Dear All, 

 

I've got an electrical problem with the car, I I wondered if anyone had anything similar occur. It is a 56 plate L&K which has done 1.9 TDI 205k miles, so it doesn't owe me anything, but I'm quite fond of it and so keep trying to fix the niggles.

 

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the Motorway, and the dashboard lit up with the red "Oil Pressure" symbol and STOP Oil Pressure Engine Off on the Maxidot, the Engine Check light, and told me to take it into a garage. I drove onto the hard shoulder, called the RAC, who said that they thought it was an oil pump... and then was Relay recovered back to Wales. My mechanic put a pressure gauge on the oil, and said that it checked out fine. He suspected it was the sensor.

 

The sensor was changed, and the car appeared to run fine. About 60 miles down the road, the same thing happened again, but as he'd checked the oil pressure and the engine sounded fine, I kept driving - and it continued to drive fine. I suspected that something electrical might be wrong, but beside lighting the dash up once in a while, the car kept trundling along.

 

I then lost the cabin fan, the Climatronic was working fine, but the fan wasn't - the temperatures would change on the screens, but the fan wouldn't come on. I later noticed that the reversing lights wouldn't work, so searched the forum, and found out that it was one of the 5A mini blade fuses in the drivers side - I think fuse 6. Changed that, and all worked fine.

 

I've had a few faults with the Maxidot telling me that bulbs weren't working, but the filaments seemed fine, sometimes after a wiggle they have worked.

 

Then, I've had the airbag fault light come on, and so I let my friend the mechanic know, and was going to drive back this weekend for him to have a look at this.

 

Then, on the way home, the car again had a paddy on the M6, it started with the Oil Pressure light beeping as before in addition to the airbag light. Then the Glow Plug "coil" symbol started to flash. The Maxidot has displayed faults including "Oil Pressure" "Emissions something or other" and the car shuddered to a halt on the slip road on to the motorway. Also, I noticed that the rev counter had dropped to zero but engine was running. I tried to start it a couple of times, but it sounded "rough" and wouldn't start. Stuck the hazards on and tried to stay out of the way. Traffic officer turned up to move me off the slip, I said it wouldn't start.... he said.... just try... well, the b**ger turned over first time and sounded fine. Drove slowly to the refuge, and then relayed back by the RAC.

 

My mechanic has stuck it on the computer, and said that there are a ton of "fault to earth" error codes coming up, so he suspects the problem is electrical rather than a mechanical fault as so many things have gone all at once.

Thinking about areas where there might be an electrical problem:

- We recently replaced the bootlid, and one of the wires, I think the earth, needed splicing as the lid from the breakers had a wire cut.

- The B- pillar trim on the drivers side kept popping off, so was put back into place - is there anything in the B-pillar that could have been disturbed?

- I'm quite heavy on the drivers seat and the plastic trims on the side with the electrics came away, so we cabled tied back into place. I understand there are electrics under the seat that sometimes fail - but could this explain all of the errors above?

 

Things I have found so far: 

Water Ingress between Car & ECU

 

 

I would welcome any ideas...
Many thanks,
Gavin

 

Sorry to say I'd rather think tha the ECU seems to be all the problems done out from...

From the moment you found water ingress in there it's typical sort if thing...

 

On 13/03/2017 at 07:06, mikeholroyd said:

Agreed, but you can't say for certain without a scan - and an ECU isn't the first thing you want to change on a whim.

 

Mike

This happened to me. I removed the dash and drove with the heater on full but the vents closed to hear the inner dash. Worked. 

The ECU is definitely an option here, as is water ingress into the electronics behind the dash.

 

This does sound rather extreme for a battery problem but the Octy's electronics do have a reputation for acting up when the battery starts to lose its magic at the end of its life. Do you know when the battery was last replaced? Your car is now 12 and I've seen 7 years mentioned in these forums as the point where the battery usually collects its bus pass. With the car's age and it being a diesel, it could conceivably be time for its second battery change.

3 minutes ago, Papfox said:

The ECU is definitely an option here, as is water ingress into the electronics behind the dash.

 

This does sound rather extreme for a battery problem but the Octy's electronics do have a reputation for acting up when the battery starts to lose its magic at the end of its life. Do you know when the battery was last replaced? Your car is now 12 and I've seen 7 years mentioned in these forums as the point where the battery usually collects its bus pass. With the car's age and it being a diesel, it could conceivably be time for its second battery change.

I ended up replacing the battery after as it was the original. All measures came back stating it's health was good but as I was doing car work I thought now was a good time. 

 

Thanks for your help. If it comes back up I'll re light my thread just to update people that it was a temp fix. 

 

Find these threads annoying that no one states the fix. 

 

Could be a loose connection too because I did unplug and wiggle test but because there was some damp there I attributed the issue to that.