C

Con Rod

Member
I bought a new battery for our FL1, Td4, 2005, and drove it into town. It went perfectly. However, because the battery was new I gave it a charge, while the battery was connected to the car. The next thing I knew was the car speedocluster went ballistic the next time I turned the ignition on. The charger had been disconnected beforehand.
Eng temp at hot with fans running, all the warning lights lit! Everything going berserk.
And, the engine wouldn't kick into life. The starter works but no ignition.
WTF! Has anyone else experienced the same? Geez. Just because I charged the battery? All the connections were correct too.
 
Sometimes chargers can output an amount of AC voltage, which can corrupt the electronic modules. It's generally best to disconnect the battery from the vehicle when being charged, unless it's a battery maintainer which is specifically designed to be connected with vehicle live.
What sort of charger was it?
Have you tried disconnecting the battery?
 
I've tried everything. Disconnection several times, charged the battery again - when disconnected. The battery charger has been used in the past on this vehicle plus others. I'm handing it to a garage so they can check it & hopefully repair it.
There 2 Amber warnings now. Both little gearbox icons. They persist.
 
Con Rod said:
I've tried everything. Disconnection several times, charged the battery again - when disconnected. The battery charger has been used in the past on this vehicle plus others. I'm handing it to a garage so they can check it & hopefully repair it.
There 2 Amber warnings now. Both little gearbox icons. They persist.
Click to expand...
Please get back when you discover what the fault is. I have used my charger umpteen times on many different cars and vans without ever disconnecting the battery so am surprised this was an issue. I wasn't aware they might send out ac but I guess that would be to try and recover a dead battery.
 
Alibro said:
Please get back when you discover what the fault is. I have used my charger umpteen times on many different cars and vans without ever disconnecting the battery so am surprised this was an issue. I wasn't aware they might send out ac but I guess that would be to try and recover a dead battery.
Click to expand...
Yeah, will do. As for the ac in the output, it's actually called, ripple. My charger has none. Smoothing capacitors usually take care of that.
 
Trying to think what 2 gearbox icons are alight?? Don't know of any.

Ripple is required for healthy lead acid charge and condition but is not required by the electronics in the vehicle.
 
andyfreelandy said:
Perhaps you could show the 2 x gearbox icons informer to assist??
Click to expand...
I can't as it's now been trailered to a garage. However, it's the 2 amber icons that resemble engines, not gearboxes as I thought.
The left icon represents an emission problem. The other, which has an Exclamation-mark on it, is for an Engine Management System fault, according to my vehicle's owner's manual. Phew!
 
Con Rod said:
Yeah, will do. As for the ac in the output, it's actually called, ripple. My charger has none. Smoothing capacitors usually take care of that.
Click to expand...
That's correct. AC ripple will always be present on a mains powered, DC supply. It's how much ripple is there which is important. I've tried quite a few chargers over the years, by far the worst are simple rectified transformer based chargers, which often don't have capacitors and so have several Volts of ripple.
If yours has output caps, then the AC ripple should be in the mV range, which won't hurt the vehicle.

Can you post a picture of the warning lights you have lit.
 
Eek. I’ve plugged my charger onto the FL (and other much newer cars) a few times whilst on the vehicle.
Thankfully no issues (that I’m aware of). It’s a decent newish charger that can charge/test/maintain and all sorts of other snake-oil settings, so hoping it has the necessary gizmos to not cause damage, but I think I’ll be disconnecting it next time!
 
WhatsApp Image 2024-02-29 at 20.44.45.jpeg
 
Hi everyone, and thanks for the replies & info.
The garage that is dealing with the problem sent my injectors for testing. 2 injectors proved open-circuit on their coils & the others failed on other accounts.
All 4 injectors are being replaced.
But here is the quandary. All 4 injectors were replaced with NEW (not refurbished) Bosch units 3.5 years ago with not many Klicks/Miles covered. Geez!
I'll let you know how it goes ... or not. 😔
 
Con Rod said:
Hi everyone, and thanks for the replies & info.
The garage that is dealing with the problem sent my injectors for testing. 2 injectors proved open-circuit on their coils & the others failed on other accounts.
All 4 injectors are being replaced.
But here is the quandary. All 4 injectors were replaced with NEW (not refurbished) Bosch units 3.5 years ago with not many Klicks/Miles covered. Geez!
I'll let you know how it goes ... or not. 😔
Click to expand...
It's interesting that the coils had failed, considering the injectors don't have coils. These injectors use a stack piezoelectric elements to fire the valves. As piezoelectric elements don't have a DC resistance, testing them is tricky.
 
Are you sure about that answer? Piezoelectric elements work with physical pressure, such as lighters for cigarettes.
 
Also, I have other old injectors and they have coils, including one with a coil that had punctured and burned out.
 
Out of curiosity I just measured the spare for a TD4 that I have in the garage. 0.5ohms both ways across the terminals.
 
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