Service light

[dave the builder]

Hi guys anyone know why my service light is on with and without mileage, also cruise light comes on but doesn't work..this happened after I had it mapped. Guy who did it said he had never seen this before.

 

[Old.Tony]

Assuming the engine was running ...

The 'service' light may have been left on by the previous guy that did the service. At the conclusion of servicing the vehicle, they're supposed to press a button and reset the distance-to-service parameter in the ECU (in my D40, you wait for it to show the distance-to-service after turning on the ignition and then you turn the adjustment knob to set it to the next service interval).

It might be as simple as that. It's possible that cruise is inhibited if the car is overdue for a service (I haven't heard of that before though but newfangled cars might have this "feature" added).

Otherwise: cruise control is affected by several things that have broken in D40s in the past.

1) Clock spring. Common issue. It's in the steering wheel, removal requires a little care so the airbag isn't set off. If this is suspected you'll want to do it with the ignition off and have a multimeter handy to test the contacts on each side of the cable.

2) Brake and/or clutch switches. Fairly common. Thankfully these are easy to remove and clean and adjust. They twist out, you unplug it so you can sit upright while you're examining the guts and check for debris on the contacts inside. Mine had a fair bit of black powder around the contacts - running a couple of amps through the small contacts will do that over time.

3) ABS failure. Unfortunately more common than we'd like. Usually stops 4LO from engaging as well. Most common cause is a front wheel bearing starting to disintegrate and debris + grease enters the ABS ring which is integral to the bearing structure. This causes misreads by the sensor and the assumption that the wheel is faulty (no sh*t, Sherlock!).

4) Neutral fault. Not common in the D40. If the car thinks the gearbox is in neutral it will also command lower boost and the car won't feel as powerful, so it's fairly easy to spot. Only had a couple of instances of this over the years.

With all that out of the way, there's one other possibility: the ECU program itself. Hopefully the edit didn't exclude/preclude operation of the ASCD (Automatic Speed Control Device, which we call "cruise control" ). The only way to tell is to pull the BIN file and get a programmer to go through it and make sure the ASCD function isn't bypassed (because it is possible to bypass functions like EGR and DPF operations).

 

[dave the builder]

Assuming the engine was running ...

The 'service' light may have been left on by the previous guy that did the service. At the conclusion of servicing the vehicle, they're supposed to press a button and reset the distance-to-service parameter in the ECU (in my D40, you wait for it to show the distance-to-service after turning on the ignition and then you turn the adjustment knob to set it to the next service interval).

It might be as simple as that. It's possible that cruise is inhibited if the car is overdue for a service (I haven't heard of that before though but newfangled cars might have this "feature" added).

Otherwise: cruise control is affected by several things that have broken in D40s in the past.

1) Clock spring. Common issue. It's in the steering wheel, removal requires a little care so the airbag isn't set off. If this is suspected you'll want to do it with the ignition off and have a multimeter handy to test the contacts on each side of the cable.

2) Brake and/or clutch switches. Fairly common. Thankfully these are easy to remove and clean and adjust. They twist out, you unplug it so you can sit upright while you're examining the guts and check for debris on the contacts inside. Mine had a fair bit of black powder around the contacts - running a couple of amps through the small contacts will do that over time.

3) ABS failure. Unfortunately more common than we'd like. Usually stops 4LO from engaging as well. Most common cause is a front wheel bearing starting to disintegrate and debris + grease enters the ABS ring which is integral to the bearing structure. This causes misreads by the sensor and the assumption that the wheel is faulty (no sh*t, Sherlock!).

4) Neutral fault. Not common in the D40. If the car thinks the gearbox is in neutral it will also command lower boost and the car won't feel as powerful, so it's fairly easy to spot. Only had a couple of instances of this over the years.

With all that out of the way, there's one other possibility: the ECU program itself. Hopefully the edit didn't exclude/preclude operation of the ASCD (Automatic Speed Control Device, which we call "cruise control" ). The only way to tell is to pull the BIN file and get a programmer to go through it and make sure the ASCD function isn't bypassed (because it is possible to bypass functions like EGR and DPF operations).

Thank you for reply, I have lost power and the gears don't see to settle right it revs its head off for no reason and is using diesel so I'm thinking it's number 4. Another thing thats happened twice today is when driving cluster lights went off dials went down for about 5 secs then came back on !! Any ideas on that ? I shall let you know how things go. Dave

 

[Old.Tony]

Thank you for reply, I have lost power and the gears don't see to settle right it revs its head off for no reason and is using diesel so I'm thinking it's number 4. Another thing thats happened twice today is when driving cluster lights went off dials went down for about 5 secs then came back on !! Any ideas on that ? I shall let you know how things go. Dave

Has any work been done on the stereo recently? Radio antenna?

 

[dave the builder]

Has any work been done on the stereo recently? Radio antenna?

Not recently about 3 months ago, had a highway dab radio attached to stereo but it has screen antenna .

 

[Old.Tony]

Not recently about 3 months ago, had a highway dab radio attached to stereo but it has screen antenna .

Ok, that's for the instrument cluster - usually shares an earth with the radio, and sometimes the body of the stereo doesn't earth properly so it will pull earth from either the radio antenna or the instrument cluster. The latter causes all sorts of strange things to happen to the instruments!

The fix for that is to just add another earth wire to the stereo case (just one of the mounting screws will be enough) and connect that wire to one of the main bolts holding the dash to the body.

Let's look at the rest of the issue too. You may have more than one thing happening here, so let's get some details on the car.

Is it auto or manual gearbox?

Does it start easily and idle well? What about cold morning starts?

 

[dave the builder]

Ok, that's for the instrument cluster - usually shares an earth with the radio, and sometimes the body of the stereo doesn't earth properly so it will pull earth from either the radio antenna or the instrument cluster. The latter causes all sorts of strange things to happen to the instruments!

The fix for that is to just add another earth wire to the stereo case (just one of the mounting screws will be enough) and connect that wire to one of the main bolts holding the dash to the body.

Let's look at the rest of the issue too. You may have more than one thing happening here, so let's get some details on the car.

Is it auto or manual gearbox?

Does it start easily and idle well? What about cold morning starts?

It's a 2012 v6 auto. Starts fine bit lumpy in the gear change when cold but ok ish when warm. Revs up n down sometimes for no reason. Plus can take ages to change up.

 

[Old.Tony]

Cold engine+gearbox performance isn't surprising, my auto is a little sluggish when it's really cold. Changes under load can be a little ordinary as well.

I wonder if you've got a problem with the torque converter? For that matter, have you checked the quality of the oil in there?

 

[dave the builder]

Cold engine+gearbox performance isn't surprising, my auto is a little sluggish when it's really cold. Changes under load can be a little ordinary as well.

I wonder if you've got a problem with the torque converter? For that matter, have you checked the quality of the oil in there?

No I haven't but will book it in ASAP. Will keep you informed. Thanks.

 

[dave the builder]

Forgot to say, sometimes when I'm in drive and at a stand still I press the accelerator, it does nothing for a few secs then jump into action, quite forceful.

 

[Old.Tony]

That could be the valving in the gearbox not responding well. That's going to be:

* Poor oil quality in the gearbox

* Gunk in the oil gumming up the valveways

* Corrosion in the valve body caused by moisture getting in (coolant?)

* Damaged turbine in the torque converter

It's unlikely to be outside the gearbox, if the revs have picked up normally but the car is still delayed.

If the revs delay before picking up it could be a fuelling issue, sensor issue (MAFS, for instance). It really does depend on the specific timing of "foot on accelerator - engine revs increase - car starts moving".

 

[dave the builder]

That could be the valving in the gearbox not responding well. That's going to be:

* Poor oil quality in the gearbox

* Gunk in the oil gumming up the valveways

* Corrosion in the valve body caused by moisture getting in (coolant?)

* Damaged turbine in the torque converter

It's unlikely to be outside the gearbox, if the revs have picked up normally but the car is still delayed.

If the revs delay before picking up it could be a fuelling issue, sensor issue (MAFS, for instance). It really does depend on the specific timing of "foot on accelerator - engine revs increase - car starts moving".

Ok thanks lots to think about. Can you help me with this ...when I turn ignition on this comes up flashing and stays like that until I press little button and then it goes toilette and spanner still flashes.

 

[Old.Tony]

Did the person who performed the last service reset the distance-to-next-service km properly?

Have you fixed the stereo earth suggested a few posts back ^^ that way? It could cause erratic behaviour. Things like trip meter are stored in the instrument cluster itself, service km should be in ECU (you'd think!) but I can't say for sure.