General Squeaky bum time...

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General Squeaky bum time...

larkim

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Frodsham, Cheshire
Setting off in five hours to drive to the Alps for a family skiing holiday.

Wife gets in the multipla to pick up some food and the "alternator faulty" message pops up!!!!!

She's now driven it to Tesco, fault disappeared on re-starting, and when she gets back I'll check the voltage as best as I can.

So the question is - do I try the cheap option of replacing the battery before we go, and hope that it was that that was causing the fault message.

Or drive off anyway and rely on RAC cover to get us to our holiday?

Aaargh!!!!
 
Setting off in five hours to drive to the Alps for a family skiing holiday.

Wife gets in the multipla to pick up some food and the "alternator faulty" message pops up!!!!!

She's now driven it to Tesco, fault disappeared on re-starting, and when she gets back I'll check the voltage as best as I can.

So the question is - do I try the cheap option of replacing the battery before we go, and hope that it was that that was causing the fault message.

Or drive off anyway and rely on RAC cover to get us to our holiday?

Aaargh!!!!

The run will do it good.
Take a few basic tools and jumpleads/ towrope

Could be the alternator..batter..poor connection..etc

No point throwing parts at it..

Have a great time :)

Charlie
 
Just a thought. Check the battery earth cable, the whole length from battery to wherever it earths too. Could just be a a bad earth. Used to get siilar on my Strada donkeys years ago.

Panda.(y)
 
Ask her if she stalled it.
That message comes up on mine if I'm a bit "club footed" in the mornings. It disappears as soon as I turn the ignition off and on again to re-start it.
 
Take a battery charger and a length of stout cable with you. If it's the battery, you can keep it on life support with the charger. If it's an earth lead packing in, you can make up a supplementary cable to bolt between battery -ve and the engine block.
 
Ah, thanks for all of the helpful responses. As it turned out the error message did not re-appear (though after she first got the message I came out onto the drive, started it up myself and saw the message, so it wasn't just a stall message). After her trip to Tesco and back it disappeared, and we had no issues over the trip, despite the car being left for a week in a covered but very cold (-12 at night) car park. Local diesel to prevent waxing and giving the glow plugs a few cycles before starting it up seemed wise precautions, and fortunately it didn't cause us any grief at all.

The ECU warning light from our turbo woes unfortunately kicked back in after doing about 1600 miles (I got a bit too heavy and exceeded 3000 rpm once too many times) so was left limping up hills on the motorway. Though this usually clears in a few days to restore full power (but not full revs). Can't afford to have this fixed at the mo though.

So another 2000 miles added to the clock. But couldn't do this holiday without the trusty Multi!
 
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