Felicia electrical failure

[tfmuller]

This is my first posting on the site, so 'Hi All :)'

I have owned my X-reg Felicia 1.9D estate since 2005. It has had it's fair share of problems over this period but I have always been able to diagnose the faults quickly either from past experience or by consulting the Haynes Manual. I am however stumped by the latest and very fatal failure. Yesterday morning I noticed that the low beams were not working. High beam and side lights were fine. I first though the switch was to blame but after consulting various internet forums last night, I concluded that the bulbs simply both blew simultaneously. I checked the bulbs and concluded that the low beam coils were both damaged. I thus went to bed without a worry, assuming I'll simply buy some bulbs and that will be the end of the problem. This morning the car started fine, and I rode to the end of the drive before realising that I forgot something in the house. I thus backed up and parked again. When I returned and tried to start again the electrics were completely silly. The lights on the dash were either dead or very dim or flickering. Every now and then the clock would reset to zero, and the radio would turn itself on. No amount of turning the ignition would get any life out of the ignition. After a few tries I gave up and locked up the car. I have checked all the fuses and checked the battery which all seems fine.

Has anyone experienced a similar problem or have any suggestions? From what I read so far it seems it might be wiring gone bad somewhere or a relay which has died.

Thanks

Tom

[harryhill]

I suspect that the voltage regulator on the alternator may be at fault here.

What do others think?

The only other thing i can think of is some earthing fault

[pinkskud]

ooo not good. sounds like there is a big old short somewhere, i'm not really an expert when it comes to electrics.

but welcome to the forum anyway.

there is a felicia forum on the net somewhere, but i cant remember were???

l

l

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v

[Felicia racer]

being a motorcycle mechanic,

i'd say either a relay or

bad earth or connection

or even water causing the system to short out

(I had water fill the fusebox up and cause the electrics to go all funny.)

go to a scrapyard and steal a relay, woops sorry did i say steal i mean buy!

see what happens then.

oh and just a check listen to the relay's as you turn the lights on you will hear it click!

then you know which is which, if it dosnt click its ur relay.

[tfmuller]

I feel a bit stupid, but at least my car is running again. Seems it was the battery after all. I have never seen a battery die without any warning signals like this before. On the Thursday when I checked the voltage it was still on 12.6 but on Friday it was right down to 10.6. I wanted to believe the worst and called in the proffesionals to give the electrics a check over (being stingy and not wanting to fork out for a new battery on a dead car...). They however simply replaced the battery and everything was fine. Even though it grieved me to pay them a labour charge for something so mundane, the battery which they fitted looks like a decent quality. I replaced the lightbulbs and took it for a long run yesterday without any problems.

My conclusion: always try the simplest solution first.

Thanks for all the input.

[bobob]

Hope for your sake it was just the battery

though it still doesn't sound like it was to me

some very odd symptoms that could easily fit the other forum members diagnostics

hope it doesn't come back to haunt you

[daverapid]

You're not stupid at all.

Batteries used to fail gradually, ie the starter would get slower each time you tried to start the engine, but modern batteries seem to just "switch off" when their time is up.