Cautionary Tale

[mike123]

A few words which may save others time and embarassment.
Just before setting off on a 250 mile working trip and late as usual I noticed my SatNav charger wasn't working. Pulled it out from the socket and the end had cracked off. These later ones have a plastic screwed retainer that holds a fuze and metal end cap under tension against a spring - which I suspect causes the plastic to crack. Being an idiot I go fishing around for the bits still in the socket, the one in the cubby box between the seat, without switching off the ignition. After some sparks and a smell of burning the sockets don't work; so I conclude I've blown a fuse and carry on.

The next morning in the hotel carpark I consult the handbook, find where the accessory fuze is, actually in the drivers footwell fuzebox, and read that one should get the extracting tool and a spare fuze from the fuzebox under the bonnet. This I do, only to discover the fuze had not blown.

Puzzled I put everything back and start the car. Horror of horrors I now have warning messages 'ABS Fault' and 'Cruise control' and 'DSC not available'. My usual trick of switching off and on again doesn't clear the message, so I drive back carefully on some slushy motorways. Yes the only day we've had anything like snow this winter!

I take the car back to my specialist who puts the diagnostics on the car finds no faults in any of the hardware but a 'Battery Low' error message on several of the units including the ABS brain - which is also involved in the cruise control and DSC functions.

We were puzzled by this, but they have replaced the blown fuzes for the auxillary sockets which are I'm told in the glovebox and boot; although I haven't seen either of them.

At a second visit, we ran out of time on Friday night, the 'Battery low' error was traced to high resistence at a fuze in the engine bay box, which I had probably disturbed when pulling out the extraction tool or the spare fuze.

So please think before doing even the simplest of things - the consequences in complex, old (it's a 55 plate) car can be extreme!

Thanks to the guys at Preston Jag for working methodically through the problem and Merry Christmas all
Mike

[clivelewis]

Hi Mike, Have fallen in love again with the car during the Christmas to-ing and froing from here in deeoest Devon to Essex, Kent and Docklands. Whilst returning on one trip, 9am M25, six lanes approaching Heathrow at 80 mph in heavy rain (get the picture?) up came the ABS warning light and subsequent message centre .......this joined the park brake fault warning light which is still stubbornly resisting all efforts to switch off (!! - see previous corres)..... two minutes later on came the DSC not available message accompanied by the warning light. The trio of lights, constantly changing in tune with the message centre joined the others rightfully switched on and I began to wonder if I had wasted my time putting the mini tree borrowed from an Eddy Stobart on the dashboard top. Very Christmassy.Anyway, no services for 30 miles, so waited for a gap in the onrushing traffis and very gingerly tested the brake pedal. Everything seemed to be working ok so decided to head for the first services on the M4 and hope for the best. We found that singing Jingle Bells took the edge off the anxiety. Having arrived and stopped at the services without incident I ran off to the terminal building as the excitement of it all had begun to prove a little too much for the bladder. Upon return, having dug out all the neccessary telephone numbers for breakdown services etc I decided to switch on again and see what the situation was. After somewhat extended light check,all the warning lights, messages etc went off apart from the ever present park brake fault. Rest of journey without incident. I have had occasional reccurrence of return of lights and messages, but as we are still in the festive period I guess I can put up with it for a while. The only consistent condition on each occasion is the onset of rain - so I woner if there is a drop getting into a joint somewhere but then eventually drying out ? Hope all went well for you and msay I wish you and anyone else daft enough to read all the way through this a very Happy New Year. All the best, Clive.