The indicator on SWMBO's i20 has started playing-up. Indicating right is OK but the flasher sometimes ticks at double speed when indicating left
- it's been intermittent for a week or so (never when I'm around) but now seems to have gone hard. I'd expected to walk around the car and smugly point-out a dead bulb, but none of the bulbs are working. I'll check the wiring, earths and bulbs tomorrow but without a wiring diagram what else can I check?
Rock the car to see if you can see rainwater sloshing around inside the light-cluster? Nowhere near as common as it used to be ...
Presumably it is CAN bus. With them all out it could be anywhere. Time to check the codes? I guess it is worth starting with the fuse.
You might expect a "dead bulb" warning on the dash? Got an OBD-II checker?
None of the bulbs??
Assuming you mean they were all working, I?d still suspect a failing bulb. Sometimes a broken filament can go through an intermittent phase before full failure. Sod?s law means that when you did your walk around, it was behaving innocently. ;-)
Tim
Light (!) dawns. I'd checked fuses, re-seated relays, etcetera but then decided to try the indicator switch myself - magically the left indicators started to work. After more experimentation it seems the switch lever can be moved slightly too far and the left indicators then stop working and the ticker goes at double rate, jiggle the lever and they start working again. Probably it's time for a new indicator switch but I'll investigate first. Now to find out how much plastic needs to come out before I can get to the switch.
errr, none of the bulbs were working means none of the bulbs were working. Reminds me of a daft joke from childhood (possibly Dave Allen) about people testing the lights on a car ... sides? "yes"; brakes? "yes"; indicators? "yes" err "no" err "yes" err ... not funny really :-(
Um, so you have no working headlights, tail lights, brakes lights , indicator etc? I think you?ll find that?s an MoT failure. ;-)
Anyhow, glad you?ve found the fault even if we can?t understand each other.
Tim
Sometimes it's just the lower cowling under the wheel (1 / 2 screws?) then the top cowling (possibly another 3 screws?) and then hope the loom plugs directly into the switch (quite likely), or then you might have to get more plastic off.
I have to do that soon [1] and then get the dash out as the odometer / trip backlight has gone. ;-(
Cheers, T i m
[1] But have done it before with this car as we had to take the dash, ECU, BCM, ignition switch and key to get the ECU repaired and to save having to have it re-coded.Sounds like an intermittent connection to me, but as you say finding it... In them old days you could hear the relay or actuator and see the wiring from there. Brian
If they really have gone out altogether, then a fuse has gone and one bulb eventually failed and shorted out one supposes. I'm surprised, I thought most cars used leds these days. Brian
Now a synthetic relay sound comes through the speakers ... mine also feeds engine sounds from under the bonnet to the speakers too, I turned that off with VCDS.
snipped-for-privacy@aolbin.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:
Had to fix the switch on wife's Aygo. Grease on the contacts has become oxydised. Had to remove airbag and steeting wheel to fix it -= but great video on YouTube.
Almost a fair point, but the context was indicator lights.
Peace in our time ;-)
From a bit of web pokery it seems that the steering wheel has to come off. Up until about 25 years ago I did most jobs on cars, rebuilt engines (Spitfire, MGB, Saab900, Stag), built a couple of kit cars, etcetera but then cars changed and my attitudes changed - the days of lying in the street with spanners and torch on a Sunday night are long gone. In this case, I've not had the need to fiddle with air bag systems so I think this job might be going to a garage.
I didn't assume that to be the case as once past the old cars where the steering wheel was just held on with one nut and the horn wire, air-bags and on0wheel-buttons make wheel removal more complicated and so they tend to make things like the control stalks semi-circular, held on with a couple of screws and relatively easy to remove. I think I changed the wiper switch module on daughters Transit connect and I think you just released the top cowling and the switch unplugged as a module. ;-)
Understood (which kitcars did you have OOI?).
Understood ... I think when I had to take all the carpets out of daughters Corsa to dry it out (after fixing the leak) I had to disconnect the auto-belt tensioners but was told it was safe to do so once the battery was disconnected. I think there was some sort of shock sensor on the 'transmission tunnel' that I had to be careful with and you would have to know things like radio codes and that some other things didn't happen if you fully disconnected the battery. But I wouldn't rate doing it (with the exception of how easy it is to get the steering wheel off if necessary) at the same level of 'car stuff' at the same level as the mechanical things you have done previously. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
I'd expected that to be the case, but a couple of things indicate otherwise - I'll investigate before walking away from the job. ... snipped
A Spartan (based on Spitfire parts) and an NG TD (based on MGB parts)
... snipped
As is the d-i-y way. ;-)
I know it.
And that.
Hindsight of course suggests that, with ample storage space I should have kept the Mk1 Escort 2 door GT bodyshell I cut up and scrapped, when we were building the Ranger, seeing the price some of these classic cars go for these days. ;-(
It was that sort of though that confused me with the idea of using the likes of Spitfires and MGB's as the basis for kits, even then (way more than the 'everyday' Escort etc).
Cheers, T i m
Even more so with the RWD Escort 2 door. Very popular for classic racing and rallying.
Silly boy, I still have my MK1 Escort its only a standard 2 door 1100 one previous owner and 15K miles on it when I bought it in these days when everything is so complicated on cars i still love the simplicity of its engineering and the ease of working on it is so relaxing
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