Morning all,
I am having a few issues, it started with the door locks the occurance mainly happens during cold weather (recent frosts and snow) upon unlocking and opening the door to climb in the cockpit the locks would bounce. Once you shut the door behind you and are seated the flick of the internal locking switch only locks the immediate door — central locking doesn’t enagage. Then upon leaving the car and locking behind you the alarm sometimes randomly goes off without any external force.
The second issue is those sat navs, which upon inserting into my lighter socket has made it loose and faulty, I have a feeling it has shorted (easy to fix, fuse 7 I am led to believe) however the socket of the cigarette lighter doesn’t want to stay located within the central console, when you pull the lighter out the entire barrel come out, thus shorting another fuse… its as if the barrel is gripping the lighter part too tightly, and pulling the lighter out brings out the barrel. Has anyone had this issue be it with car chargers? mobile chargers? etc.
My final thoughts are following the sat nav debacle having driven for a number of hours etc and arrvial at my destination the locks wouldn’t operate as they should, problem one occured, however it was a nice day sun shining! I have a feeling then that the problem for this would be the battery is losing voltage! would this explain issue one?
If anyone could help, be it posting the name of a garage who could aid me with either problem then that would be great. I am based in Yorkshire, Leeds, UK.
Have a wonderful Christmas
Mat
Can’t help with the central locking but my Cigar lighter does exactly the same with the barrel coming out every time I remove the sat nav plug. I have scratched my head on this as the barrel seems to rely purely on friction. I have removed the complete assembly and there appears to be no locking features to keep it in place. As a last resort I will try a small drop of superglue on the barrel and quickly press it back into the plastic sleeving. I was hoping someone else would have an explanation or a fix. Thi Miata repair manual simply states that the barrel is slid into the plastic sleeving and that it is a pig to remove (which is rather strange given that I can pull it out by inserting my finger into it). If that doesn’t cure it then I guess the only solution is to source a new one.
Angelo,
I took my baby into the garage yesterday and spare part ahoy, fixed and no problems! — however when they fit the barrel it seems they didn’t check it as soon as I got in the cockpit and used the lighter – pop its in my hands. I asked for the mechanic showed him the barrel in my left paw and asked him to “sort it out!” and low and behold once replaced you twist the inner barrel sleeve by about 90 degrees and there is a tiny lug which locks it. I notice you say you have taken it all out and found nothing. I can assure you there should be a 2x2x2mm piece of plastic on the orange sleeve which will locate and hold the barrel.
The locking after a dry test overnight at a cost of £75 came back negative, so I think its a actuator in the door or the solenoid (dont know if they are spelt correctly) I will look into fixing this and post at a later date!
I will give the garage there due, I took it in to look for the electric faults and in the end they gave me a list as long as my arm on bits that need fixing! - from the front disks and pads to skimming the rear disks and new pads, to a new tire, new wipers and a partridge in a pear tree! - I have opted not to have the brake work done as the MOT done 2 months ago was passed so I presume everything should be ok for the time being and the price for skimming was £120 I may as well save this for new disks in the future £180!
Hope this is helpful, now to bring the new year in with a bang!
Happy New Year everyone
Mat