Hi All,

Starting to think my car is cursed. I finally sorted the timing chain issue about 3 weeks ago (ended up with replacement chains, heads, coils, sparkplugs, water pump, supercharger clutch...!).
Less than a week later was rear ended by a BMW.

It was not a massive shunt, but it did damage the rear bumper, pushed in a parking sensor, and put a small ding in a tail pipe. The car was driving absolutely fine straight after the crash, but the next morning when I tried to start it wouldn't start, came up with: engine warning light, park brake fault, gear box fault, engine temperature fault, transmission fault, and more... I assumed it was either a damaged battery or a short circuit which had caused a drain overnight and all the issues were low voltage.

So insurance company took the car, been at a body shop in london, they have repaired all the damage (which looks good), including replacing the exhaust for the tail pipe, BUT they told me they had recharged the battery and that was that. (Like fixing a puncture by inflating the tyre...) I was very unhappy about this, but took the car which was working absolutely fine and left it sitting for three days to see what happened and of course it had the same issues.

Then comes the twist in the tale! Called the RAC for a jump start to get it back to the bodyshop, but the RAC did his checks and said the battery was fine, and this time the engine started okay (without needing a jump). (attached is the RAC's error code readings and battery checks). He cleared the fault codes, all of which cleared apart from transition control module. Engine warning light off, car working fine.

My other thought was a grounding error, so I started looking round the car for loose cables and then found the fuse box / power distribution box in the engine compartment had a wire dislodged at the back of it. I THINK it is the FL034 although not 100%. It is on the bottom of the box, next to the air filter, closest to the side of the car.

Any thoughts on this? Could the loose cable be to blame for all the codes? Is it possible that it wasn't connected properly after the timing chain work and then the rear end collision dislodged it?

 

Don't know which engine you have, but the electrical diagrams are in the documentation sticky. You can load them and search for the connectors you're referencing. Good luck.

 

It is certainly the case that a loose cable can generate all kinds of faults, particularly if the bad connection is being translated by the ODB bus as low or unstable voltage. I would sort out the connection and see what happens before changing the battery.

Richard

 

do you live in some part of North Carolina?People with BMW's down there don't know how to drive at all.Nvm u said u live in London.I sometime take a brief portion of what i read and go off that.But it's still a heads up if you come to the states.But if you found the problem where something isn't right and looks out of place and half broken,then that's gotta be it or it's something else around it is probably broke too

 

@edmundjbradbury , it is common and prescribed to attach a battery charger during repair/maintenance of the car. There is little to worry about on this. Should the charger had not been attached “during” the repair, it would probably had needed the charge “following” the repair.

If we can rule out the battery (and I suspect we can) as others have mentioned, there are erroneous messages on the communications bus and it seems this “may” have been caused by the collision. Yes, I use the word “collision” , intentionally.

Therefore the repair is not complete. The body and exhaust may have been corrected, but have the electronics been confirmed? Electronic parking brake, parking sensors, and any of the connectors to any of the modules being jarred loose may be catastrophic to the good operation of the car.

I’d be talking to the insurance company…