Seeking someone with a T4 willing to travel to central edinburgh

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Summerrun

New Member
Posts
4
Location
Edinburgh
Hi,
Having lurked and tried to learn the wrinkles of my l322 v8 2004 I now face my biggest challenge to date. My keys won’t turn in the ignition and no longer work remotely - although they still manually lock and unlock the car (with light flashes from indicators).
This happy situation came about because I tried to fault find why my steering telescope function had ceased to operate in the furthest in position - everything else was fine and allcomms showed no faults on any modules.
So I look at the telescope motor and the white clip is fine. I manually wind the screw to extend the column and fire her up. Starting was fine but the column immediately retracts full-in again. So at least the motor was working but still no joy with the stalk- up an Dow are fine but it won’t telescope out - I can see the motor try to respond but whichever direction the stalk is moved the motor turns to retract and it is at the end of its travel.
So thinking that resetting the unit might work I pull fuse 18 and the other two relating to the steering column. Wait a bit and put them back. It is now the key won’t turn and I get no sound from the column when inserting the key.
Meanwhile the up and down function still work and the telescope does not.
So I pulling 3 fuses the car goes from slightly aggravating runner needing long arms to garden ornament.
Before I do more damage I need a mate with a T4 so I do no more harm. Allcomms at this stage seems useless because I cannot fire the ignition.

so answers on a postcard gratefully received, and yes I have fully charged battery, disconnected waited etc and did not even get 1 start - I suspect this is because the column lock is engaged and not moving.

so far the local specialist says April before he can look at it.
Your thoughts?

o
 
Well this may make you laugh. I decided to retrace all steps taken in my failed attempt to fix the telescope motor. Thing I did before failure of the keys was to pull and replace fuse 18. What I omitted to mention was that as I replaced the fuse I fumbled it and it had disappeared into the dash never to be seen again. That’s fine thought I as there is a full set of spares - pluck out the 10 and I’m good to go , jamming it in more carefully his time. After that the pain started with keys not working.
so with cleared head after writing the post above I once more pulled 18 - perhaps I hoped, the spare had been a dud and I would discover the problem. I even resolved to check it with my meter. Unfortunately it was fine and I was about to replace it an move on to the next source of potential gremlin when I noticed the fuse prongs were less than entirely bright metal - having sat undisturbed for 18 years no surprise, so in a rare show of car and attention I hit the prongs with a tiny scrap of wet and dry to make them shine.
I put the fuse back and hey presto the whole car is alive again!
Everything back to normal. Reprogrammed the keys, cleared the air code sorted, for a scrap of sandpaper.
Just saved a couple of k I reckon. My lesson learned is something we always get told by the wise and experienced ones - these cars are really fussy about electrics. Carry a bit of sandpaper in your fuse box!

hope you enjoyed hearing my woes - if you happen to have a guess about the telescoping motor on the column then advice gratefully received.
Cheers,
 
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