Total Lost Of Power

[Felix]

Last night - finished work, Started up My IS going home as I do every day, 3 mins later, suddenly felt the engine is no responding to my demands.

Push the paddle hard - no response, put in Natural, push the paddle again, the engine not having any response at all.

1^st thing going though my mind was the throttle body (£100 e bay job)

2^nd thing was the coil pack, ( £100 each e bay job)

So stop the car, opened the bonnet. Had a quick look, nothing wrong visually.

At this stage, I was 10 meters from a garage. I thought would be good to get in the garage, at least it has better lighting there.

So got the car in, parked up, realise that I had my laptop in the boot, lucky enough got the error reader in the boot too, so hooked on, checked it, no error code found……………………

Went back to sit in the car, looked the dash, everything looked normal………

Suddenly, I noticed the petrol gauge hasn't moved for week or so, Tap. Tap… it dropped to the bottom.

Filled up the tank, here we go…….. as good as……

Felix

P.S. will keep eyes on it from now on and I know she does 300 miles for a full tank…

[lexynik]

felix-slightly off/on topic but can i ask - when you plug your laptop into the obd port does it draw power from the port to charge/run laptop ?

i only ask because it would be pointless for me to leave my laptop in the car for emergencies as the Battery does not hold a charge very well and is bound to be flat when i need to use it !!

obviously i have not bought an obd reader yet and am deciding which one to get -i quite like the idea of a laptop one as they are cheap and you get a lot of info from them i believe

[Felix]

Hi mate,

I can't be 100% sure, but 99% sure, it doesn't draw or charge the laptop. It's only a USB device.

Laptop Battery has its own life time, average about 3 years (depends on the way you use it). However, if you leave it unplugged and unused, it loses 2 - 3% daily.

They are lots on bay of e, have a look. Very good one set you back 300 ish, cheap ones about £20, but I got one for 60 and a bit which is enough for what I need. (BTW, some chinese ones got great software with it, I have seen it in my mate place, and very cheap, only thing is you have to wait for a week)

Felix

P.S. sometimes I get someone drives, so I can read the info on the laptop, very interesting reading, lots of things which I never knew could be read by OBD, such as

Engine RPM, Calculated Load Value, Coolant Temperature, Fuel System Status, Vehicle Speed, Short Term Fuel Trim, Long Term Fuel Trim, Intake Manifold Pressure, Timing Advance, Intake Air Temperature, Air Flow Rate, Absolute Throttle Position, Oxygen sensor voltages/associated short term fuel trims, Fuel System status, Fuel Pressure

Many others...

[lexynik]

thanks felix-thats pretty much how i guessed it would be-ive got 2 or 3 laptops i never use so maybe ill just try and get a car charger for one of them and leave it in the car-yeah i suppose you are right you would see different info from the passenger seat while on the move-thats one of the ways they map other cars(with a few other sensors and bits attached here and there) thanks felix