A new car because the engine on my previous 20 year old was starting to knock.
Got myself an extremely low mileage 16 plate Ford Fiesta. It’s got all the things on I wanted and I could sell it for a grand more than I paid but, I’m not doing that.
I managed to leave the lights on overnight despite the lights on warning buzzer which I thought was just another bing or bong or ding ding ding noise. So I get my jump start thing out which is the size of a pack of 20 Bensons and proceed to start her up just like I have done for the last 40 years or so with lord knows how many other different cars. Bingo, success she’s purring away. So off I go and and waddya know, the dashboard is lit up like an airliner going down. Check engine light, some other light and the automatic gearbox won’t change out of second. I give in and call the AA (which is part of the service deal with Ford). He shows up sticks in his diagnostic thing, resets it all and everything is fine.
There just HAS to be an easier way to jump start a modern day car?!
If any of you mechanic type chappies here could enlighten me as to how to do this, I’d be very greatful. I’m considering buying a diagnostic plug-in thingy myself and resetting things that way if it happens again. Is this a wise decision?
In the days of my old Cortina, I just connected up, fired her up and went to work. Mutter mutter grumble.
At least you can still jump a truck from the Anderson connector
Had to give a poor sole in his 13plt Volvo Artic a jump in Tibshelf this morning , with my 18plt TGX
Funny thing was his boss said yer if it’s left unused for a few days batteries go flat
Balls batteries have had it
are you sure your car dont have remote tags to use instead of clipping direct onto the battery?
its best to leave the booster connected up for a wee while to let it put something into a totally flat battery so the crappy ecu dont crap itself with the surge.
otherwise,try making sure you put earth to earth first,then connect the positive…apart from that,its modern reliable technical chineese spec crap for every car nowadays.
theres been no reason to improve a 1.9 tdi vw pre 2000 or smiley transit other than to screw money and keep lunatics like grotty thunderbags from shewing on their gumshields.
dieseldog999:
are you sure your car dont have remote tags to use instead of clipping direct onto the battery?
its best to leave the booster connected up for a wee while to let it put something into a totally flat battery so the crappy ecu dont crap itself with the surge.
I put the red…
Lead to the red terminal and the black lead to the bodywork. I had no problems cranking it, just all the lights came up and wouldn’t go out on the dashboard. In future, I’ll connect and leave it for 10 minutes before cranking which should stop the surge and keep all those computers happy.
I know what you mean about the tags, my V12 BMW had tags. Mainly cos the battery was buried so far in the bowels of the car I never once saw it in the six years I had it.
dieseldog999:
are you sure your car dont have remote tags to use instead of clipping direct onto the battery?
its best to leave the booster connected up for a wee while to let it put something into a totally flat battery so the crappy ecu dont crap itself with the surge.
I put the red…
Lead to the red terminal and the black lead to the bodywork. I had no problems cranking it, just all the lights came up and wouldn’t go out on the dashboard. In future, I’ll connect and leave it for 10 minutes before cranking which should stop the surge and keep all those computers happy.
I know what you mean about the tags, my V12 BMW had tags. Mainly cos the battery was buried so far in the bowels of the car I never once saw it in the six years I had it.
Also when you do go to start make sure lights and fan are on full that will help
Its not the jump starting that put all the warning lights on, it was trying to start it with a flat battery.
When you start a car normally, a live signal is sent to all of the sensors in sead vehicle. The signal is then sent back to the ecu. If the voltage is lower than expected, the ecu thinks there is a problem.
So trying to start a car with a flat battery tells the ecu that there are many faults, ala Christmas tree dashboard.
Charge the battery, clear the faults and problem solved.
Rich T:
Its not the jump starting that put all the warning lights on, it was trying to start it with a flat battery.
When you start a car normally, a live signal is sent to all of the sensors in sead vehicle. The signal is then sent back to the ecu. If the voltage is lower than expected, the ecu thinks there is a problem.
So trying to start a car with a flat battery tells the ecu that there are many faults, ala Christmas tree dashboard.
Charge the battery, clear the faults and problem solved.
Rich
Thank you…
Very informative. I’ll get myself a read-out reset gizmo and if I’m dumb enough to leave the lights on again (highly likely), I can clear the faults and motor off into the sunset like they do on the TV adverts.
