Help with an electrical issue

[Richard Bignell]

This week, my Vectra C (02) has started to have an odd electrical fault.
On Monday, a few minutes after starting the car, there was an electrical blip (no more than a second) that caused all the dashboard dials to fail. A few minutes later, there was another, slightly longer blip. This was long enough to cause all the dials to drop to zero and stay there. The odometer stopped, the indicators stopped working as did the electric windows. The radio turned itself off as the power blip was longer than before, but it could be switched on again. On the dashboard, the battery and ABS lights were both on. Ten minutes later, they stopped working. All the time, the car was driving normally. On stopping the car and starting it again, everything came back to life.

The little blips have occurred for the past four days and the longer ones resulting in loss of power to the electrical systems has happened twice - but it seems if it's going to happen, it only does it first thing in the morning.

The battery is new and connections are sound and the fuses seem fine. No fault code is being registered when the power outage happens.

Any ideas?

[Bigtee]

I had a similar problem with the dash but no power problems.

I checked all the fuses with my meter no problems and still same untill i decided to pull all the fuses out one at a time & found the instrument fuse not quite making a good contact, all is well now.

So your's may not be the same but it will do no harm and you may find this to be one of or all your problems?

[john_k_sri]

This week, my Vectra C (02) has started to have an odd electrical fault.
On Monday, a few minutes after starting the car, there was an electrical blip (no more than a second) that caused all the dashboard dials to fail. A few minutes later, there was another, slightly longer blip. This was long enough to cause all the dials to drop to zero and stay there. The odometer stopped, the indicators stopped working as did the electric windows. The radio turned itself off as the power blip was longer than before, but it could be switched on again. On the dashboard, the battery and ABS lights were both on. Ten minutes later, they stopped working. All the time, the car was driving normally. On stopping the car and starting it again, everything came back to life.

The little blips have occurred for the past four days and the longer ones resulting in loss of power to the electrical systems has happened twice - but it seems if it's going to happen, it only does it first thing in the morning.

The battery is new and connections are sound and the fuses seem fine. No fault code is being registered when the power outage happens.

Any ideas?

You say no fault is being registered, but a 'soft' code may have been stored without the EML light coming up, as was the case when my CIM needed replacing.

Could be a 'blip', or 'something or nothing' as 'glitches' are not at all uncommon. If it recurs, it will need investigating and codes read IMO.

[Richard Bignell]

I tried plugging my code reader in this morning, but it indicates that no fault codes have been logged.

[Richard Bignell]

Looking online, it seems that various people have had the same problem.

One suggested solution is that it may be a failure of the multi-timer unit beneath the fuse board that is causing the problem. Does the Vectra C have the multi-timer and if so, which fuse board is it connected to?

[Richard Bignell]

Well, the Vectra came back from the Vauxhall garage and the problem was traced to the CIM module, which had to be replaced and reprogrammed.

[Aidi]

Exactly the same with mine.. CIM module. Seems to be a great deal of these going faulty, and its not a cheap item to have replaced and reprogrammed.

Was it under warranty?

[Richard Bignell]

Nah. It ended up costing me £291 for the module, plus 50 minutes fitting and programming.