LairdScooby

Obscure

Gas

Solution

Equation

Binary

Them

Me!

Sadly Dominic it was a combination of leaving a busy multistorey and the Cambridge rush hour! 😮 Had to resort to forcing my way out onto a box junction in the end as nobody wanted to either obey the rules of a box junction or let me out. Nice long walk with the dogs and a close friend this afternoon then she treated us to fish and chips for dinner (saved me cooking) and a nice relaxing evening after. Just taken her and her hound home until tomorrow at least. Hoping for a warm, dry day tomorrow and the energy and enthusiasm to make a start on the Honda. That's about as close as i'll get to relaxing! On a slightly more positive note, i topped the coolant on the Jag and it warms up inside quicker now and the hot idle is more stable (not unexpected to be honest) but a nice side effect of the more stable idle is less of a thump as i engage reverse after driving. Hope you have a good weekend!

Misfortune

Creator

That sounds like a good run Dominic and good performance from your Jag - no EML or other unwanted lights making the dash look unwantedly festive i hope? My round trip was about half that length and economy was only dragged back up to 20.2mpg after waiting nearly an hour to get out of Addenbrookes multi-storey car park - during that hour it dropped and dropped to under 18mpg as it was all stop-start! 😮 That said, at the moment that's all my Honda is managing but hoping to find the time, dry (preferably warm ish) day to set about sorting the problems causing that. Is it the weekend already? This week has flown by! Have a good one!

Rubik

Can i ask why the battery was replaced in the first place? Also was it a brand new battery? If so, take it back and get them to do a drop test on it to make sure the battery itself is ok. Then check for all the small lights like map reading lights etc in the car are off when they should be, also check your boot light goes out when the the boot is shut.

Welcome aboasrd Derek! With your side repeater, remove the lamp as you did to replace the bulb, disconnect the plug and spray some switch/contact cleaner into the end of the plug and on the contacts in the lamp holder. Refit, test. You may have to repeat this several times before the combination of dis/re-connect and the switch cleaner cleans the oxidisation off the contacts. If several attempts don't fix it, do similar with the bulb and holder but also worth checking the bulb actually works.

Pronoun

Spouse

I've had a hectic few day Dominic - been intending to respond but life has got in the way! Glad to hear your car is now functioning as it should again and vast improvements have been made. Hopefully it should yield a few more mpg and maybe even mph for you now but the fact it's once again driving as a Jag should is a good sign! Looking forward to your report from tomorrows journey on a longer run! 😉 😄

Vegetable

Squared

That all sounds good Dominic - from experience with V6 Lambda sensors (Rover with the Honda engine, not Jag) i would be very tempted to get the sensors on the other bank done too. Because of the age/mileage thing, they do tend to fail close to each other so it's preventing a future breakdown, not to mention it should make the engine livelier and hopefully more fuel efficient. Will be interested to learn your first impressions of driving it with the work done! Little anecdote for your from my Rover 827 Coupe - V6 with one Lambda per bank. During the MoT test, the CO reading suddenly started climbing from 0.1% (easy pass) to way past 9% (definitely a fail!) and the test was failed and i took the car home to investigate the cause. Halfway home (it was about 40 minutes drive home so ~45 minutes after the CO climbed on the emissions tester) the EML came on which meant i then had a code to read. Nice and easy on that car, look under the drivers seat and count the long and short flashes of the red LED on the ECU and look up the meaning. Turned out to be the rear bank Lambda sensor so i ordered a pair and renewed both front and rear bank sensors. Removed the caat and soaked it overnight in hot water and half a dozen or so dishwasher tablets. Rinsed it with water the next day, blew it dry with the airline and gave the outside a squirt from a satin black rattle can and refitted it. On the re-test, the CO came up at 0.00% so was a pass but the tester was wandering around muttering "Why can i smell lemons?" - if only he knew but it cleaned the cat out nicely! 😛

I'm glad to hear the garage want to replace the plugs, assuming their diagnosis of a dead cat is correct, the most common cause is overheating, usually due to unburned fuel entering the cat - this usually comes from defective plugs not firing the mixture correctly. With this in mind i would strongly advise an oil/filter change while it's in there, i know this will cost a bit more but will help keep the VVT mechs functioning as they should, a sticky solenoid on the bank where the cat has died could also be a possible cause as the valves would be opening more on the other bank to admit more fuel/air but if the valves didn't open as they should, the extra fuel would be wasted and sent out into the cat. Also the much more basic reason of possible fuel contamination of the oil. Given the misfires and the fact one cat is dead, i would suggest new sensors, both banks, pre and post cat so 4 sensors in all. I know this is going to hit you in the wallet area quite painfully but this is where the old adage of "A stitch in time saves nine" really applies to modern day stuff. In other words, if the problem had been investigated and fixed back then, the chances are that there wouldn't be a collection of compounded problems now. As far as the Lambda sensors go, they have a working life of ~100k miles or 10 years, in practice they normally reach 120k miles without problems but their performance drops considerably as a result. In some parts of the USA, notably California (and some other states but can't remember which) a mandatory fitment at build is an "Emissions Timer". This runs for 10 years or 100k miles and then puts a fault onto the engine management system. It can only be removed by fitting new Lambda sensors and emissions timer and then resetting the EML. Fingers crossed they can find a cost effective way of doing this all for you!

Barbeque

Scout

Bear

HI Dominic, been a bit of a hectic few days for me, hopefully you'll have some answers on the Cat EML codes etc later. Shame your headlamp washers packed up, it sounds as if you entrust all your car jobs to garages, am i right? If so that could become an expensive hobby getting them to fix things like the headlamp washers. We've had a few light dustings of snow but nothing that's even laid for a short while.