Electronic Battery Sensors

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

08 jazzzzzz or any jazzz biggest enemy is rust yes rust especially under the rear.
I expect Jock already has that under control(-:
Jack

Yikes! well no actually Jack. I can't say I've noticed any abnormal amounts of rust when servicing it. No rust externally on wheel arches etc, and I spent quite a bit of time under the back sorting out seized calipers last year (even had to renew one - it was too far gone) and saw it up on the ramp at my boy's friend's garage when he kindly sorted out a rear box/centre pipe for it cheaper than I could buy the parts!

Mind you the car is quite low mileage, only around 45,000 miles on the clock. It must have been one of the last produced before the new body design and Vtec engine came in. It's the one with the 8 spark plugs, idsi if I remember right?

So please enlighten me, where should I be looking?
Thanks
Jock

 

[jackwhoo]

Yikes! well no actually Jack. I can't say I've noticed any abnormal amounts of rust when servicing it. No rust externally on wheel arches etc, and I spent quite a bit of time under the back sorting out seized calipers last year (even had to renew one - it was too far gone) and saw it up on the ramp at my boy's friend's garage when he kindly sorted out a rear box/centre pipe for it cheaper than I could buy the parts!

Mind you the car is quite low mileage, only around 45,000 miles on the clock. It must have been one of the last produced before the new body design and Vtec engine came in. It's the one with the 8 spark plugs, idsi if I remember right?

So please enlighten me, where should I be looking?
Thanks
Jock

Hi Jock,

area to look at underneath, rear floor, rear suspension sub frame , especially where sub frame mounts to shell.

They can look fantastic on outside but dreadful underneath.

You will quickly see if preventative spray of grease / whatever you prefer is required.

I have noticed on all makes the manufactures made great progress making the bits everyone sees don't rust visibly but I wonder is sometimes at the expense of the underside, or maybe cars last longer than they used to so I'm see older undersides?

Cheers

Jack

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Hi Jock,

area to look at underneath, rear floor, rear suspension sub frame , especially where sub frame mounts to shell.

Thanks Jack. Now near the top of my "to do" list.

The worst rust I've noticed on it in the past - when it was up on that ramp - is the bracing under the boot tray. It's a bit crusty and some of the paint is flaking but you can't prod holes in it,

 

[Didge3]

Some years ago, my sister-in-law had an early Scenic. There was a time limit between unlocking and starting, exceed it and the immobiliser would reset and prevent starting. Had to lock and unlock again to be able to start.

My Saab had the same feature, although if you tried to start the car too many times when the immobiliser had re-armed after being unlocked for a few minutes it would trigger the alarm, that took me a while to figure out once in a petrol station....
With the Saab the lock/unlock wasn't necessary to disarm it again, you just needed the ignition on and to press the unlock button once and it would disarm.

 

[DaveMcT]

My 52 Reg Renault Laguna had the same red dot. TBH it was pretty obvious what it did because it went out when ign key was recognised. The big snag with Laguna was rear doors not opening wide enough. It was impossible to get a kiddy seat in the back. The Panda has better access to rear seat.

 

[varesecrazy]

I did try the central locking while sat in.. made no difference

Will update over the weekend

 

[AndyRKett]

My Saab had the same feature, although if you tried to start the car too many times when the immobiliser had re-armed after being unlocked for a few minutes it would trigger the alarm, that took me a while to figure out once in a petrol station....
With the Saab the lock/unlock wasn't necessary to disarm it again, you just needed the ignition on and to press the unlock button once and it would disarm.

OMG don't get me started on this. Almost all Rovers including landrover had a system where you had to press the remote to disarm the alarm and immobiliser. If left to long they would reactivate, so when you went to start the car the alarm would go off.

Easy just blip the remote and they reset and you could start the car.....

Except here in norfolk we have/had a large golf ball type radar thing on the north norfolk coast, that if you parked to near to it, it would jam the signal from all rover remotes, including landrovers.

Norfolk is a large and mainly rural comunity so a lot of people had landrover and many had rangerovers.

Basically if you drove your new range rover anywhere near this golfball thing and parked up, you would end up having to push your brand new rangerover about a mile down the road to be able to disarm the immobaliser and start the car. It even made BBC news at the time. I think it caused all sorts of other problems like dash boards going haywire and cars cutting out as they drove past it, This was about mid 2000s not long after rover had gone bust but I worked in the motor trade at the time and it resulted in a massive glut of new rover's being sold off cheap.

 

[DaveMcT]

I really liked the Diesel Montego it was a lot better to use than similar cost Ford Mondeos. But the problem was body rot. The doors and sills all failed on the metal skin edges. I suspect the metal was flash rusted when they assembled the pressings because the sealant was well applied.

 

[AndyRKett]

I really liked the Diesel Montego it was a lot better to use than similar cost Ford Mondeos.

To be honest the Mondeo Came out in late 2003 and they stopped making the Montego in 1994, therefore they only 'just' overlapped. The Mondeo was a far better car in 1993 as it was a brand new model that had just been released, versus the Montego that had been designed in the early to mid 80s and was a standard 3 box design versus the Mondeo which was all 90s smooth and curvy with a hatch back as well as a saloon and estate.

The only Montegos that survived where the diesel estates not because they where good but because they where a work horse and people bought them usually to do the job of lugging stuff about, and that they where quite good.

Not really in the same ball park as the rovers we are talking about above as they didn't have imobalisers, and what stopped them being stolen is thieves didn't want to be seen in a montego.... when they could pinch something with a cosworth badge.

 

[DaveMcT]

It would have been around 1995 when I was using a Mondeo 1.8 for work. I hated it. Yes the Monty was a bit clunky but at motorways speeds its was less noisy and held the road better. The need to properly sound proof against that Prima diesel really paid off.

Saying all that a mate's diesel Monty developed a strange ticking from the clutch end at 2x engine revs. He dropped the sump and found the piston skirt had cracked around the oil control ring. The fragment was flapping. He fitted a new piston but found no sign of galling or pick up on the old one. I wouldn't have bothered.

 

[varesecrazy]

Renault Immob. Continued..

Had a much bigger capacity battery on my 1st grande mj

Charged it right up.. carried it to Clio

Waited for 'red dot' on dash to extinguish.. it didnt.. other selftest kit finished.. tried to crank.. silence

Thats odd.. I will try straight off the batt.. pun intended

It cranked.. and ran in a split second

Let it idle for a few mins.. then 30 seconds of manouvreing all good.

Shut down.. restarted fine
In need of an A1 battery I suspect.. should be cheap at least

 

[DaveMcT]

Old batteries can short out internally. You clip on a fully charged donor but the internal short sucks away the power. The test is to unclip the old battery while the donor is connected.
I had this with a car that went flat when parked on a hill but was fine when parked on level ground.