April 2008
Crash caused by a manufacturing fault?
Yesterday I was involved in an accident on a busy motorway, luckily no one else was involved resulting in damage to just my car. However I am very puzzled as to what to make my next step.
Whilst lighting a cigarette from the lighter port in my car, it caused a short circuit in the display panel, resulting in the cd player, time & temperature display to fail. I noticed that after this happened I saw the ?red key? function on the drivers display panel flash. Usually this would mean (as the car has keyless ignition) that I had attempted to start the car, but the key-fob was not within a close enough distance for the engine to start. But as the car was already in motion & I was in the ?fast-lane? I thought this was very unusual, therefore I thought it would be prudent to pull over in the hard shoulder and check over the car, but on the application of the brakes they locked into position, the steering wheel locked & the engine stalled. Resulting in a collision with the safety barrier between the two carriage-ways.
As I said, my reactions mean that at a busy time of day I avoided hitting anyone else & no one collided into the back of me. Eventually after I managed to pull back onto the busy motorway & had actually managed to pull over & check to see if the car was road-worthy I carried on my journey home, shaken but still in one piece!
Today I tool it to a local Suzuki dealer, and although they haven?t run any tests on the car ? they said that they don?t feel a broken fuse would have caused the accident, indicating towards a driver error. I feel that as the ?red-key? function displayed & the brakes locked, with the steering failing ? surely this can?t all be coincidental?! But due to an error with the cars electrics.
My dilemma is, obviously I need the car to be fixed, but if I let the car go into the garage for repairs & for the electrics to be tested ? does this mean I am admitting liability or just following procedure?
Many thanks,
David.
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Hi,
I was just wondering if anyone could offer some advice?
I have an '04 1.0 litre Yaris which has done about 50K. I am going to have it serviced (+ MOT) in May and then want to drive up to Scotland, which is about a 1000 mile round trip. I was wondering if anyone has any experience or advice on whether my car would be reliable enough to take on this trip? I've done the trip before, but my car had only done about 12K miles, where as now it's done rather a lot more.
Any advice/thoughts would be much appreciated.
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2000 miles, France, Italy and Switzerland and back in my MGf. Only problems were those created by other drivers.
I am planning on driving over to France for the first time and am aware of all the legislation that says you should have a triangle, spare bulbs, beam reflectors (which I hear are a nightmare to remove and a host of other stuff. I know you can buy Euro driving kits but they are expensive.
I would like to know how many people bother to do all this and what are the chances of getting caught (probably a silly question) as I know the fines are swingeing. Lods of people go over there all the time on booze cruises and other outings and surely they don't go through all this rigmarole? Read more
I suppose, as a man who is going to Italy next week and hiring a car, the acid test is what do the car rental company supply ( apart from spare specs for Spain obviously!) I will check and report back, I am renting with Hertz.
When tyre companies fit new tyres they check the pressures while the wheels are off the car. When the wheels are fitted to the car do the pressures alter due to the weight of the car ,engine etc? Read more
Curious really. After having four new tyres fitted i wondered why the front two were so far out but the rears were good. Had a feeling that the engine weight might make a difference.
Hi,
The haed gasket has gone on the wifes 96 1.6 8v automatic megane.
Have got everything ready to remove head, and cannot find any timing marks on the engine at all. can anyone help. Read more
thanks guys job sorted. head off just waiting for head bolts delivering
....in the film HOW TO STEAL A MILLION. The film is 1966, and Peter O'Toole drives a yellow E-Type. Audrey Hepburn has a tiny 2-seat cabriolet in red. It's really tiny, and I thought it might be something by Vignale on a Fiat 600 (it's definitely not a Gamine). It might be something by Glas (Goggomobil) but I've searched my Observers Books and my Sedgewick & Gillies and I can't find the beast. Does anyone here know what it is or have an idea how I might find out? Read more
There's a piece on the Autobianchi and a mention of the film in the most recent copy of (I think) Classic and Sportscar to reach rural France.
My Focus was smoking and rattling real bad so I took it to a local garage.
Diagnosis was big ends or main bearings (can't remember which) anyway I agreed price to have bearings replaced and crankshaft reground.
As I have only had the car for 3 months and am still paying for it to keep costs down I told them to work on it when they had no other work on.
Now 6 weeks later the engine has been rebuilt but I am now being told the engine will not start and the mechanic thinks it is because the battery has been off for so long the ecu has lost its settings. He towed it to the local ford dealer who put it on the computer but they have diagnosed internal fuel pump error.
I fail to see why the fuel pump will now be faulty since the rebuild as it had nothing to do with the rebuild and the car ran ok apart from the crankshaft fault.
Any ideas please ? I can't afford to pay any more than the agreed rebulid price and will be forced to scrap a car that I still owe £2000 on if it is not an easy fix.
THANKS
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Thanks I will look into it.
Feeling a bit under the weather today - been watching the Professionals on ITV4 - I want one ! Read more
>> - Wouldn't that use too much petrol? You do a very high mileage.
>> - Yeah a bit....
Or just tell her that an LPG conversion would pay for itself very quickly and then you would have petrol reliability with better than diesel running costs. :-)
My V6 Mondy is on Ebay right now and if I don't get what I want for her (which I doubt I will) then I'm going to convert her and keep her for a couple of years.
I have an Astra 1.7 diesel. It was overheating so the head gasket was replaced and because of x contamination of oil and water the oil cooler was replaced. As good practice the cam kit was also replaced. Two weeks later the oil light came on. A vauxhall dealer said that the oil pump pully retaining nut had come loose causing the oil pump to spin with the drive of the cam belt wearing away the oil pump shaft giving a loss of preasure. my question is could this have happened because the cam belt was replaced and if so how? Read more
Sorry, didn't mean "change", I meant "remove".
I am in the process of importing my Swiss LHD galaxy following my return to the UK after 2 years living & working in Switzerland.
The Customs & Excise form that I am filling in asks for the Engine number (in addition to the VIN). Can anyone help me locate this - as I can see nothing obvious in the engine compartment, and it is not listed on my Swiss registration documents?
Thanks for any help
Rick Read more
Fred
There may still be a label on the cam-belt cover; or in the front cover of the service book; or somewhere in the rear floor area.
You're looking for 1Z/AHU.
Browse
ok so its got a keyless ignition?
you normally start it by turning the switch when the "key" is within range?
so the normal mechanism that prevents the steering lock cutting in when the key is in the ignition presumably isnt there? and its just dont on the turn of the switch?
steering fail... was it i) power steering fail, ie did the steering get much heavier without power assistance or ii) did the steering lock cut in and prevent steering altogether? you should be able to figure out which from how it felt
if it was power assistance to the steering failing is it electric or hydralic power steering on your car? electric issues could easily cause power assistance to fail in this way if its elec power steeting, much less likely if its hydralic power steering - and you would know from other stuff such as hydralic fluid leak or belt snap etc likely cause there
brakes harder to diagnose? again was it simply power assistance lost but still able to brake with much greater pedal force needed? else how did you actually stop the car?
sounds very strange all in all