I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on the following:
Putting any kind of bulb in the interior light causes the fitting to flash, without blowing the bulb, and when the engine is next started it dies immediately, only to start at the second attempt and to idle strangely.
Then, many warning lights come on, the aircon switches itself on, the seat heater goes fully hot, central locking and radio fail, heater thermostat carks itself, roof doesn’t work, boot light doesn’t come on, and a few more Interesting Things.
This breaks my record for the number of things I can break in one single small action .
Last time, disconnecting the battery for a while sorted most of it. This time that didn’t work.
Any thoughts greatly appreciated on how to stop this happening please.
It seems extreme all that lot to happen and a battery disconnect then sorted it but…
Strange happenings can occur to the electrics if you get water in that small fuse box at the bottom of the passenger A pillar. Water leaks caused by the scuttle grommets breaking down at the base of the windscreen, if those have been sealed then more investigation elsewhere.
Have you checked any water leaks from the scuttle grommets? This can find its way onto the cabin fuse box which just happens to be below the grommet. Other tell tale signs would be damp footwell carpets and rust on the fascia supports.
Thanks for the thoughts. There are no water leaks. The car is always bone dry. However much it has rained overnight there is no condensation inside. The failures have happened instantly when I’ve tried to install standard bayonet interior light bulbs.
I agree with most of the above posts; I would look for signs of water around the fuse box under the glove box, then clean the assembly up completely making sure it is dry along with each fuse and the wiring.
Based on the fact that your car is 2014 car I would be attending to the ‘Grommets’ as a matter of course anyway. My car is and NC 2011 and the rubbers on the Grommets had shrunk, gone hard and split and let water in when it was raining very hard.
The other thing I would be checking would be as many of the ‘Earth’ connections that you can find, remove the fixing screws clean contact points and re-tighten particularly ones near any management units.
In my view faults as you describe will be caused by a common probably single dodgy connection and most likely earth or water ingress.
Based upon disconnecting the battery causing this fault any earth/connection around the battery cabling would be worth looking at as an initial priority I recon.
Sorry, I failed to mention that disconnecting the battery only fixed most of the issues the first time I did it. A second attempt to put in an interior light bulb caused the same faults but this time the battery disconnection didn’t work.
Had anything been done to the car before this started happening? Have you checked the condition/voltage of the battery?
What happens when you start the car without the interior bulb in?
Have a look in the main fuse box under the bonnet. Check the condition of the wires and the ground to body connection.
Power for the interior light flows through the 120A main fuse and 15A room fuse, on to the light unit. There is an earth on the unit, and illumination on opening the door is controlled from the driver side door switch.
Interesting question. It seems to have some hidden meanings.
What do you think the answer is, bearing in mind, that as far as I know, you don’t know me?
You might like to know that after I’d shaken hands with the lucky buyer, I offered to get the annual rustproofing top up done for him free of charge.beforehecomes to collect on Thursday.
no hidden meaning
just noticed that you had sold the car on your other post , but not updated on this thread that the problem was solved .
just an innocent question
It looks like a legitimate question to ask, following your request for assistance in solving a problem for which you now seem to have found a solution. A problem that might in the future affect some of our cars.
Ok. My apologies to bally3 then. Buyer is aiming to collect Thursday. Car is at my mechanics’ today to put on a new ancillaries belt and to clean any earths they can find under the car, as I’m guessing my auto elec won’t have a ramp. They’re then topping up the rustproofing. Car goes to auto elec at 1pm tomorrow for the electrical stuff to be checked and/or sorted.
I will report back on the solution, assuming it is found. I’ve already checked that the elec doesn’t have a dinner date and agreed an overtime rate if needed!
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