Zax
New member
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2014
- Messages
- 8
Hi Folks,
So I've had 2 years of mostly problem free motoring from my little black Puma, right up until Saturday just gone.
Driving to a friends house in vicious rain and wind on Friday evening I thought that the speedo was acting strange. It didn't seem to be responding properly to changes in speed. I worried a little as I'd recently needed to have the speedo drive unit and cable changed when the speedo just packed up over summer, I thought something further might have been broken/an issue. Leaving my friends house later that night I kept an eye on the speedo and it all seemed fine so I figured that it was probably just my imagination.
The car remained parked all day Saturday whilst Plymouth was hammered with high winds and torrential rain. Needing to visit a different friend in the evening I jumped in the car, turned the key, nothing. Well nothing other than the immobiliser light flashing really fast, though I didn't notice this at first. I figured that the transponder in the key had done something weird so went to get the other key. Tried that one, still no joy. So researching led me to reading the fault code from the light. Fault 12 is supposed to be a faulty transceiver coil. So off to eBay Sunday morning, found another one, fitted it. Same problem. I wondered if the ECU might need resetting so left the battery disconnected for an hour. Still no change.
I'm hoping that there might be some bright ideas from the clever people hereabouts before I ring the garage for the likely-to-be-expensive "please come and pick up my totally immobilised car" phone call.
So just to recap. All lights etc come on. Electrics work. Remote locking works. Both keys usually start the car fine. Car was fine the day before, showing no signs of trouble other than the speedo which could have been my imagination or just driving into a gusty headwind.
I'm wondering if the ECU has somehow got wet? I have this feeling that the immobiliser fault code is useless. Seems odd that such a simple piece of tech would just fail from one day to the next with no prior indication of trouble. Also seems unlikely (but not impossible I guess) that the replacement part would also turn out to be faulty.
Any thoughts anyone. Love my Puma, want it to go vroom again.
So I've had 2 years of mostly problem free motoring from my little black Puma, right up until Saturday just gone.
Driving to a friends house in vicious rain and wind on Friday evening I thought that the speedo was acting strange. It didn't seem to be responding properly to changes in speed. I worried a little as I'd recently needed to have the speedo drive unit and cable changed when the speedo just packed up over summer, I thought something further might have been broken/an issue. Leaving my friends house later that night I kept an eye on the speedo and it all seemed fine so I figured that it was probably just my imagination.
The car remained parked all day Saturday whilst Plymouth was hammered with high winds and torrential rain. Needing to visit a different friend in the evening I jumped in the car, turned the key, nothing. Well nothing other than the immobiliser light flashing really fast, though I didn't notice this at first. I figured that the transponder in the key had done something weird so went to get the other key. Tried that one, still no joy. So researching led me to reading the fault code from the light. Fault 12 is supposed to be a faulty transceiver coil. So off to eBay Sunday morning, found another one, fitted it. Same problem. I wondered if the ECU might need resetting so left the battery disconnected for an hour. Still no change.
I'm hoping that there might be some bright ideas from the clever people hereabouts before I ring the garage for the likely-to-be-expensive "please come and pick up my totally immobilised car" phone call.
So just to recap. All lights etc come on. Electrics work. Remote locking works. Both keys usually start the car fine. Car was fine the day before, showing no signs of trouble other than the speedo which could have been my imagination or just driving into a gusty headwind.
I'm wondering if the ECU has somehow got wet? I have this feeling that the immobiliser fault code is useless. Seems odd that such a simple piece of tech would just fail from one day to the next with no prior indication of trouble. Also seems unlikely (but not impossible I guess) that the replacement part would also turn out to be faulty.
Any thoughts anyone. Love my Puma, want it to go vroom again.