Hello all! I have finally gotten the X-type estate project watertight again. This means I can start digging into the now much more severe electrical gremlins in the coupe. Symptoms are below, any advice or directions to start in are greatly appreciated.

From purchase, it has had issues keeping the window indexing in memory, the occasional blip of the Trac / ABS lights on the dash and a flicker to the dome / interior lighting. These issues were random and not tied to temperature, humidity, use of the car or or charging rate on the battery. I had just chalked them up to old car foibles but in an effort to correct, replaced the battery with the correct AGM unit. This cured most of the issues for awhile. Since then the battery has been replaced again due to a failing cell.

Of late though (the last few weeks of hard driving), these issues have gotten much worse and added new, fun failures.

• At shutoff, the car will not switch from run to accessory power consistently, everything is dead for anywhere from a few seconds to a full minute. (dash, locks, interior lights, everything!?!) This behavior is consistently terrifying...
• The window indexing will fail at most start ups and shutdowns now.
• Low beam to high beam switching causes the stereo display to drop out and the audio to stop for up to 20 secs. This has also caused the dash lighting to flare for a second or two...?
• In an effort to get the driver window to seal after opening it at speed, I held the switch against the stop and everything flared (high beams, stereo, dash lights etc) for as long as I held the switch.
• The alarm will not arm with a consistent chirp lately and set itself off after shutdown last night.
• It also decides at random that the passenger airbag isn't working and throws the light on the gauge cluster. This doesn't come up at startup but anywhere along a drive.
• The flicker in the interior lights (either running or in accessory) has become much more noticeable.

As noted above, the battery was replaced immediately after purchase and and since been replaced again (Interstate AGM with the correct specs). Over this weekend, I have had two different locations test the battery to confirm good cells and voltage and both state condition nominal. Torque app indicates 13.6 -14v at all times the car is moving. I did notice on this weekend's trip that it was dropping to 10-11v at idle with a full draw on it (AC headlights, stereo, cooling fans). I have confirmed the ground on the battery and the grounding block in the trunk are clean, dry and tight. I have also determined that there isn't standing water in the ECU hutch under the hood.

So what do we think? Bad grounds somewhere? Failing Body Control Module? Voltage regulator on the alternator? Haunted by ghost of Xmas Past? I am really leaning towards haunted if for no other reasons than burnt sage smells ok and wouldn't require as much work...

As always, any advice is hugely appreciated!!

 

Battery cables have been known to fail internally, easily detected as they become hot to the touch.

Visual inspection of these connection may not be enough. Might be best to disconnect, and clean them with that special battery terminal tool. And sandpaper the power block in the trunk. Follow that by measuring voltage from the battery terminal across all those connections.

Also, consider using a voltmeter at the posts in the engine compartment to see if there is a voltage drop. Especially that you seem to be able to reproduce the issue on command.

Best of luck, keep us posted.

 

Sounds like an earth fault . You need your voltmeter with a very long neg lead ( 20 ft) attached to the battery neg . Put the positive probe on what should be earthed and you shuould get almost zero ( less than 0.6v) ..if it reads a few volts that earth is faulty. Have the system you are testing turned ON. A pin probe is useful ..A pin chuck with a needle in it to push into those black wires .

Pin chuck available on ebay cheap