406oc.co.uk

Hi,

My car has recently developed a rather troubling problem I hope you guys can point me in the right direction.

the first time this happened I was driving at constant motorway speeds and all of a sudden the engine dies, no smoke, no spluttering, no nasty noises, the engine wasn't too hot and I had fuel in the tank, so I suspect something electrical.

The AA came and got me going - the immobiliser had reset itself - we disabled the immobiliser (keypad type) and removed it - I thought that was the end of it. next day it does exactly the same thing except it was at slow town speeds engine just cuts out. it's obviously not an immobiliser problem, the car eventually restarted and ran fine for a few minutes then conked out again, this time it doesn't restart.

the 2nd AA guy suggested it was either the crank angle sensor (which he had cleaned- with no luck) or a multi function relay, or the ECU.

I was looking for correct resistances for the CAS in the haynes manual but there's nothing in there, perhaps someone has these??

hopefully someone has had this problem before and can tell me what they did.

In case it's related the speedo is fairly tempermental - it stops working once the engine is hot- but has been this way for months and months without any other problems (i've had the car 3 yrs and the speedo thing has been the only problem up until now...) (I believe the CAS feeds the Speedometer)

many thanks in advance

Ben.

an update if anyone's interested,

I changed the Crank angle sensor and the Relay thing to no avail.

after cranking for a few seconds the ECU light comes on and stays on - I've looked for Fault codes and readers for this motor on the internet but it all refers to the HDI motor. where do I get a fault code reader?

is it worth me checking the Fule stop solenoid? is this an easy job to do?

Thanks
Ben.

I believe there was a post on here in the past about a code reader on ebay
perhaps a search will turn it up.... as regards car electrics am fooked but
does sound as if you on right track with that sensor...

There was also a post on here about hot wiring the solanoid .... think jamesixdt
is the man you need to try and catch on here

viewtopic.php?t=2957&start=0&postdays=0 ... p+solanoid
try looking here ....

Hi
I had a similar problem which turned out to be nothing more that a gunged up fuel filter.
Worth a try for about a fiver.

OK got it sorted- it was the immobiliser on the fuel pump -what a horrible job!!

I don't know if that unit is responsible for other things because I now have no rev counter, no odometer and no speedo - the fuel gauge sits at full (which I know is wrong) as does the oil level gauge... oh and the drivers window only goes up in little steps (possibly caused by the battery being out for a while?)

so at least it's working again wont' get through an MOT though with no dials... lights etc. etc. all work fine.

any ideas on these problems anyone?

Thanks for your advice so far

OK sorted the window has sorted itself out - put it down and up a couple of times in a row and it's all good.

The dials however are a more serious issue than before.

I took them out and checked the connections on the back- seem fine to me so I put them back.

I then for some reason decided to see if the car can start without the ECU and it CAN!!! so the reason I have no dials is there is no info coming from the ECU becasue the ecu isn't actually doing anything...

so the plot thickens... I can get about now at least so might drive on the tomtom speed for a few days and have a think about what to do... perhaps the immobiliser wasn't knackered after all - it was the ECU that was stuffed- telling the Immobiliser the car is off and to re-arm...

will I be able to use any 2nd hand ECU now I dont' have the immobiliser to worry about??

cheers,

Ben

I can't help you regarding whether the 2nd hand ECU will work but I do recall reading about the ribbon cable inside the clocks having dry joints after time causing strange readings etc. This was predominantly a D8 fault. Might be worth popping the clocks open and checking all the solder joints.

Fog