I had an accident today. A truck pulled out of a side street and his bumper damaged both doors on the driver’s side of my car. I can’t open either door. After dark, I noticed that the interior light was on and I turned it off. Then I noticed that the “doors open” light on the dash board is on. Will this drain my battery? I’ve tried googling but can’t find an answer. If it will, I need to make plans to get a jump start in the morning.
!. That light is not nearly as big a drain as the interior light. If you have a car that is relatively new, or a relatively new battery, you are probably fine.
- Those lights are on for a reason. The door is not closed as designed. I would be wary of driving far or at any real speed…
I know you said it wouldn’t open but…
You may be able to reset the light with a series of button pushes. Google will help with that.
If you want to tinker around, here are some ideas.
Open the hood (assuming you can) and disconnect the black (negative sign) battery lead if you are worried, reconnect it before you drive. Doubtful that light will drain your battery though. It’d unlikely that the impact would damage both that severely. Take a wedge (plastic, or make one out of some wood shims and tape) and cram it in the little seam where the door closes, try unlocking the door and pulling it open while pushing on the wedge. Chances are your door lock mechanism is just jammed, depending on the car. The rest is just improvising.
Hope it helps. Good luck, and sorry to hear about the accident.
It won’t drain it.
If it bothers you, you can go to your fuse box and pull the door fuse if you’d like.
The car is 8 years old. The battery is a few years old. I’ve moved the car to the street just in case I need a jump.
Yeah, the doors are kind of crushed in. I only have to drive 2 miles to work. I’ll be very careful. Hopefully, the adjuster will call tomorrow (the insurance company said up to 48 hours 
) and it will be in a body shop very soon.
Thanks for all the quick replies! It sounds promising that the car will start.
Unfortunately, I didn’t notice it until after dark and now it’s late and I don’t want to go out and try messing with anything. I found information about the switch that controls the lights and tomorrow if I can get the door open just a little, I should be able to put something over it to get it to make contact with the door again.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with a wreck. My brain is still befuddled. So thanks again to you all for offering advice.
Good planning ahead! Whether or not the battery is old or not, that little light shouldn’t drain it out overnight though. I had a reverse situation once and had to use bungee cords to keep the car door closed, much more dangerous to do that and drive on a highway than with it stuck shut and only 2 miles, so you’ll be alright. Sorry about the accident though, avoid potholes to be on the safer side.
Or, it’s possible that the door is latched properly but one of them is damaged in such a way that it’s not hitting the button that tells the car that it’s closed.
Assuming it is, in fact, securely latched, I’d suggest figuring out which door is creating the issue (open one, push the button in the door jamb and see if that turns the light off, if not try the other one). When you figure it out, find a way to keep the button pushed in. Could be as easy as closing the door with a towel or something wedged against the button to fill in the gap the accident created.
I’d do this before pulling fuses or disconnecting the battery. Yanking battery cables is a whole thing and the ECM (the computer) is going to reset and the car will drive all wonky each time you reconnect it.
As for pulling the fuse…which one would you even pull? There’s not going to be a fuse for the door ajar warning light. At best you’d have to figure out which module that sensor is connected to and killing power to that (or the integrated control unit) is going to create other issue and probably turn on the check engine light.
I see that wedging something in the door was already mentioned, so that’s good. But one last thing, if you haven’t already opened the doors that have been hit, make sure it looks like they’ll close again before you do it. Jumping you’re car will be the least of your worries if you can’t close your doors.
The car started right up this morning. I stopped by to talk to my mechanic on my way to work. He said he didn’t think the light would drain the battery. He said pulling a fuse could possibly cause other problems so he didn’t want to do that. As for using something to manipulate the sensor switch on the doors, he said he was afraid if he opened the doors to try to try to figure out which had the problem, they would not close again. So I’m just going to leave it and hope for the best. I have jumper cables in the car if something should happen. And hopefully the adjuster will call today and get this process started!
Again, thanks for all the quick advice last night. I’d like to say it helped me sleep better but that would be a lie. The last time I looked at the clock, it was almost 4:00. If I don’t hear from the adjuster this morning, I’m leaving work at noon to go home and take a nap.
It’s also possible that the buttons aren’t registering properly. We have a Blazer that thinks a door is ajar all the time. There’s no door open dash light, but the interior lights stay on unless I push the dome override button on the dash (which our other vehicles don’t have). I tried getting four people to manually push the buttons at once, but it made no difference.
Actually, yes, the light will drain the battery, but only if you don’t drive the car, and it will take several days.
If you’re that concerned about the battery dying, go find a battery tender (also called a float charger).
If this is going to get wrapped up soon, you probably don’t need to worry about it, but they’re nice to have around. You plug them in and they keep you’re battery constantly topped off. They can also trickle charge a dead battery.
I know harbor freight sells them for next to nothing, but I don’t know about the quality. I think I paid about $30 for mine that I use for my motorcycle in winter.
Yes, it sounds like you have a bad button or a broken wire somewhere. If it were my car, the first thing I’d do is see if I could pull the button out of the body and see if the wires are connected, if they’re receiving power, if the switch is opening and closing etc…
While it’s very possible that that may be the case for the OP, I’d guess, based on the information given, that having two doors hit by a truck means that one of them is deformed enough that it’s no longer touching the button anymore.
Agreed that the warning light won’t drain the battery in a normal use situation (the interior light would have).
Since we have no idea what kind of car this is, consider that it might not have a door jamb switch but rather a door latch switch.
It’s a Toyota Yaris and the switch is on the bottom of the door plate just as you open the door. I could easily put a piece of duct tape on it by opening the door just a few inches, but as my mechanic said, there’s a chance the doors would not close again. The doors are damaged in the middle, causing the top and bottom of the doors to pull away from the frame so there’s no way to know which door is not connecting and maybe both aren’t.
Fun note: right as the accident happened, a big storm hit. So it was raining in the car, running down the windows. That made the whole thing even more exciting. 
8 years old and extensive damage. Will the insurance fix it or total it?
I’m really, really hoping they will fix it. I love my car! It has a manual transmission and those are so hard to come by these days. It took me quite a while to find this one when I bought it 3 years ago.
Question:
If the insurance ‘total’ it, can the OP buy the wreck after the settlement and repair it at his own expense, possibly with parts from a scrapyard?? In the UK, this is quite common and gets recorded on the car docs. Cat ‘A’ for a wreck that must be scrapped, down to cat ‘D’ for minor (but possibly expensive) damage that can easily be repaired without compromising safety.
I’m curious to see how this might work. Now I’m worried that they won’t fix my car. I hadn’t even thought of that. And I’m a her by the way.