"Klaus Schmoll" (klausschmoll)
06/09/2015 at 16:05 • Filed to: None
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"Klaus Schmoll" (klausschmoll)
06/09/2015 at 16:05 • Filed to: None | 1
| 5 |
As some may remember, I went on a rather spontaneous less-than-36-hours 1900 kms round trip to check out job opportunities last week. Start Thu 14:15 east of Munich, Schwerin at 20:00 to stay for the night, talk with a headmaster near Hamburg at 10:00 Friday, full on job interview in Bremerhaven 14:30, then back home (arrived at 23:10).
While leaving Bremerhaven (google maps on the phone said I would arrive shortly after mignight) the tach needle went up and dropped to zero without the engine doing anything weird. I didn’t know what to make of it and shrugged it off. Minutes later, just 50 meters shy of the Autobahn on-ramp it completely died and wouldn’t start again. Coast to the side, hazards, hi-vis jacket, get out of car to call the ADAC. I mucked that up and got their traffic services instead of their roadside assistance. Tried to start it and it started just fine, revved up properly and all seemed good. I cautiously entered the Autobahn sitting behing the trucks, ready to pull over ASAP. The car never missed a beat and after some time I decided to fuck it and went into full speed mode to eat up those 850 kms.
When I got home I noticed that my phone wouldn’t charge anymore (Galaxy S3 that got wet a couple of weeks ago and seemed to work fine after a half-assed attemp at drying it out). Tried different cables and power outlets, at some point my laptop complained about a high power surge at the USB port! Interdasting!
Seems like the phone sent such a charge through the car’s electronics and it decided to shut down to protect itself. As soon as I unplugged it to get out and call ADAC it started again.
Can this be possible? I really like to think that my car isn’t at fault here, so is this wishful thinking? I have now driven said 850 kms plus an additional 290 commuting, and it ran perfect.
BTW: Disassembled the phone as far as possible (had to borrow proper tools for those little screws), baked it proberly and it is fine now.
uofime-2
> Klaus Schmoll
06/09/2015 at 16:11 |
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getting wet shouldn’t’ make it do anything other than cause a short circuit and blow the fuse.
Echo51
> Klaus Schmoll
06/09/2015 at 16:15 |
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Can’t be. it would just fry your USB charger, and maybe pop the fuse for the cigar lighter/possible interior lights if anything went wrong...
Snuze: Needs another Swede
> Klaus Schmoll
06/09/2015 at 16:19 |
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My inclination as a rational human being is that no, your phone should not be able to kill your car. Electrical engineers spend lots of time developing filter circuits and radiation shielding to protect electronics so it shouldn’t be possible. But I also know that electronics are full of magic. Ever wonder why your computer does not work right, then you restart it and it works fine? Magic.
Furthermore, I had something somewhat similar once. I got in my car, started it up, and the climate control was set how I left it and the vent fan was running. I plugged my phone into the charger and the fan shut off at the same time. I tried the knob on all different speeds and nothing. I shut the car off and restarted it, nothing. I shut off the car again and opened the fuse panel and checked the fuse for the vent fan, and it was fine. Then I figured it must be a relay, so I pulled the relay to get the part number, and put it back. I started the car again and the fan worked fine.
I started switching vent modes to see if anything was amiss and the only thing I noticed is that I can now have the dial set to blow out both the dash vents and the foot vents, and have recirculation on at the same time. This makes no sense because recirc mode uses the foot vents as intakes, and normally if you try this it won’t work, it just keeps turning off recirculation mode. But not anymore.
kanadanmajava1
> Klaus Schmoll
06/09/2015 at 16:30 |
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My parents’ Mondeo just burned the fuse for the cigarette lighter. I think that the Garmin navigator charger was the reason as this has happened before too. And the Ford fuse was 15 amps so I would believe that USB port power would be fuse protected too. It has to have 5 volt regulator too somewhere and those has to have some kind of current limits.
I guess the phone could short circuit the USB communication but I would think that in vehicle communication (CAN bus) should be enough separate from the engine management to be protected against such problem. But it could trigger a lot false of error codes.
The tachometer reacting before engine has any running issues hints that it could be engine management problem.
You could try to find some OBD-II interface to read fault codes. There might be some fault codes lurking there even though it hasn’t lit up any lights.
Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell.
> Klaus Schmoll
06/09/2015 at 18:21 |
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The idle on my gf’s Micra pulses with the hazard lights if you switch them on. I guess something like power surge from a broken phone could affect it.