Atomician

Atomician

Well-Known Member
Hello all,

I was attacked by the three amigos in the way home from work today...

I know there's a lot of posts on this so I'll keep this simple to start with. I wanted to start a post regardless so that if I run into deeper issues, all the info will be on one thread.

So firstly, I'm sure I've seen somewhere, that someone posted a list of common causes of the 3 amigos. I've been looking through search results but there are many pages of them! Can anyone help me find the thread about common causes / things to try or post a link to any other threads they've found helpful in the past?
 
Firming up the electrical connectors under the front seats fixed it for me, but there are quite a lot of posts related to the horn ring in the steering wheel failing.
 
landyzone.co.uk

Rave disk maintenance manual

I'm putting this ere so I can link to it. If you can see adverts on this page selling car repair manuals, DONT click on them. They're sneaky adverts from google which detect words used in this fred, on the chance you will be attracted to click on said advert. The adverts are trying to get you...
landyzone.co.uk landyzone.co.uk

;)
 
Thank you all for the help, much appreciated. So to keep the thread updated on latest developments, last night on the way home from work I had the 3 amigos and the low battery light:
20241202_171427~2.jpg

Also the headlights went quite dim at the time. The brake light is on cos I was stopped

So later last evening I went out to test it all and found that the battery died so I jump started it. And then the warning lights were gone and all was back to normal. Went for a quick drive round the block, no issues.

This morning however, on the way into work, the 3 amigos lit up again, and the headlights were dim. After 5 minutes suddenly it got worse and the headlights started going dimmer, and the brake parking light started flashing randomly at me. I turned off all the cab electrics that I could - stereo, fans, etc but it kept getting worse. Wipers and windows were moving at a snails pace.


Then I found it hard to rev too and was driving more slowly. The lights went out completely and I was down to about 5mph crawling along, managed to get to a fuel station to stop safely and now going to have a look under the bonnet see if I can see anything!
 
Last edited:
Interesting, I left the engine running because I wasn't sure if it could start again and now it's died at its own accord. I have half a tank of fuel and pressing the accelerator didn't do anything.

Battery dead, tries to turn over but not enough juice to do it.

Sorry about the posts, I'm just trying to keep the thread updated with everything so I can look back on it!
 
Yeh, the battery light does not mean the battery is low. It could have a 100% SOC and a healthy battery.

It means it is not charging - the drain is greater than the charge.

So yeh, the alternator is the first thing to check.

However, for it to so suddenly have problems after the light came on, I'd also be checking battery terminals and main earthing.
 
Thanks all, I'm going to try and get my head around it properly and see what I can find out. Really appreciate the replies. 👍
 
Hi, your problem is with the charging most commonly alternator failure, measure voltag eon the baattery wat idle, it must be around 14V.... the 3 amigos can be triggered by low voltage but the best would be to read the ABS related fault code rather than guessing... that "battery warning" has actually nothing to do with the battery itself only with the charging
1733464092144.png
 
Update: found out that the ruddy alternator has broken so ordered a new one and hopefully that'll fix it.
 
I fitted a Sealey BT battery monitor on my F2 last weekend…
Let’s you see the SOC, and also that the alternator is pushing out what it should be.
Has other cool things like cranking and charging voltage data.

Well worth the £20.
 
Freddie17 said:
I fitted a Sealey BT battery monitor on my F2 last weekend…
Let’s you see the SOC, and also that the alternator is pushing out what it should be.
Has other cool things like cranking and charging voltage data.

Well worth the £20.
Click to expand...
In the good old days when cars were cars, dashboards had volt meters and ammeters, Nice dials embedded on nice wooden panels to compliment the nice switchgear.

These days you get a swathe of plastic and a 14" monitor that's primary purpose is so you can make a phone call.
 
So it's been up and running since replacing the alternator but ever since it's been worse at starting. Always been a bit of a bugger to start and suspect the injectors. But since this incident it's been significantly worse, I have to turn it over for longer or sometimes it takes a couple of goes.

Also when idling, there's increased vibration / juddering which disappears when I accelerate a bit.

I'm thinking my next steps are to clean the carb out and get the cam belt replaced...
 
It's a K series 1.8 right?
Perhaps give the IVAC thingymajig a good squirt with carb'y cleaner? They can become dirty / clogged which upsets idle...

Have a look at this thread here
 
Duh!! I need to stop posting late on Friday after a couple drinks, can't believe I said that!! Apologies for my ignorant post, it's a diesel so obviously it doesn't have a carb 🤣🤦🤦

It's a 2.0 TD4 ES pre facelift model.
 
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