Warning messages

NickD

Paid Member
As there is no electrical forum, I will try here.

I have just been to Spa and back. In typical fashion on the Tuesday coming home before I left on Wednesday, I get a check air bag warning. It only takes 20 minutes to get home and came on a couple of times and went off after about a minute.

On the trip, it may have done a similar thing on the M1/M25.M20. Can't remember. However, on the E40 it happened 3 or 4 times. Apart from the back of the mind worry and annoyance to have a warning light, there was no issue. After a while it changed to "Electronic Warning" (or fault or check) and the obligatory spanner light. Again, these were temporary, and seemed to have no effect other than wondering what it could be that is "wrong" However; the more serious one, then happened. "Injector fault" which far more of an issue as the car quite obviously lost power. Fortunately the Belgian's have not discovered the joys of smart motorways and also have their "refuge" areas quite frequently and within half a mile I had stopped. Control Alt Delete and restarted and it went away. The next hour was quite fraught as I imagined all the scenarios of what could go wrong. But nothing happened. I may have had the other warnings at some point. Go got to the circuit fine though. And then later drove to the hotel in Spa. The following day, though on the short trip back to the circuit, I had the check air bag light again. Then nothing the following day. On the way home however, just past Brussels, I had the Electronic warning, then nothing all the way to Calais. Nothing the other side. The following day on the trip from Folkstone to home, Check airbag came of and off after about 2 hours. Then today, going to collect some tyres I have ESP Check come on. Again on restart all was well.

I may be very wrong, but going months and even years without any of these warning, or certainly not with any sort of frequency, it would seen there is some sort of relationship. So the question is, is there a connector block that I should be looking at as possibly having a bit of a wobble (possibly literally) but may be suffering some corrosion or a specific earth point I should be looking at before I have to go to a garage for them to say "intermittent faults, they are the worse!"?
 
I think you've indirectly answered your own question.... Start by checking all earths, connectors, obvious areas where electricals might become exposed to water unintentionally... Check the battery as per R20BTG above mentioned, check if your alternator is outputting 14.4v when started... Check the fuse box for any corrosion (removing and reseating all fuses).

You could easily spend a day giving your car a full do-over (cleaning and reseating connections etc) but you might be better off getting a diag tool to read any present or historic faults on the ECU before hand. This could quite easily tell you a specific sensor is playing up or tell you there's a break in X electrical circuit and from there you can investigate physically and resolve any issues. Failing that, get your spanners out and start cleaning things up!