Re: 96 cabrio possible electrical prob?


wkearney99 wrote:

> Door locks have been fine. It doesn't have keyless entry though; if that
> matters. I'll have to double-check whether or not other things lose their
> power when the clock has reset. Trouble is I'm not sure under what specific
> circumstances the clock has been reset. The symptoms are it's hard to start
> when it's wet outside and sometimes the time on the clock is wrong. The
> clock has never been wrong without the starting problem, but it has been

Is your car equipped with an immobiliser?

> hard to start without the clock having been reset. Thus I'm given to
> imagine there's something that's causing the hard starts to /sometimes/ also
> influence the clock. Likewise, the radio's security code does NOT GET
> RESET, so it's apparently not a system-wide power outage going on here.

It could be a local power outage :) It sounds like a broken "standby
power" wire to me.

There are several power busses in your car. One of them is a "permanent
+12V", which is "hot" all the time and provides the "standby" power for
the instrument cluster, engine ecu, central lock, radio etc. The only
way to stop the clock is to disconnect this wire. It can as well
corrupt the engine ECU memory settings, which would explain the
difficult start.

If I was you, I would take a good look at this wire. There are several
places, where it "branches", the most suspectible is the area under
that plastic cover near the front window.

If the insulation is cracked somewhere and the water gets in, then
there is a good chance, that the copper is corroded inside the
insulation.

It is not an easy job to find it, as this wire runs inside of the loom,
and you will need to unwrap the loom at every "branch" where this wire
branches too, then locate the wire by the color and check the
connection where this wire splits. The problem is, that it will look
just fine from outside, and the only way to find the problem is by
pulling the wire.

For starters you could just wiggle the wiring loom at every branch and
see if the clock gets reset.

> And since it's difficult to debug you can imagine why I'm hesitant to let
> the $tealership rob me blind wasting time only to not find it.

I would be hesitant too. Your car is likely to perform just fine when
at the dealer :)

.

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