help needed!! signum going mental!

**jsnlvxr** · 6th September 2010, 23:04

just as im about to trade the siggy in its decided to play up. the missis started the car and realised the internal fan wasnt working, warnings came up about headlight bulbs,she tried turning the fan up and the radio volume went up!! it then died completely on a roundabout,and wouldnt turn over just made a quiet tick noise. we got it running again with jump leads but power inside car slowly dissapeared, engine still running but no power steering!! any ideas anyone?? suposed to be trading it inb for a vectra vxr in the next couple weeks!! any help appreciated

**lee gsi** · 6th September 2010, 23:07

Sounds like the alternator has died.

**Keithy** · 6th September 2010, 23:07

sounds like cim? anyone ?

**Penfold101** · 6th September 2010, 23:07

Sounds like the alternator possibly, as the power steering is driven by an electric pump. There's also a plug on the ABS I think which can affect the electrics when it corrodes. Might be worth a search...

**Ademusic** · 6th September 2010, 23:08

Either that or a control module....

**Keithy** · 6th September 2010, 23:08

or what lee says

**GARY3306** · 6th September 2010, 23:09

Alternator. Check the charge rate with a multimeter

**jsnlvxr** · 6th September 2010, 23:15

cool i get that checked. when the jump leads was on the electrics seemed to be ok,apart from the hids which would stay on for about 1 min but i guess thats where there wasnt enough power. the interior lighting,screen etc would flash erraticly too.

**jsnlvxr** · 7th September 2010, 07:10

right my brother is bringing down a multimeter later. how exactly should i test the charge rate?? start the engine and see what were gettin on the battery terminal?? thanks guys

**marcdale** · 7th September 2010, 12:19

Wierd, I started having exactly the same issue yesterday. Fine driving to work, but when I left work, sat in traffic and all of a sudden my door locks start resetting on their own, dashboard goes completely dead then jumps back to life again, I temporarily loose control of indicators and wipers, speedo and rev dials drop back to zero and then jump up again etc. Engine still running, but all the way home on a 20 min motorway drive all of the above just happening over and over all the way home.

It's almost like when you fist get in the car, put the key in the ignition and go through all the dash board light tests etc. It just cycles through that over and over while driving.

First thing I did was test the voltage across the battery and it was 14v + with the engine running.

Don't want to replace alternator if that's not the problem. '04 3.2 GSI, with original alternator and original battery, so not sure...

Has anyone actually experienced the same issue and resolved it? I agree that the most obvious cause is alternator, but does anyone actually know the cause, are we guessing?

Cheers