Help!
Just before Christmas my 2019 Caravelle started having electrical problems. Putting it into reverse, the camera doesn’t always come on, I get park pilot errors come up, and the interior lights sometimes pulsate when the engine’s running. I ran a Carista scan and had about 17 errors come up, mostly canbus communication errors across the comfort bus, but it also reported a t30 low voltage (7.2v!).
Poking around in the engine bay, I found a dead rat stuck between the engine bay fuse box and the back of the headlight. He’d obviously been in there a while as the maggots had pretty much finished him off. I had a good look around and couldn’t see any wiring damage myself and have been trying to find a garage while could take a look.
Yesterday I had a car electrical specialist take a look. He couldn’t find any wiring damage either and said that if wiring had been chewed, the damage would be more obvious and the errors would be more prevalent. He managed to clear the errors, but the only one that immediately came back was the auxiliary heater, flagging a lost communication error. His thinking was that there’s a fault with the aux heater but he couldn’t get under the van to check it out.
That was yesterday. Running a diagnostic again today, all the faults have come back and I have another t30 low voltage of 8v. My thinking at this stage it either,
a) there’s a fault with the heater that’s shorting something and pulling the system voltage down (seems weird it’s not blowing a fuse),
b) there’s an issue with the battery connection to the car.
In terms of b, the positive cable looks ok at both ends, but I can’t see the chassis end of the negative cable. Anyone know where it is? One thought I have is that the juices from the rotting rat have corroded the negative earth connection and it’s causing the low voltage when the starter motor pulls a lot of amps. The car is otherwise drivable, but the battery will gradually go flat if left connected for 24 hours or so.
Any thoughts anybody? I’ve got it booked in with a highly regarded local vw specialist but they can’t get me in until March!
Just before Christmas my 2019 Caravelle started having electrical problems. Putting it into reverse, the camera doesn’t always come on, I get park pilot errors come up, and the interior lights sometimes pulsate when the engine’s running. I ran a Carista scan and had about 17 errors come up, mostly canbus communication errors across the comfort bus, but it also reported a t30 low voltage (7.2v!).
Poking around in the engine bay, I found a dead rat stuck between the engine bay fuse box and the back of the headlight. He’d obviously been in there a while as the maggots had pretty much finished him off. I had a good look around and couldn’t see any wiring damage myself and have been trying to find a garage while could take a look.
Yesterday I had a car electrical specialist take a look. He couldn’t find any wiring damage either and said that if wiring had been chewed, the damage would be more obvious and the errors would be more prevalent. He managed to clear the errors, but the only one that immediately came back was the auxiliary heater, flagging a lost communication error. His thinking was that there’s a fault with the aux heater but he couldn’t get under the van to check it out.
That was yesterday. Running a diagnostic again today, all the faults have come back and I have another t30 low voltage of 8v. My thinking at this stage it either,
a) there’s a fault with the heater that’s shorting something and pulling the system voltage down (seems weird it’s not blowing a fuse),
b) there’s an issue with the battery connection to the car.
In terms of b, the positive cable looks ok at both ends, but I can’t see the chassis end of the negative cable. Anyone know where it is? One thought I have is that the juices from the rotting rat have corroded the negative earth connection and it’s causing the low voltage when the starter motor pulls a lot of amps. The car is otherwise drivable, but the battery will gradually go flat if left connected for 24 hours or so.
Any thoughts anybody? I’ve got it booked in with a highly regarded local vw specialist but they can’t get me in until March!
