Put Exige in garage last night - running perfectly - wont start this morning, engine turns over a treat, but won’t fire. Had similar prob about month ago - AndyD suggested it could be due to low fuel level in tank affecting pickup - kept tank topped up since - no probs until today - 25 litres in at mo. Suggestions anyone before I get the spanners out?
Cheers Simon
Simon
Same thing has happened to me twice recently
First time was due to blown 7.5 amp fuse in the “ECU compartment” behind the seats.
Second time remains a mystery! I checked all fuses, wiggled all the relays, pressed the inertia cut off reset button (on chassis below intake trunking & mentioned in handbook), & checked the plug leads/coil pack, but still nothing! Went through the same procedure once more, & hey presto
Bloody cars - don’t you just love 'em
You could also try leaving it in gear and moving the car forward a foot of two, taking it out of gear and trying to start it again…I seem to remember reading something about this but cant remember any of the techie explanation…
I’m crap at doing links to other pages, so here was my explanation posted last month
ADMIN - is this worth putting on the Common Problems page?
Decided this needs a trophy as I think I know what it is
I had this problem also, and spent weeks (and some money with Bell and Colvill) trying to get it sorted - to no avail.
Eventually I found that a fellow sprinter (Simon Thornley) who hasa megaK in his Westfield told me hte secret.
Basically, the battery specced in the Exige is too small (bear with me on this - it’s going somewhere) - the Elise specs a 063 battery, which is itself smaller than MG recommend for the MGF - then the Exige has a higher compression ratio than the standard engine (11 rather than 10.5) - which means the battery should be even bigger, but isn’t.
Now, on the K series, there is a crank sensor - the wierd way that the ECU is written means that when the ignition is turned on, the ECU allows the cranking relay to operate, but not the relay which controls the injectors or coil pack. These are not switched on until the engine has got a satisfactory response from the crank sensor that the engine is turning over fast enough.
All seems OK so far - however, if the engine is slightly slow - which could be your battery just a tiddly bit under full charge, then the engine does not crank quick enough and the crank sensor throws a wobbly and refuses to tell the ECU to fire anything else up - hence the cranks OK but no spark or injectors.
Most people tend to let go of the key, leave it a bit and try again - here is the problem - the ECU does not reset until the ignition is fully off for at least 30 seconds - therefore just getting back in and trying again without the ignition having been turned off will not help.
Then you kick the car, go inside for a beer - go back to it the next day and it bloody starts, purely because the engine might be cranking just a little faster. Truth is, had you just turned off the ignition, left it for 2 mins and come back it may well have started anyway. Seems that Exiges are right on the threshold speed to crank - sometimes it just doesn’t get it going fast enough, and you can never tell when that will be.
Simon from MG confided in me that they have ECUs in Rover which are modified with a green LED and red LED that tell them visibly whether the engine is cranking over quick enough if they get a problem on the production line - that’s how common it is even with the correct battery.
With the standard battery, you will never fix this problem (assuming your Exige suffers - some have less volt drops in the electrics and will never be afflicted)
My fix has been to fit a bigger battery an 065 rather than an 063 - gives 520 amps of crank instead of 340. The only problem is that it is 1 inch bigger in the left to right dimension when looking down from above. It is possible to fit, but bloody difficult - basically you have to pull wiring as far out the way as possible, remove the radiator shorud and then remove the 5 bolts holding the heater in place and slide the heater as far to the left as possible. Then you can JUST squeeze the bigger battery through the gap by tilting it - once it’s in it has plenty of room as there is clearance on the floor under the chassis leg, so the heater can be put back into it’s normal position. The battery clamp has to have the right hand edge removed to make way for the wider battery, but once it’s in, it’s in and will not go anywhere. Since then, job done, no more starting problems, and a battery that sits for weeks longer before needing a charge
Sorry for the long post
Mark, will a ‘Known Problems’ section do?
Click here - http://www.exiges.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=UBB7
Thanks for all the suggestions guys…Would you believe it! came home still wouldn’t start. Fuel pump kicking in, checked all fuses - ok, wiggled a few wires and hey presto she bursts into life!! - so don’t really know what prob was - still we’ve made up now and am taking her out for an evening’s entertainment - Again BIG thanks…
Happened to me twice.
I checked everything…and it was the throttle body sensor. It hapened when some water went on it…
bye
Nicolas
Nicolas
Exiges eh! - who’d have one?
Mark et al
2nd time I mentioned above, the battery was fully charged - as I now always hook it up to a trickle charger whenever the car’s parked up in my garage.
It seems that there are probably a few possible reasons for the problem, rather than just a single one
I had exacly the same problem this weekend and decided to call out the RAC.
The car was turning over but not firing, one thing I hadn’t spotted (wihich the RAC man did) was that the injectors where not even clicking.
All he did to get it started was to wiggle the blue crank sensor connector going nto the Crankcase (You can just see it under the left hand side of the air box in the center of the engine) and the car started.
He explained that it’s the crank sensor, apparently it only returns a tiny electrical signal through this connector, and eventually you get the usual poor connection build up especially if the car has been stationary. moving this conector scratched through the build up and the signal can then be sent to the ECU to tell it that the engine is turning.
He said the best thing to do is to remove the connector and spray it with contact cleaner, but you can’t get to it without removing the airbox.
Now I know what it was that was causing the problam, i’m a happy Exiger again.
John.