The Shed is dead... or at least quite sick

Effectively she decided to become a driveway ornament on Tuesday, just as she was supposed to head out to a car-club meeting.

A weird buzzing noise coming from somewhere towards the back of the engine plus a reluctance to fire when cranked was the overt symptom. She would occasionally start and run for a few seconds up to a minute only to subsequently cut out.

I did all the usual stuff; Wiggled the reference / speed sensor, changed the DME relay etc. but with no improvement. The AA man subsequently arrived and spent a couple of hours prodding the car with volt meters. He was unable to get the old beasty to respond at all. Crank-crank-crank but no bursting into life for even a few seconds (just to prove me a liar). AA man put in a call for a transporter to have the car recovered to a garage and wandered off muttering darkly about "bad earths" and "ECU failures".

The summoned car transporter then appeared. Being the contrary creature that she is, the car quite happily started first time to be driven off of my drive way for loading onto the transporter. "Well it didn't do that earlier..." was my lame, embarrassed comment.

When the car was delivered to my tame mechanics garage she, of course, fired up on first turn of the key with no odd buzzing noises to be heard I was very relieved when a couple of minutes later she cut out and the buzzing returned. Odd to be happy that the car was broken but I preferred that to it magically "fixing" itself (and then going wrong again later) and to be honest, I was starting to feel like a bit of a *boobie* "Yes, I have just had a perfectly working car transported 30 miles on the back of a truck".

So... now I await my mechanic's verdict.

Have you got an immobiliser fitted .... the one on the PUG makes a buzzing noise if you try and start the car when it armed?

Yes, there's a Cobra alarm/immobiliser fitted. However, the "normal" behaviour is that the car will refuse to crank when it is armed. The car is cranking OK, it just refuses to kick into life.

Ah, that was why I asking. I too have a Cobra alarm which is meant not to crank when armed ... but it does and sometime will even fire a little ... the only give away is a buzzing sound that I can't quite track down but might be from the fuel relay on mine.

Interesting... I will pass that information along. Thanks.

Had the same thing last year, garage had the banana for two weeks and they could not start or keep it running, took me an hour and it seemed to sort itself out, never found out why it happened

O....K.... My mechanic has changed the reference / speed sensor and it is now running. He has even taken it for a road-test and decided that I also have a dicky throttle position sensor (which I suspected). He is also unhappy with the rear shocks... This is starting to sound expensive!

Damn came to the party to late on this one, was going to put money on it being the ref sensor as well, happened to me 2 years ago, as everyone who was at Sandwell knows!
Once the 924S was running it would stay running, but turn it off hot and you were going nowhere for 4/5 hours!
Changed the ref sensor and it it was back to normal, til the auto box blew

Yes, tbh the reference sensor was my suspicion too. The lack of any movement from the rev counter when cranking was a big clue. On the odd occasion it did decide to start the rev counter bounced about quite happily.

The car is still missing from my drive. My mechanic mate has taken my "fix it, I'm in no hurry to have it back" comment to heart.

So far it has had a new reference and throttle position sensor plus new rear shocks and two new rear tyres.

I await further developments with interest and trepidation.

I should get the car back tomorrow... everything crossed that it is now good!

So... it is home. Actually it has been home about a week and I've done a couple of hundred miles in it. It seems to work.

What has been done?

• New reference sensor
  
• New throttle position sensor
  
• 2x new rear shocks
  
• 2x new rear tyres
  
• new alternator belt
  
• and some fiddling with a front wheel bearing

The tale of the tape? A small fortune in parts and two and a half hours labour.

Oh... and it's supposed to be going to a car club night on Tuesday. It was while trying to go to this a month ago that it failed to start. I have whispered in its wing mirror... "if you don't start Tuesday night it's the scrap yard for you".

At least it sorted for the time being! I have a feeling that mine needs some money spending on it soon!!

Good news - i normally threaten the Banana with a very large sledge hammer my self.

GOod to hear that it wasn't too bad, all regular wear parts as well so now they're done thats another 20 years before they'll need done again

Glad my old uns don't have fancy sensors