Flaky COM2000, or worse?

[Doggy]

My auto lights have been mysteriously turning themselves on and occasionally off, for a few weeks now.

I've been treating it as a minor nuisance, but it's been happening more frequently and tonight reached the point where, (in the dark), I couldn't turn the lights off, (or if I did, they came back on straight away). This is puzzling, as it reports no faults for the COM2000 via PP2000 and all of the buttons & controls work perfectly, first time, every time, when running the diagnostics.......

Makes me think it's not the COM2000, but some obscure VAN comms glitch? The only other odd thing it ever does is very very occasionally, the radio volume increase button decides to give itself a tweak.

Needless to say, no faults reported on VAN bus 1 or 2.

I've reconfigured the BSI to no auto lights for now, (or maybe forever).

Any other ideas folks?

[grasmere59]

Mine started "auto lights on" "auto lights off" occasionaly when i indicated left or right,then it got worse and would do it juust going over bumps or just when it felt like it,it was just annoying during the day but at night it was dangerous as the lights would go off and on again.I asked Puegeot if the auto lights function could be disabled permanently but was told it couldn't be done but looking at your post it could be!,anyway the long and short of it was that i had to shell out £80 for a used comm 2000 unit as mine has ESP and a new unit was over £350,the replacement actually came from a low mileage 206 gti.I dismantled the old unit/stem and found that there is a tiny p.c.b halfway down the indicator stem that operates the auto lights function via the button and a small copper ring had come adrift and was shorting on the p.c.b now and again,i couldn't find anyway to fix it and get it back together lol!

[Doggy]

Thanks for the info, it does sound similar, but the bit I can't get my head round is why the button works perfectly when you watch the operation on-screen, (& doesn't operate when it shouldn't, including when you knock 7 bells out of it).

It's early days to say I've turned it off permanently, but I think so.

I've had no other COM2000 issues to speak of, but have noticed a slight reluctance to self-cancel from the left-hand 'lane change position', so maybe it's time to swap it. Just don't fancy shelling out for another only to find it's not that.

[grasmere59]

The button used to work fine on mine also,as a last resort i prised the button out of the end of the stalk and left it out but the auto light problem was still there.I've a spare comm 2000 unit out of my old Rapier estate with auto light function,it's got an indicator cancelling problem, you can try it if you want just to try and illiminate your auto light prob.

[steve_earwig]

Hold on, just pulling my old one to bits (again )

[blzeebub]

The auto lights was a 'feature' of mine and that went away with a replacement unit. Luckily i found an exact match on fleabay but there is the seller in Yorkshire that repairs for a reasonable fee - ive got the listing saved if you want me to send it over as i plan on getting my old one done at some point as a back up.

B->

[steve_earwig]

Right, don't bother pulling the button out - there's nothing to see and you'll brake the fingers that operate the contact. I presume Grasmere's ring is the circuit board with the contacts on it, located inside the section with the white spot:


The contacts themselves are in the light switch part:


Note that two of the 4 clips on the end of the tube there have broken off, it still locks in place. Also, the contact you see there is for the lights, the one for the button has long since pinged off into infinity (probably when I took it to bits the first time to look at the connector) but it was identical to the light one. I reckon it's possible to take it to bits this much to see what's going on with the contacts but don't go any further as the connector is underneath the bit with the spot and, once disconnected, you'd have a hell of a job putting it back without stripping the whole thing.

Or you might want to take the com2000 off the car so you can strip it down and stretch/pack out the spring, I suspect it's easier to get to bits once the stalk is off anyway.

[steve_earwig]

Just a thought: I wonder if Grasmere's looked anything like this one...

[Doggy]

Thanks, guys.

So it's probably the COM2000? - trouble is I'm booked on Eurotunnel in about 185 hours, so I'm leaning towards hoping it doesn't get worse till I get back and checking availability, 'over there', just in case.

[grasmere59]

Just a thought: I wonder if Grasmere's looked anything like this one...

The old comm 2000 unit off my old Rapier is the same as the one in the pic but for some reason the comm on my Exec is different,the button on the end had a long pin which went down the stalk and pressed on a copper ring which made contact with the pcb and it was the copper ring that had come adrift,i can only assume the comm is different because the car has ESP.

[steve_earwig]

It's probably a Siemens or a Delphi, the original (crap) ones were DAV. I guess the only way to see what Mr. Style there has is take the column shrouds off.

[Doggy]

Mr. Style

I enquired of our Gallic cousins to see if they'd had any similar experiences, or could advise if spares availability were any better in their manor.

One helpful suggestions was to test with someone else's 'comodo', (COM2000).

[grasmere59]

Your welcome do try my spare "comodo"

[steve_earwig]

steve_earwig wrote:Mr. Style

Doggy

Comodo dragon? Well, that's easy enough to do innit I guess it was worth asking but a shame that they don't know anything more than we do.

I reckon you should see if it's a DAV or a replacement first...