Help me....electrical woes.

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So......
Ive bitten off more than I can chew, completely by accident however.

I've just purchased a 406 110 hdi estate (executive) in gunmetal/black.
135k miles.
No service history but looks fairly well looked after.

I took a risk in that it had no history.
But ive hedged my bets on the big things like cambelt and clutch/flywheel already being done, or being ok for a fair while at least.

literally the day after purchase however, the car started showing tell tale signs of electrical gremlins.
Worst of which is now apparent. Previous owner swears blind it never happened while he owned it, so he's refusing to give me my money back.

So to the problem,
Came out to the car this morning, clocks are no longer working (besides fuel guage).
Mileage now says 000000 but has not increased with driving around today. No speedo, no revs.

Igniton appears to come on and go off as it pleases, regardless of whether the key is in. Thats my most concerning one.

Radio display is only working on the lower half (this I knew about however)

Indicators not working today (worked fine yesterday)

Boot spare wheel well was full of water. No emptied.
Rear drivers side carpet is damp, as is a little bit of the front. But we did not have heavy rain last night as far as I know so I dont see why it's got worse.

I dont really know where to start in all honesty.
Should I be removing all the carpets?

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20140713_121028.jpg

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Found that too.....

[MixMan]

Sorry to hear you got sold a pup and the guy who sold it obviously knew about these problems...

But fear not!...

I had all this sort of stuff with mine and now it's all fine...

So, as a first step what you should do is get the carpet up on the drivers footwell, down there you will find a bunch of wires and connectors, I will put money on it that they are coroded badly and sending mixed electrical messages all over the car.

Buy some heat shrink tubing andone by one snip the wires going into and out of each plug and solder them together.

Once they are all done, do a BSI reset and the situation will be much improved.
It worked for me and everyone on here will tell you how sensitive the electrics on a 406 are.

[blinkinink]

That sounds very promising. I will investigate and report back.

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That was indeed the problem. Its absolutely soaked down there.

Had the connectors out and dried them off. Not much corrosion, so cant have been like that for long.

Not got time to snip and solder them today, but at least I know thats the issue.
Having reconnected them, everything seems to be behaving again.

Next question then, if this is so common, where is it leaking from? And how do we stop it.

Im leaving the connectors out above the carpet until I figure that out, because the foam has soaked all the water up! I've squeezed as much out as I can but im not sure of the best way to dry it really.

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Also spotted this!

Why are all these wires cut and taped.......

[steve_earwig]

Because it's happened before Best find your leak methinks...

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Thing is, those wires are not even the connector wires, they are different ones. So I have no idea why they would have been cut. Plus there is a cut wire under the dash too as pictured further up.
Someone's had a good fiddle with this car at some point. Ive just done this for now until I find the leak....if ever....

[PeterN]

Just for some reassurance, I had the same thing happen to mine a few months ago and water was actually sloshing about under the carpet, as soon as I removed the water everything started to return to normal. Unless the connectors are badly corroded just drying them out should do the trick. You will probably find that the drain holes in the sill are blocked, clear them and you shouldn't have a repeat performance.

Don't be to hard on the seller, he may well not have had this problem, I had my car for about four years with no problems until we had a period of heavy rain, then it started, I got the same information as you from this very helpful forum.

Once mine was working OK I gave the connectors a dose of oil, that should help prevent the water getting in again. Yours don't look to corroded in the pictures so drying and lubricating them might be sufficient.

Don't know where you are located but we haven' had any rain to speak of for about a week!

Peter

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Yeah, now ive got them elevated above the carpet, all has returned to normal. I'll check the sill drain holes to see if this is part of the issue.

Thanks

[Doggy]

Good to hear you're making progress.

The other common cause is blocked sunroof drains, again easily fixed for free: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19697&p=206344#p206344

[Puggy2]

The odd wires could be an after market immobilizer mine has some and I do have a cat 2 alarm fitted probably fitted when it was worth £23000 the wires under the steering column are signs of ignition switch failure 2 lives being fed from one usually done to get the blower working.

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The odd wires could be an after market immobilizer mine has some and I do have a cat 2 alarm fitted probably fitted when it was worth £23000 the wires under the steering column are signs of ignition switch failure 2 lives being fed from one usually done to get the blower working.

Thanks,
That would explain it. It's not even done very well under the steering column. Literally wrapped around the other live, not soldered or taped. Might have to remedy that myself.
I daren't go fiddling now though in case something stops working and im left car less!

[blinkinink]

Good to hear you're making progress.

The other common cause is blocked sunroof drains, again easily fixed for free: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=19697&p=206344#p206344

Did this yesterday, drivers side was blocked solid with sludge. Thanks!!! Hopefully that will put an end to my wet footwell. I've checked the sill and it seems empty. No "drain holes" on my d9 though. So I improvised. Nothing came out though.