P38 engine disabled, but it's OK?

[Tetsu0san]

Hi all

Bit of a weird title, but I'm looking for a bit of advice.

I drive my P38 every day to work and it's always been reliable. Always starts, always stops, and always gets me to and from work.

Anyway, I've had a message on the dash about low battery in the fob, but the central locking always works. The message went away after a few days and then it started refusing to lock and unlock on the fob, so I replaced the batteries. All was good, until the other day. Drove to work, got some fuel, parked up, and did a day of joyful employment. Came out at the end of the day to go home and couldn't unlock the car with the fob. Put in the key and unlocked it but it only unlocked the driver's door.

Then tried to start it, engine disabled. Wanted me to press the fob, but nothing happened. So in a nutshell the central locking wasn't working, engine was disabled, so I had to get a lift home. I did check all the fuses and they were OK. I pulled the trim out and checked the connector in the footwell (the white one with the pins that corrode) and that was OK too. The tailgate was unlocked so I could open that, and everything else seemed to work, but the car was going nowhere. So I manually locked all the doors and went home.

Cut to the next day, I got a beaver tail lorry expecting to have to drag it up on the back, but I thought I'd try the fob. And it worked. Got in, turned the key, and it started no problems. I drive it home, all OK. The only thing that was different was that there was (and still is) a high pitched sound from the speakers when the radio is on. Turn off the radio and the noise goes away.

So basically I'm a bit stumped here. What could all this be? I had already disabled the immobiliser using a Nanocom so there should be no need for the EKA code, and apart from the noise in the speakers, everything seems alright now, but I am worried to drive it in case it does it again.

A long read I know, but the more info I can give the more it should help!

[elbekko]

The noise in the speakers would point to ground issues.

The engine being disabled shouldn't be due to the fob, if the immobiliser is disabled in the BeCM (my fob hasn't worked for years). What could be is that the communication between the BeCM and the ECM isn't always working, again pointing towards potential ground issues.

[Tetsu0san]

14 hours ago, elbekko said:

The noise in the speakers would point to ground issues.

The engine being disabled shouldn't be due to the fob, if the immobiliser is disabled in the BeCM (my fob hasn't worked for years). What could be is that the communication between the BeCM and the ECM isn't always working, again pointing towards potential ground issues.

Thanks for that. I'll have a look and see what I can see.