Why I slowly start to hate my V8VR....
Discussion
Disclaimer: you might read unkind things about AM in this post; I'm somehow sorry for that but on the other hand I'm not because this car pisses me off - for every day of joy it gives me a day of trouble & headache. Any advice is appreciated.
Why I hate my V8VR:
1) Because it sometimes doesn't open the roof (message. "stop to open roof", the issue is: I'm standing still). Topic disappears usually after a while, problem is not reproducable, AM says "nothing we can do"
2) I get since a week randomly the "break failure, please stop immediately" message. No reason whatsoever, the message comes and goes, sometimes within 30-60 seconds while driving. Car has been to full AM dealer inspection about 4 weeks ago, is only 7 years old with 36,000km (22k miles).
3) When this message comes, all electronics go dead on the car: no revs, no speed, no indicators. Which idiot programmed this crap?
4) Since today my roof doesn't work anymore - no, not the issue 1), I don't get any message at all, it just doesn't work.
5) The clutch seems to be slipping at random: the car has low milage and is a manual. Now the clutch starts to behave crazy. 2,500 revs, 4th gear, full throttle: 70% of the time the engine revs up about 1k without main acceleration, like a very bad old school automatic. No issue in 2nd or 5th gear. In 3rd sometimes. It's a manual with only 22k miles!
6) Today not even the remote worked anymore. I couldn't lock the car and I could open the boot anymore. All ok again after 30min waiting but I can't work like that...
Why I love my V8VR:
Read the rest of the forum, the good spots are all there but every day I go for a drive I wonder if it's a good or a bad day. On a good day, it's one of the best cars in the world, the drive, the sound, everything. On a day like today, unfortunately that every other day, it's a piece of s
t that I would sell immediately. If on such a day someone comes across with the right offer, it will be gone in a second...
Sorry for letting off the steam but this car is just fked up in it's electronics...
Why I hate my V8VR:
1) Because it sometimes doesn't open the roof (message. "stop to open roof", the issue is: I'm standing still). Topic disappears usually after a while, problem is not reproducable, AM says "nothing we can do"
2) I get since a week randomly the "break failure, please stop immediately" message. No reason whatsoever, the message comes and goes, sometimes within 30-60 seconds while driving. Car has been to full AM dealer inspection about 4 weeks ago, is only 7 years old with 36,000km (22k miles).
3) When this message comes, all electronics go dead on the car: no revs, no speed, no indicators. Which idiot programmed this crap?
4) Since today my roof doesn't work anymore - no, not the issue 1), I don't get any message at all, it just doesn't work.
5) The clutch seems to be slipping at random: the car has low milage and is a manual. Now the clutch starts to behave crazy. 2,500 revs, 4th gear, full throttle: 70% of the time the engine revs up about 1k without main acceleration, like a very bad old school automatic. No issue in 2nd or 5th gear. In 3rd sometimes. It's a manual with only 22k miles!
6) Today not even the remote worked anymore. I couldn't lock the car and I could open the boot anymore. All ok again after 30min waiting but I can't work like that...
Why I love my V8VR:
Read the rest of the forum, the good spots are all there but every day I go for a drive I wonder if it's a good or a bad day. On a good day, it's one of the best cars in the world, the drive, the sound, everything. On a day like today, unfortunately that every other day, it's a piece of s
t that I would sell immediately. If on such a day someone comes across with the right offer, it will be gone in a second...Sorry for letting off the steam but this car is just f
ked up in it's electronics...Edited by TKP on Monday 24th April 20:35
Thanks for the advice, hornbaek & Bincenzo. I would have guessed they check the battery for 1,700 EUR (that's the inspecition tag at AM Germany). Any other signs for a weak battery? I had so far no issues at all with starting, roof up or down while engine not running etc.... and I just drove about 70 miles highway yesterday with up to 170 mph, so whatever is left of the battery should be charged.
I have no clue how old the battery is, I'm the second owner since 7 months and 3.5k km.
I have no clue how old the battery is, I'm the second owner since 7 months and 3.5k km.
It will be the convertible roof module.
rbv8v said:
See my topic from a couple of weeks back - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Sounds like a similar issue - in the roadster you have to operate the roof to get to the satnav disks, so it could be the convertible roof module ... see the info the dealer gave me below:
Sounds like a similar issue - in the roadster you have to operate the roof to get to the satnav disks, so it could be the convertible roof module ... see the info the dealer gave me below:
rbv8v said:
It turns out that the "Convertible Roof Control Module" is part of the CAN Bus system in the car - (apparently there are two "networks", one high speed for safety features, and one low speed for noncritical stuff like door locks, windows and radio etc). When a module fails (like the convertible roof control module) it spits out loads of erroneous data into the network causing it to crash all the other stuff - hence the dash/windows/dials/radio etc going nuts.
TKP said:
... and I just drove about 70 miles highway yesterday with up to 170 mph, so whatever is left of the battery should be charged.
You have to love Germany, even just for comments like that.I doubt that the battery was checked. But that and/or the convertible roof module sound like good places to start.
Try posting in the Bamford Rose thread too, they are very helpful people who really know the Gaydon era cars...
A battery can't be checked with the standard equipment most garages have. But around 100€ for a new one it's a fast decision to start with replacing the old one if in doubt.
And as you can read in several threads here in PH about the Roadster, the Roof Module has a bad habbit of disturbing the other ECUs in the car, so I would start with this unit as rbv8v has written above.
Regarding the clutch: So you bought a car with 20.000 miles, you don't know what the other owners did to the clutch, the clutch itself is a well known wear and tear unit in our cars...and you are moaning about it ?
OK, it's an expensive part, but it needs to be replaced...
And as you can read in several threads here in PH about the Roadster, the Roof Module has a bad habbit of disturbing the other ECUs in the car, so I would start with this unit as rbv8v has written above.
Regarding the clutch: So you bought a car with 20.000 miles, you don't know what the other owners did to the clutch, the clutch itself is a well known wear and tear unit in our cars...and you are moaning about it ?
OK, it's an expensive part, but it needs to be replaced...
Edited by EvoOlli on Tuesday 25th April 07:33
As others have noted, battery and clutch. I don't know about the roof module as I never owned a convertible... Buying a coupe resolves items 1 & 4 though 
Aston clutches do not take the abuse that most modern cars can sadly. People do get into bad habits and it does have foibles. Don't ride the clutch at all (ie keep feet off the pedal and quick smooth use of the pedal only). Also avoid reversing up any sort of incline whatsoever. The engine also has anti stall (let the clutch up and it will move at tick over, road speed/gear permitting) , which you can use to avoid riding/slipping the clutch. Sadly they are expensive, and you probably have no chance of the dealer contributing, but worth asking. I think the lowest anecdotal failure I heard of was around 5k miles, and you've done less than that so you'd have to be very ham footed to kill it yourself.
Battery is a cheap test. All modern cars suffer eventually with this malaise. The price we pay for useful/not so useful electronics. If you don't use the car regularly, buy a battery conditioner (Accumate or cTeck). Batteries even a little way from healthy can cause all sorts of random issues.
Aston clutches do not take the abuse that most modern cars can sadly. People do get into bad habits and it does have foibles. Don't ride the clutch at all (ie keep feet off the pedal and quick smooth use of the pedal only). Also avoid reversing up any sort of incline whatsoever. The engine also has anti stall (let the clutch up and it will move at tick over, road speed/gear permitting) , which you can use to avoid riding/slipping the clutch. Sadly they are expensive, and you probably have no chance of the dealer contributing, but worth asking. I think the lowest anecdotal failure I heard of was around 5k miles, and you've done less than that so you'd have to be very ham footed to kill it yourself.
Battery is a cheap test. All modern cars suffer eventually with this malaise. The price we pay for useful/not so useful electronics. If you don't use the car regularly, buy a battery conditioner (Accumate or cTeck). Batteries even a little way from healthy can cause all sorts of random issues.
I don't like trying to diagnose via the forum as there are so many variables and you can't beat an experienced tech' doing a physical check - but clutch aside it does sound like the guys are on the money with either the roof module (which wreakes havoc with the electronics when it fails) and from your description things started with a roof problem - or the battery on its last legs, get both double checked.... then deal with the clutch. Let us know how you get on and fingers crossed it gets sorted promptly so you can enjoy a roof down summer with full on V8 soundtrack to help you forget past issues.
Thanks for all the advice, I'll start with a new battery and work it from there... regarding the clutch: it's not so much about the price tag, I'm aware that this part needs to be replaced sooner or later, however, 20,000 miles on a manual is very, very little for a clutch failure from all I read.
And of course in Germany AM dealers are scare and specialists that offer better clutch solutions are even less widely spread so it's a major "administrative" hassle to get that fixed...
And thanks for pointing out the potential issue wih the roof module, I would have expected an AM dealer to bring that up.
And of course in Germany AM dealers are scare and specialists that offer better clutch solutions are even less widely spread so it's a major "administrative" hassle to get that fixed...
And thanks for pointing out the potential issue wih the roof module, I would have expected an AM dealer to bring that up.
Simple check for the roof module is pull the fuse.
RIB27 said:
Car is back! It was indeed the Roof Control Module. Apparently it's a fairly common issue. All covered under the extended warranty and a nice quick change for the dealer.
Apparently if anyone gets stuck with this problem you can unplug the module and the car will work fine without it (except the roof of course), I'm not sure where it's located though. I wonder if pulling the fuse F10 (Convertible Roof module) in the boot would solve the issue for anybody who encounters it in the future?
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&t=1664855&r=35560415&hm=221347&Apparently if anyone gets stuck with this problem you can unplug the module and the car will work fine without it (except the roof of course), I'm not sure where it's located though. I wonder if pulling the fuse F10 (Convertible Roof module) in the boot would solve the issue for anybody who encounters it in the future?
sf1969 said:
Hello Moonhawk
From your description of the faults I'm almost certain it's the roof control module. Mine did just the same thing and I ended up with all sorts of faults on the dash, no instruments, boot lid wouldn't operate, no indicators. I replaced the module which is in a panel over the rear wheel arch and fixed it, the part is just over £500.
If you want to check, take the passenger floor carpet up, remove the alloy fuse panel and locate the small roof control module fuse in the canbus system and pull it out. The roof won't work, but everything else will return to normal. The roof module looks for speed signal, boot closed etc etc before it allows the roof to open/close and hence when it is failing, it throws gremlins in to all these areas via the canbus. The part needs to be ordered to the car, disconnect the battery before fitment and its plug and play, nothing more needed.
You can close the roof manually if you read the manual instructions, and if you can live without it being open, you can drive the car until you change the module.
From your description of the faults I'm almost certain it's the roof control module. Mine did just the same thing and I ended up with all sorts of faults on the dash, no instruments, boot lid wouldn't operate, no indicators. I replaced the module which is in a panel over the rear wheel arch and fixed it, the part is just over £500.
If you want to check, take the passenger floor carpet up, remove the alloy fuse panel and locate the small roof control module fuse in the canbus system and pull it out. The roof won't work, but everything else will return to normal. The roof module looks for speed signal, boot closed etc etc before it allows the roof to open/close and hence when it is failing, it throws gremlins in to all these areas via the canbus. The part needs to be ordered to the car, disconnect the battery before fitment and its plug and play, nothing more needed.
You can close the roof manually if you read the manual instructions, and if you can live without it being open, you can drive the car until you change the module.
Edited by DAMIT on Tuesday 25th April 09:11
AW111 said:
I am amused by the way faults in a "prestige" car like an AM are better diagnosed by strangers on an internet forum than by the dealer. 
I do think that sometimes us normal folk don't have access to the plug in and see what the diagnostic tools says, so we have to actually find the fault ourselves and then find a way to fix it. The experience of skilled car mechanics is unfortunately a dying breed in my opinion.I remember an AM dealer (I wont mention which) that put on my car report that they would 'investigate' why my ashtray lid would not close. I thought I'd try and diagnose this myself, so I opened it, found an unused pop rivet and removed it.........and then it would close
That's why I love this forum, you can pretty much search for whatever you want and will generally get the correct answer.
TKP said:
2) I get since a week randomly the "break failure, please stop immediately" message. No reason whatsoever, the message comes and goes, sometimes within 30-60 seconds while driving. Car has been to full AM dealer inspection about 4 weeks ago, is only 7 years old with 36,000km (22k miles).
3) When this message comes, all electronics go dead on the car: no revs, no speed, no indicators.
Mine is a hardtop and when this exact same thing happened (my only EVER issue with the car in 3yrs). BRAKE FAILURE being screamed - but brakes were fine!!! So they changed the Beru TPMS module and checked many electrical connector blocks in the car. Been fine ever since. It was a bloody odd fault though as the whole dash went dead, mirrors folded in and indicators wouldn't work - not good at 170mph on the M4, err i mean AUTOBAHN!!!3) When this message comes, all electronics go dead on the car: no revs, no speed, no indicators.
I videoed many of these full on fault conditions for help in fault finding - if they are of any use to you DM me.
You will get over this - make your dealer earn his money! Aston will always step in to help too if your dealer is really not pulling this weight - which they really don't want! You have many friends
Thanks again for all the good input, highly appreciated. The prospect of fixing the whole topic with a new roof ECU for about 500 quid and a new battery sounds very positive.
I'm just not sure if I should order the roof ECU via AMbits and install it myself (or in a garage I trust) or if I should risk going to that dealer again...
That things should do it: https://astonmartinbits.com/models/5-V8-Vantage/pa...
btw: TPMS is disabled on my car, the AM dealer did that...
I'm just not sure if I should order the roof ECU via AMbits and install it myself (or in a garage I trust) or if I should risk going to that dealer again...
That things should do it: https://astonmartinbits.com/models/5-V8-Vantage/pa...
btw: TPMS is disabled on my car, the AM dealer did that...
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