How do they do it?????????

AlanS · Post by **AlanS** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:25 am

I took the wagon in for a RWC (MOT) which out here is no big deal; "4 wheels, tyres not down to the wear bars, lights all work, brake pads OK and working, indicators alright, brake lights OK and no oil leaks...........100% clean sheet" doesn't get any simpler than that does it? WRONG!!
I wait a few hours and eventually get the call to come and collect. "Rear washers don't work!!" I'm told as twit hammers at the switch "Do you think if you ***k the switch that might help?" says I.
"What can you do about this too; it just happened as I took it for a test drive" says he as he punches the speedo binnacle which has now been broken on one side and punches at the glass on the speedo. All the warning lights on the dash were lit and the buzzers all going off.
"What did you stuff around with?" I ask....."Nothin' honest, it just happened." It seems that (according to this d!ckhe@d) he just went for a drive and all these things started to go wrong, this was after I had owned the car for 4 months in which time I started and shifted it every day, drove it 330 klms home and down to his garage this morning. Sheesh; do I look that stoopid? Anybody got any clues where to start looking? I now have a vehicle that's had countless hours spent on it, is now registered but can't be driven because it will not stop going eeaww, eeaw, eeaw etc, etc infinitum?? I reckoned I could hear a relay chattering either under the dash or in the steering column area.
If I can't find the reason, I doubt that I can drive the car with the constant bleeping in the ears....anyone here seen "Office Space"? I might have to become Milton and 'burn the whole building down'
As a bonus, as I was leaving, he asks about the windscreen washers arm and fiddles with the wiper arm and as I am driving home, it starts to rain, I turn the wiper on and............you guessed it; the bloody thing falls off and scratches the bonnet.
If this cluck can do all this damage just doing a RWC think how much he could do if I asked him to fix it. In his bloody dreams!!

Alan S

mnde · Post by **mnde** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:36 am

"What can you do about this too; it just happened as I took it for a test drive" says he as he punches the speedo binnacle which has now been broken on one side and punches at the glass on the speedo. All the warning lights on the dash were lit and the buzzers all going off.
"What did you stuff around with?" I ask....."Nothin' honest, it just happened." It seems that (according to this d!ckhe@d) he just went for a drive and all these things started to go wrong, this was after I had owned the car for 4 months in which time I started and shifted it every day, drove it 330 klms home and down to his garage this morning. Sheesh; do I look that stoopid? Anybody got any clues where to start looking? I now have a vehicle that's had countless hours spent on it, is now registered but can't be driven because it will not stop going eeaww, eeaw, eeaw etc, etc infinitum?? I reckoned I could hear a relay chattering either under the dash or in the steering column area.

Alan, I know exactly what this is as it happened before to me.

Unbeknown to me, a passenger kicked the fusebox which was not secured, and dislodged one of the relays.

Whenever I drove the car with the headlamps on, the door-open buzzer would sound incessantly

. Oh and the electric windows didn't work.

I replaced the fuse that governs these things, which had blown. But as soon as I turned the headlamps on again, it would blow, knock out the elec windows and repeat the buzzer eeeee-aaaawwwwwwwww thing.

When I used a multimeter, I found a large live feed to said fuse's terminal, larger than its capacity, when the lights were turned on. Then I found one of the blue relays wasn't pushed home. After that, the live feed was gone. Having looked at a schematic, I can tell you it is fuse #3

Check your relays!

Hope you fix it.

Mark.

Philip Chidlow · Post by **Philip Chidlow** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:38 am

I'd get someone to go and stuff his head in the waste oil tank. For a day.

Hope you get the problems sorted...

mnde · Post by **mnde** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 11:41 am

Here's a useful table for ya Alan:

http://www.tramontana.co.hu/citroen/electric/fuses.html

Something tells me that when it blew #3 it knocked out #7 as well (central locking, radio etc) - I remember I had to replace 2 at once - twice before I found the relay fault. Oh and while the buzzer was going off the dash lights were also extinguished so I couldn't see how fast I was going in the dark. Had to place a torch in the binnacle...!

Mark.

Toddman · Post by **Toddman** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 12:32 pm

Alan did I understand th etale of woe correctly and your only real problem is a warning buzzer sounding all the time when driving?
If so I would be inclined to think of the headlamps buzzer - is it possible to get a connection wrong so the warning sounds when the lights are off with ign on I wonder?

I once had an Audi Coupe which lit up all the dash when putting the sideligts on - turned out the previous owner had done some lighting wiring behind the dash and had just taken power from places he really shouldn't

Good luck and perhaps a different garage for the retest?

Cheers
Luke

AlanS · Post by **AlanS** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 12:53 pm

If only; no it's far more serious than that.
I have oil warning light on, LHM warning light, handbtrake warning light, low water level light, low fuel light, in fact I'd say almost every warning lamp on the dash is on, in fact the dash looks like the front of a circus tent along with that bluddy buzzer going constantly.

Alan S

tom · Post by **tom** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 2:26 pm

Instrument panel earth looks like a possibility. It sounds like their monkeys are no better than ours. I'd stand over them with a lump o' lead piping.

DLM · Post by **DLM** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 3:04 pm

It really makes you wonder why the gorilla is a protected species.......

Stewart (oily!) · Post by **Stewart (oily!)** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:32 pm

Sounds like you found yourself one of those highly trained technicians they go on about, a number of years ago I got into the test centre and found matey trying to adjust the headlamps on my Bx as they were too high, I leaned through the open drivers window and stareted the motor, at which point the headlamps magically adjusted themselves, then he wanted to fail it for having no rear fogs (MK1 PRN dash) he couldnt find the switch!. I no longer use that particular garage.
Stewart

DavidRutherford · Post by **DavidRutherford** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 4:54 pm

in a similar vain to stewart... I've had a garage tell me that the BX I've taken in for MOT has failed on no handbrake. I then told the spotty little oik to follow the handbrake cables from the handbrake and see which wheels it worked on....

AlanS · Post by **AlanS** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 9:33 pm

Thanks for the hints so far but would you believe it; I get up this morning, read the messages here, go over and start the car and all is working as normal.................sheesh, that should make it easy to find now.

I'll check out and clean up everything as suggested and see what happens.

Thanks all,

Alan S

AlanS · Post by **AlanS** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 12:06 am

AlanS wrote:Thanks for the hints so far but would you believe it; I get up this morning, read the messages here, go over and start the car and all is working as normal.................sheesh, that should make it easy to find now.
I'll check out and clean up everything as suggested and see what happens.

Thanks all,

Alan S

Well, that didn't last long.
Drove one of the boys to work in it this morning, about 12 klms and as I stopped outside his work, you guessed it; sounded like a pack of ally cats mating!!
Had a look for the relay but no luck so far, however I do notice a sound like a relay not making proper contact that seems to be coming from the area directly behind the internal fan switch. That possible????
Will try to spend some time doing some more searching afterwards, but I thought it was too good to be true and as I often tell people who ask "Perhaps it just fixed itself?" I am not a big believer in motor cars ability to be 'faith healed' so I should have known better although in all honesty, at least you can fix something playing up and I wouldn't be feeling too secure if it miraculously just cured itself.
If anyone can be more specific about the location of the relay Jon spoke about I'd be interested, as so far I haven't been able to locate it.

Alan S

(CZ)enda · Post by **(CZ)enda** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 1:09 am

My humble opinion, clouded by the fact that it seems a habit to call right things left and vice versa (just kidding

), is that Jon meant the black relay-looking thing attached to the radiator, located by your LEFT hand when you are standing in FRONT of the car, looking towards its BACK side through its FRONT window.
It is above the black garret shielding the fan switch. It has Valeo printed all over and its purpose is completely unknown to me.

AlanS · Post by **AlanS** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 1:18 am

Thanks mate, I'll give that a try.
Looks like we all might learn something from this bit of thoughtlessnes.

Alan S