Led astray by the Message Centre

[p38arover]

I was about to leave for Scouse's place this morning when I heard the fateful beeps from the dashboard and saw the dreaded "Max Speed: 55km/h" flash up.

The four EAS lights were on and the car was on the bump stops and wouldn't rise. I lifted the car with the manual inflation system and tried again. The EAS height control didn't do much. If I turned off the ignition and switched it back on, the car lowered.

So I set about clearing the fault. The EAS height control didn't do much. If I turned off the ignition and switched it back on, the car lowered.

Hmm, Faultmate said there were no recorded EAS faults. Then I noticed the Message Centre also said "ABS FAULT" not "EAS FAULT". So I tried accessing the ABS with Faultmate. It wouldn't connect. That's not unusual with Faultmate but a second attempt usually works. Not this time.

I had noticed the Scan Gauge plug which is normally plugged into the OBD2 connector was corroded so there must be water leaking along the wiring down into the connector. I assumed the connector was faulty and not letting the Faultmate connect.

As my Testbook is at Scouse's place, I thought I'd go there anyway and use it. As I drove off, I saw the 3 Amigos were still up and I had no speedo. I turned around and went home. By the time I got home, the car was on the bumpstops again.

I rang Scouse (again) and he mentioned the ABS ECU was on the firewall behind the glovebox. I'd been playing around behind there yesterday trying to remove my old hands-free phone system. I removed the cover, and had a look but, no, the ABS connector was secure.

Off to read RAVE. Back the car, checked the fuse and, as sure as eggs, the 5A fuse was blown. I hadn't checked there because there had been no fuse failure message.

I replaced the fuse, the ABS fault has cleared and the EAS is working again. So the reason that Faultmate wouldn't connect was that the ECU wasn't powered up.

Gaaahhhh! Who checks fuses first, anyway?

(Oh, I removed the handsfree properly today.)

[Keithy P38]

I see what you did there ;-)

[FANTOM P38]

Sounds like you have a bad case of "P38-itis" take a deep breath & try simple fix first.

[p38arover]

I also remembered the reason for the blown fuse.

Yesterday, I was removing some disused wiring installed for the previous owner and which I found under the trim on the LHS front passenger step area. (I haven't been able to work out what the wiring was for.)

One of the three connectors was spliced into a white wire. I put a multimeter on it to check if there was any power. Unfortunately, the multimeter was on the 15A range thus putting a short circuit on that wire. I should have realised I'd blown the fuse when I saw no power on a white wire after I'd switched to the voltage range.

The white wire is the power feed to the ABS ECU from the fuse box. Blame it on

The thing is that I didn't run the car after that until I went to leave for Scouse's this morning.