Tuesday, December 10, 2002
Kam’s Column - 10/12/02
Hello Again!
It has been an interesting week in the media. Cherie Booth has made an error of judgement while buying flats in Bristol, the Iraqi dossier is being rubbished by the US and there are rumours of Star Wars coming to an RAF base not too far from here… Before you get your light sabres out from the attic, I’m talking of course about the missile defence program invented by the Americans to protect themselves from attack.
I don’t know about you, but I think that George Bush (Junior) is spoiling for a fight. Perhaps it is because he was called Junior at home too often, perhaps Mummy Bush still insists on buying him underwear at Christmas and calling him on cold days to make sure that he’s wearing his thermal long-johns. Whatever the reason, I wish he wouldn’t – especially if it a war of no reason. Because, at the end of the day, there will be no winners. You can’t be victorious in a situation like this – and anyway, look at the last Iraqi war…
Talking of cold days, my Grandmother used to describe cold snaps as ‘mighty cold’ – and I think that is about the best description that you’ll ever hear.
Just the sound of those words gives you a sense just how nippy it has been in our Heanor workshops this week – winter is finally here! This of course brings with it a number of problems (not counting ice on the roads or in your water pipes), specifically battery related ones. As it gets colder, darker and generally more inhospitable to any form of life, your battery has to operate heaters, fans, demisters, engine cold-starts, lights, radios, windscreen heaters… You get the general idea. On Tuesday morning alone, Shaun and I changed eight batteries as well as carrying out full charge inspections and alternator checks.
Of course, it would have been too much to ask for to stay in the (relatively) warm workshop all day, so when Mr Guides (name changed to protect his innocence) called up asking us to attend his stricken 3.0-litre Citroen XM, we knew we’d have to wrap up warm.
“What seems to be the problem Mr Guides?”
“Well Kev, it just won’t start. I think I left the interior light on last night and the battery is flatter than a dodo’s plummage. Can you come and have a look?”
“No problems Mr Guides – we’ll be there in about half an hour.”
Once on site, there was a first, obvious problem – Mr Guides wasn’t using a surge protector on his jump leads! A lot of newer vehicles need some form of protection while being jump started as the delicate ECU (brains) and electronic gizmos aren’t always amenable to the large power draw that occurs while jumping.
Within minutes, I had fitted a surge protector and hooked the XM up to one of our specialist jumping units and the XM roared into life again. However, the interior light switch was not depressed (so it couldn’t have come on) and no other electrical systems had been left running… All in all, it was a bit of a mystery as to why the battery had run out of puff.
“Would you mind taking it in and having a look for me Kev?”
“No problems. I’ll drive it back now, and give you a call once we’ve checked it over.”
Then the next problem presented itself – a backfire so abrupt that it made the car jolt around and it was nearly undrivable. After doing a check by the roadside to ensure that nothing obvious was broken or wrong, we were a little stumped as to the cause. With fingers turning to ice, I called the Kam Rescue Team to come and recover the vehicle – after all, we didn’t know what might be lurking in the engine and to drive it in that state would be folly.
Once back in the workshop, I set Scott on the task. Surprisingly, everything was checking out OK – the fuel injection system was spot on, the plugs were fine, the distributor cap was working perfectly. Checking back through the car’s history, I noted that on its last service, nothing had cropped up out of the ordinary. Time to delve deeper…
Scott then removed the ECU and ran it over to one of our specialists for a thorough diagnostic. As I had secretly feared, the brains of the beast had been scrambled – quite probably by Mr Guides’ abortive jump-starting. Once I’d let him know the diagnosis, I hopped onto the Internet to locate a new item. Once again, our suppliers came up trumps and the brand new brain was delivered the next morning (I know days when I could use one for myself…). Once we had that installed, the car was running perfectly – now to find the reason the battery drained so fast. After much huffing and puffing, Scott discovered the root of the problem – the rear window heater switch was allowing current to bleed across it and had slowly been running the battery down! A new switch and all was well.
When we took the XM back to Mr Guides, I asked him what he had tried to jump-start the vehicle from.
“That lorry over the Kev,” he said, pointing to a handsome Ford van.
“That explains it then – that’s a 24 volt system, and your Citroen is only a 12 volt – no wonder the brain got a little scrambled!”
This is one thing that you ought to check each time you jump-start a car – just make sure that the systems are of the same voltage. If they aren’t then you are risking some damage to your own vehicle.
Well, I can’t sit here writing this all day. Since word has got out about our MoT and full service promotion (where prices start from just £59.95), our workbook has been rapidly filling. And then there are all the tyre changes as more of you convert to our Stunners… It’s a busy time!
Until next week,
