406 had a 'Moment' ?

[Bailes1992]

Driving home tonight on the motorway doing "Outside lane motorway speeds" and there was a jolt. The engine, dials amd climate seemed to cut out but the radio and trip computer were fine? Put the hazards on, pulled onto the hard shoulder, restarted it and it was fine all the way home?

Thinking maybe a loose earth or something?
Anyone got any other ideas?

Bailes.

[waue1978]

Driving home tonight on the motorway doing "Outside lane motorway speeds" and there was a jolt. The engine, dials amd climate seemed to cut out but the radio and trip computer were fine? Put the hazards on, pulled onto the hard shoulder, restarted it and it was fine all the way home?

Thinking maybe a loose earth or something?
Anyone got any other ideas?

Bailes.

Not quite technologically knowledgable enough to give the cause, but if it is any help for diagnosing, my C5 did something similar once in my ownership (never did it again) in similar circumstances. Had been doing steady motorway speeds for at least 30mins, although I didn't have to restart the car as the engine was still running - it was a half second blip & then everything went back to normal.

The Xantia (which was pre-mux, but the same 90bhp HDi engine) did the engine, climate & dials (along with the power steering) cutting out when the bottom pulley was near death, but restarting didn't solve that one. Possibly a sign of your bottom pulley just starting to go perhaps?

[Bailes1992]

Could have hit the nail on the head there Stu. Just had a new AUX belt fitted. Lets see if it happens again then.

[Busman]

Driving home tonight on the motorway doing "Outside lane motorway speeds" and there was a jolt. The engine, dials amd climate seemed to cut out but the radio and trip computer were fine? Put the hazards on, pulled onto the hard shoulder, restarted it and it was fine all the way home?

Thinking maybe a loose earth or something?
Anyone got any other ideas?

Bailes.

One of mine did this twice, both times in heavy rain, but no fault codes on eithe roccasion. But it was really raining hard both times. So I figured water as the culprit. Cars still going heading towards 250,000 miles.

[dummysock]

My 2.1 TD did this on a motorway. Lost power for what felt like a lifetime and I ended up freewheeling to the hard shoulder. Then all the ignition lights came back on and I turned the key and it started no problem.

I put the car in the main dealer for a diagnostic but the only thing that they could find was a slightly loose -ve connection at the battery. It never happened again while I owned the car.

[Doggy]

My Xsara did a milder version of this a few times, then stopped altogether. Popped the bonnet, noted smell of acid & a hot battery, so undid the q/r clamp & retired to a safe distance until it cooled down. I changed the battery & it never happened again. In my case, (which probably wasn't typical), I reckon the battery had an internal high-resistance connection.

Battery connections / main earths would be the suspects I'd interview first.

[Bailes1992]

Yeah I think I'l clean up all the earths this weekend. Got abit on 10mm² Tri rated cable here, so I might even make a fresh earth.
If that dosen't cure it then I'l get a new battery.

[Bailes1992]

Just had a look at my battery and the positive terminal was loose and not clipped down