Our Disasterous Start to The Season (1 Viewer)

[mickyb]

Hi to all,

We taxed the van for the 1st May & had a weekend away on the 7th in Hastings where we had the habitational service done, which all went well. we returned home without any problems,the following weekend my Parents set off for a long awaited week in Longleat (we share the van & all costs!!), they set of from Essex all excited, about an hour & a half later i recieve a text that just as they joined the M3 a red air bag warning light came on the dash, they continued to fleet where they stopped for lunch. Then a phone call that the engine battery was flat, they called mayday who were brilliant they managed to get the van started but the bad news there was no charge from the alternator we then had the desision do they get recovered to the site or home, as they both have health problems & didnt need extra worry they chose to be recovered home. On their return i found the ignition w/l not working so i purchased & fitted a new alternator & of course a battery as i discovered the wrong size had been fitted all this at a cost of £260 but to my horror I still have no ignition/batt warning light & no charge.I flashed a live feed from the battery to the D terminal on the alternator which instantly sprang into life & hey presto 14.2v so this confirms that i dont have a duff unit,but for some reason i have lost the live 12V feed from the ignition, I spent the whole day checking fuses & wiring to no avail, We were booked to go away next week but this is looking increasingly unlikely. Damm Fiat's It has always been the electrics that lets them down.

 

[metalmickey]

Has the batt warning light bulb blown? if it has the alt wont charge

 

[haganap]

Mickyb, I would not want to sound flipant as it certainly looks like you know what your doing but in cases like this I always think its an auto electrician time.
You need the fault found and rectified, in my experience you think you find something, it springs in to life, and then later in the day lets you down again. oh:
A good auto electrician will find it, fix it and keep it fixed. its usually labour intensive and you have already replace the two most expensive likely causes, (unless its an ecu fault ouch)

Good luck.

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[mickyb]

Re: Diasterous start to The Season

Thank You guy's for your replies & idea's.

I did remove the instrument cluster & removed the back cover but it became evident that there were no bulbs but a printed circuit with LED's.
I have a fair idea what I'm doing but with modern electrics one must tread carefully with the test wire, as you know one false move can see a ECU go up in a puff of smoke! what happened to the days when a diesel engine had a stop cable!! the idea of a good auto electrician in my desperation was a move I made last Saturday finding a promising advert in the yellow pages. Unfortunalty I didn't find a good one, My suspisions started when he turned up on his horse!!!! like John Wayne a complete cowboy. He started by fumbling about under the bonnet & then said it was, low & behold the bulb in the dash I told him that I had checked that but found LED's he didn't listen & the next thing my instrument cluster was in a thousand pieces, where he remarked Oh no bulbs,he then said plan B what I asked was plan B, he wanted to wire up a bulb under the bonnet to substitute the one in the dash, this is where I stopped him, told him he had better box everything up & (politely) leave. Any how I have now taken the van to a local garage (one where I know has a good reputation) a valuble lesson learned, they are going to do some diagnostics and let me know what they find. I will keep you posted.

 

[mickyb]

Outcome of Charging fault

Just thought i would let you know the reason why i had no Ignition warning light hence no charging even after I had fitted a new alternator & battery at a cost of £260 as a result of the breakdown on the M3, this unfortunatly didn't cure the fault, so after much scratching & with a week's holiday booked & no time to get involved due to work I had to take drastic action & booked our swift into a garage for them to try and find the reason for the fault. this was last Friday we were leaving for Norfolk Saturday for the half term so this looked doubtful, then at 2 O clock Friday a phone call from the garage to say they had found & fixed the fault which turned out to be a broken Ignition feed wire to the alternator in the engine wiring loom where the wire exits the black injector loom trunking & goes up inside covoluted sheathing to the central engine fuse box ( where the split charge relays are housed) It was the flexing of the engine that probably caused this break but it sure had the guys at the garage baffled for 4 hours beleive me the cost was nothing to having a very unhappy family missing a holiday so fortunatly we were able to have a great week in Norfolk.

 

[chesterfield hooligan]

I am pleased you got that sorted in the end, I was going to say that some vehicles have a fuseable link from the alternater

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[Autoquest]

Good Effort