New Emira V6 hit a deer (no visible damage) but now won’t start. Diagnostic tool won’t connect. Any ideas?
I took delivery of my Magma Red Emira V6 two weeks ago. Literally two hours after picking it up, a deer jumped out in front of me while I was going about 50 mph (80 km/h) and I hit it.
We immediately stopped. Surprisingly, the deer seemed completely fine and ran off. Even more surprisingly, I checked over the front of the car and there was absolutely zero visible damage—no cracked panels, no broken lights, nothing leaking underneath. Just a little bit of fur left on the front end.
However, when I got back in to drive away, the car just wouldn't start. There were no warning lights on the dash, no error messages, and again, no fluids leaking anywhere. The motor just refused to turn over.
I had to get it towed. The tow truck driver tried jumping the battery and doing some basic troubleshooting, but he couldn't get it to start either.
It finally arrived at a Lotus center two days ago, and here is where it gets really strange: the mechanic told me the car is completely unresponsive to their connected Lotus diagnostic computer/OBD tool. Because the car won't communicate with their system, he says they have to start a massive manual search to track down the issue.
Has anyone experienced anything like this or have any mechanical insight? Could hitting the deer have triggered some sort of hidden inertia switch/crash sensor that completely locked out the ECU?
Any ideas would be hugely appreciated!
TL;DR: Got a new Emira V6, hit a deer 2 hours later at 50mph. Zero physical damage to the car, but the engine won't start and the ECU won't talk to the mechanic's diagnostic computer.