Technical Major electrical gremlins! Seriously struggling!!

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Technical Major electrical gremlins! Seriously struggling!!

FSJay

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Hi folks, not a happy chappy! Spent all day readying my car for the MOT doing various bits of work.. Basically I ran the car for 7ish miles this morning and before I done the work, anyway I re-sealed the flexi pipe as it was blowing, had a twisted coolant pipe so fixed that, had very lose headlight brackets, so took the bumper off and fixed that problem... Came to start the car and it almost seemed to short and die, tries again and it seemed the battery was flat, took the battery out give it a charge for an hour or so refitted and it started perfect, drove for 7ish miles again and it was fine! Sat at a junction and the ASP ASR and another failure - if memory serves me right - showed and cleared within 10 secs, luckily I was right out side my house so I parked up. I came to check it just and it started fine, ran fine for a few hundred meters then the faults again, every time I turn the steering wheel all the lights dim and the faults scream! Drive back to my house and it was fine, parked up faults again & when I closed the Windows they struggle to shut! I'm really struggling with this car as its cost me an absolute fortune but I'm at a loss! Can any body shed any light as to what the issue could be?
Much obliged!
 
I've had the car 2 years and the battery's not been changed by me so Christ knows how old it is but it's always been fine!
 
Treat it to a nice new Battery, they do like a nice powerful battery. Have you got any error codes??
 
This certainly sounds like a power issue. The electric steering is dropping the voltage, causing the other faults. While the car may benefit from a new battery, I think it is much more likely that you have a bad connection. The earth connections are most likely to be at fault. With the other work you have done you may have disturbed a corroded joint. Try a jumper lead or heavy cable (2.5mm mains cable the all 3 wires connected together) connected between the battery negative and the bengine block. If that cures it then check all the cables / straps.
Check voltages too if you have a meter, the alternator may be playing up.

Robert G8RPI.
 
Takes a minimum of a 4-6a charger and about 15 hours to put a full charge in a stilo sized lead acid battery. Charge it overnight.
 
Haven't read the faults codes as I haven't had chance, just got a new battery to drop in, I NEED to get the car back to my garage again to check anything else, I had company for the rugby last night and all their cars are at the garage so their all stranded without me!!!
 
have you checked alternator ? i had similar problem ,just driving around and from suden everything starts to shut off asr abs ,power steering, after few minutes everything fine again , this hapened few more times in week, once i couldnt start it at all , found flat battery , charget it fully , and seemed ok , drived for like 20minutes , alternator fail message come up, flat batery again , i had to drive to mechanik , so charged it fully again , message disapeared, drived to mechanik , they checked and sayed my alternator dead , also they said it dies slowly (voltage it produce deacrease over time till its not enouth to charge) when it close to dead it produce very lilte voltage to charge battery and if you go with music conditioner and ect on it can drain batery, but another day you will not use so much electrics and everything will seem fine .

So what i wanted to say : if you have good fully charged battery, alternator can be dead but you wont get error massege on stilo, it will apear only when your battery will be drained .
you can check if your alternator works, with multimer red to +, black to - of battery and ask somene to rew your car, look what multimeter will show, voltage should vary from 12 -15v(check actual numbers, becose i dont remember corectly and just want to give idea)
 
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there are plenty of guides on line or youtube vids im sure but id expect a fully charged battery to be high 12v say 12.6 to 12.8v maybe even straight after charging then settle back to close to 12.6v.
so if testing alternator output id say min 13.5v plus is reqired but a healthy alternator should be putting out around 13.8v to 14.2v when loaded with heaters or blowers etc, going from my car at least.
 
Haven't read the faults codes as I haven't had chance, just got a new battery to drop in, I NEED to get the car back to my garage again to check anything else, I had company for the rugby last night and all their cars are at the garage so their all stranded without me!!!
I wouldn't bother with the fault codes. Most will be red herrings, that is, false faults due to low battery voltage. Fix the battery problem. Reset faults and see what comes back then.
 
Update time.
Car went out on a run on Sunday for 14-15 miles, everything was fine, all ran perfect no issues at all, been sat up since until about 30 minutes ago, went out for a quick drive to grab a takeaway and it was fine until I parked up again, no fault codes or errors but stereo reset, all lights stayed on but wipers slowed down completely. Not sure if it's related but the idle revs are sitting 500 rpm higher then usual! Does this point any closer to any resolve?
Thanks for the help guys don't know what I'd do without you guys!
 
Did you change the battery? Have you checked the earths?
 
Did you change the battery? Have you checked the earths?


Yes mate checked the battery and all was fine until last night. Not got round to doing the alternator check yet. Is there any sort of diagram with all the earth points laying around on the site?
 
Right chaps! I'm struggling! Left for work this morning all fine drove home fine, pushed my luck at home and started tinkering, turns out every time I lock the steering wheel to the left something sucks the power and causes the fault! Will this help with any closer diagnoses, lucky I have tomorrow morning free to recharge the battery and find the fault or else I'm going car hunting!! Such a shame because it's really putting me off stilos and driving in general, maybe time to get a motorbike!!
 
Also I forgot to say once the steering hits full lock that's when the fault occurs and the clears, stupidly assuming that was it tried restarting the car but was dead again
 
Could their be a fault on the steering rack...... Is it electric on yours.

If it was a alternator fault I am sure the steering doesn't work. Been a while since I have been around a stilo. And I am basing all this on the Jtd engine.

Will be worth testing the alternator as well tomorrow.
 
Right chaps! I'm struggling! Left for work this morning all fine drove home fine, pushed my luck at home and started tinkering, turns out every time I lock the steering wheel to the left something sucks the power and causes the fault! Will this help with any closer diagnoses, lucky I have tomorrow morning free to recharge the battery and find the fault or else I'm going car hunting!! Such a shame because it's really putting me off stilos and driving in general, maybe time to get a motorbike!!
Have you checked the voltage when this is happening?
 
Does anybody know the fuse for the alternator... If there is one? Having a drop test done in the morning but the mechanic wanted to know.
Cheers
 
Hi folks, had the mechanic look over my car and the only conclusion I got was the battery isn't charging and the drop test didn't fluctuate just drop .1v every few seconds. Am I right in assuming the alternator wouldn't die soo quickly as to not charge at all so would this be more of a wiring problem? Thanks guys.
 
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