Blown aircon fuse & crap starting

scrapheap · Post by **scrapheap** » Mon May 21, 2007 4:56 pm

My 2.1td LX is beginning to suffer from a few electrical gremlins.

Recently, fuse 21 ( aircon ) has been blowing quite frequently, even when replaced with a higher rating. It doesn't blow straight away, it can be anywhere between a few minutes and a few hours of putting the aircon on. At least one rad fan works - I've heard it but not visually checked for both.

Also, the car is becoming harder to start on occasions. For example, this morningI turned the key ( last used Saturday with no probs ), and it appeared to be suffering from a duff battery because I thought I was going to have to roll it after one attempt on the starter. Luckily it fired.

I drove 2 miles to the petrol station, and it started from here first time, bang on, as if there had never been a problem.

Could the two be related somehow - loose connection somewhere, earthing point perhaps ?

Oh, and if it helps, the offside sidelight was blown when I got the car. Replaced the bulb for the MOT, a few days later it went again, I haven't bothered to replace it ( 6 months ago - the other stuff is recent ).

jameslxdt · Post by **jameslxdt** » Mon May 21, 2007 9:20 pm

glow plugs are the cause of your starting problem

scrapheap · Post by **scrapheap** » Mon May 21, 2007 9:43 pm

Hi James,

That was a thought that had gone through my mind, but the problem is not consistent - for example, tomorrow morning - same temperature etc.. the car will fire first time without any hint of a problem.

Some evenings, after a warm day at work, and a trip out at lunch, it will have difficulty starting in the evening.

Today, arrived at work 8:30am, left at 6pm ( not used between ), and it fired on the button.

I realise the glowplug duration will be controlled ( presumably ) by the ecu relating to the temp sensors, hence the reason for pointing out the same environments experienced above.

Mat.