when I decided to just have a little look to see if the car was still being silly. I put my key in and turned it, expecting to see the red 'door open' light, but was instead greeted with nothing. No lights, no mechanical sounds, nothing. The battery has as far as I can tell gone completely flat.

As I don't have a battery charger on hand, I got a friend to come over and we used some jump leads to try and get some juice in to hopefully start it. I wasn't expecting it to work out, and those expectations were met. After a short while, still nothing. I've seen a couple of threads on here regarding sudden dead batteries, and followed their guidance on things like battery negative cable corrosion etc, but I think it's fairly obvious that the dead battery is linked to this random door open alarm.

So I can be sure I've listed my checks off, this is what I've done/looked at/checked; Have confirmed that all interior lights and rear boot interior light go off when the respective doors/lid are closed, so it's not that. I know the soft top isn't alarmed/powered in anyway but have unlatched and relatched that anyway for good measure. I have checked all the looms I can see and they all look to be in excellent condition, with nothing visibly damaged or looking like it needs to be replaced. I have checked all the relays under the front bonnet, and despite some oxidisation, nothing has blown. Checked all fuses under the steering column and they all look ok.

I'm at a loss on what could cause this door open thing to suddenly trip, and I am 100% certain that there was no red warning light on the drive home, so this has happened as I've reversed on to my driveway and gotten out of my car. 

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