RiffRaffMama
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2017
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- Location
- SW Vic
- Members Ride
- Twin VX II Berlinas - "Vanessa" and "Geraldine"
Thought maybe this would be educational or at least entertaining in the event you ever experience this and wonder what the fck is going on. At the very least it will give you something to read while you wait for someone to turn up with a new alternator. Yes, to some of you the problem would have been easily identifiable 3 minutes in to the whole saga, but I think a larger number of people would be baffled by it like I initially was. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, wouldn't be a first, won't be the last time. The bold parts are the tl;dr/skimming-posts-for-a diagnosis-of-my-current-problem version.
Driving in to town one night last week I flicked my high beams on and immediately they dimmed a little. Initially thought I’d imagined it but after another few km I began to realise they were very slowly getting dimmer and dimmer.
Then the real fun started.
Random lights began coming on and turning off on my dash cluster, accompanied at times by the related beeps (the airbag light/beeps made my blood run cold. After owning 8 VT/VX I’m all out of working clock springs). My dashboard Christmas tree is in photo #1
I know, at this point half of you are screaming “why are you still driving?” Well, it was 10pm. I live in a very, very small country town, half an hour from the nearest decent sized country town. That half hour is through wall-to-wall forest with zero lighting, patchy phone reception and is riddled with kamikaze roos, drop bears, foxes and swooping owls. I knew enough to guess that if I stopped I probably wasn’t going to start again. I was closer to the next town than home so I put in a prayer to the Commodore gods, spoke very nicely to my car and ploughed on.
I hit the outskirts of town and by now my headlights were like candles. If the candles were inside a box. And unlit. Then everything electrical crapped itself entirely. I was doing around 80, but according to my speedo I was doing 0. No RPM, ice cold engine and plumb out of fuel too apparently. Photo #2 shows everything out and the bugger-all light my headlights are throwing on to the road.
The car started struggling, the accelerator quit functioning properly and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to cut through a pitch black industrial area and aim for a 24-hour servo on the other side of it. In complete darkness I turned the final corner, my steering got heavy and I made it as far as half way up the servo driveway before my car officially said “nope”. I was more than a little bit impressed that I’d managed that. Not the next street, not around the corner... the fcking driveway!
A couple of hours later someone came and swapped over my alternator for a used VX exec one (my car is a VX Berlina) and she’s been fine ever since. At least it matches the exec front that was transplanted on after the unfortunate Keep Left sign annihilation incident. God I love this car.
Rightly or wrongly, if you're going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.
Driving in to town one night last week I flicked my high beams on and immediately they dimmed a little. Initially thought I’d imagined it but after another few km I began to realise they were very slowly getting dimmer and dimmer.
Then the real fun started.
Random lights began coming on and turning off on my dash cluster, accompanied at times by the related beeps (the airbag light/beeps made my blood run cold. After owning 8 VT/VX I’m all out of working clock springs). My dashboard Christmas tree is in photo #1
I know, at this point half of you are screaming “why are you still driving?” Well, it was 10pm. I live in a very, very small country town, half an hour from the nearest decent sized country town. That half hour is through wall-to-wall forest with zero lighting, patchy phone reception and is riddled with kamikaze roos, drop bears, foxes and swooping owls. I knew enough to guess that if I stopped I probably wasn’t going to start again. I was closer to the next town than home so I put in a prayer to the Commodore gods, spoke very nicely to my car and ploughed on.
I hit the outskirts of town and by now my headlights were like candles. If the candles were inside a box. And unlit. Then everything electrical crapped itself entirely. I was doing around 80, but according to my speedo I was doing 0. No RPM, ice cold engine and plumb out of fuel too apparently. Photo #2 shows everything out and the bugger-all light my headlights are throwing on to the road.
The car started struggling, the accelerator quit functioning properly and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to cut through a pitch black industrial area and aim for a 24-hour servo on the other side of it. In complete darkness I turned the final corner, my steering got heavy and I made it as far as half way up the servo driveway before my car officially said “nope”. I was more than a little bit impressed that I’d managed that. Not the next street, not around the corner... the fcking driveway!
A couple of hours later someone came and swapped over my alternator for a used VX exec one (my car is a VX Berlina) and she’s been fine ever since. At least it matches the exec front that was transplanted on after the unfortunate Keep Left sign annihilation incident. God I love this car.
Rightly or wrongly, if you're going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance.
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