Its not 'just' a Jeep thing!

[SeaComms]

Was driving my work car today, a 2009 Mitsubishi Outlander as I usually do. Now 2 months and 5,000km out of warranty.

While backing out the driveway this morning the dash dinged and flashed up a big picture of a brake drum and shoes with big red writing CHECK BRAKES.

It only lasted a few seconds then disappeared and I kept driving off to work. Did it once more on the motorway on the way to work so when I got to work though maybe the brake fluid was low, though I wasnt overly expecting this since it was serviced 5 days ago. A quick check of master cylinder and around the wheels showed nothing, except the master cylinder reservoir was at least 10mm over full.

Did a couple of quick runaround jobs during the day and didnt really think about it again til heading off down the motorway to my last job and the same warning flashed then disappeared again. This time though it came back again several times over the next 30 seconds but each time it came back the radio cut out!

Then the dash changed from red to bright orange and was flashing ABS Failure warning, then the speedo and tacho both jerked around a bit before dropping to 0. The radio cut out completely and was emitting a loud rapid clicking sound, the dash was now flashing all sorts of warning one after the other so fast I couldnt see them all, but the one I did catch was URGENT SERVICE REQUIRED, ABS TOTAL FAILURE amongst pretty much every other system and light flashing all over the place!!!

At this point I though travelling at 100km/hr on the motor way was not the best place to be, so gently pulled over, noticing the blinker wasnt working, so hit the hazzard lights and they were a no go too!

Turned it off for a few minutes then decided to give it another try especially since I wasnt in an ideal place to stop so fired it up and all looked normal so I moved it forward 50 metres into a wider spot and as I went to pull up it all went bezerk again.

Decided it wasnt worth it to continue on and organised a tow truck. Dropped it back to the service centre and left it with them for the afternoon.

They rang me a few hours later and said the only fault recorded was an Engine Immobiliser fault and they could find nothing wrong with it at all. Said to come pick it up and call them if it does it again....

See - its not just Jeeps that do absurd things for no apparent reason

[LSE3.9]

You're dead right Seacoms. It's not just a Jeep thing. A couple of years ago I was coming home from picking up my Falcon XR6 from the dealer and things went pear shaped. I was doing 100kmh at night on a narrow highway mixed up in the Friday night ski traffic. Suddenly the dash started flashing crazy just like yours did and with incessant beeping and then there was nothing - as in - no accelerator, no power steering, a hard brake pedal and no engine, no dash lights either -just headlights. Extremely scary and lucky to get out of it intact.

Long story short is that the car started misreading the electronic key in the ignition and decided it was being stolen and it wasn't about to let that happen so it shut everything down.

[Banshee]

Great! A car that thinks it is being stolen, so tries to commit suicide & kill it's occupants! Just what we need!

Oh yeah, and I recall reading about another guy who had something similar where the ECU shut the engine down when it got some bad data. Fortunately for him, just past the rail crossing. Turned out, all he needed to do was disconnect the battery to reset it, but who thinks of having to reboot your car? He didn't know this, however, & only found out what the problem was after it had been flatbed towed to the dealer for repair.

That old joke about Microsoft cars is true, and it is already here.