406 engine auto diagnostics light

If you want to get an idea what's wrong before taking it to a garage, get one of the little Gunsons thingies that reads out the fault codes from the ECU. That should tell you what your ECU is unhappy about.

Cheers

Dave P

David Precious ( snipped-for-privacy@preshweb.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

They don't work on that engine/car - I've got a '96 XM with the same engine and ECU. The Gunsons box works on earlier cars with several two-pin diagnostic sockets, but not on the later ones with the multiplug.

Stuart Bryce ( snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Is there any hint in the way the car's driving?

Stuart Bryce ( snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Is there any hint in the way the car's driving?

When there's a stored fault code, the light will remain on for a second or two after the engine's started. Has it been doing this?

Disconnect the battery, leave it for ten or twenty minutes, then re- connect. That'll clear any stored fault codes. On my XM, that made a huge difference to the car's drivability, and the code's not re-occurred.

The Gunson's reader won't help, but most garages will have a code reader - I've used the hand-held Sykes-Pickavant one, and it will happily read out and give real-time data with the car on the road, which may help to identify the problem if there's no stored codes, or they don't make sense.

I've emailed you the list of fault codes and their translation.

it is intermittent, and goes out after a mile, or dosent come on at all car handles as it should

Stuart Bryce ( snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

When it's hot/cold/no relation to temp?

KG.