Advice needed; strange electrical issue
Discussion
Hey all, hoping to get a bit of assistance from the community and perhaps solve this before I bite the bullet and get the franchised dealer to look into the issue for me.
Vehicle is a 2012 AM V8 Vantage S.
I was in my hatch connected to the Garmin GVN54 updating my navigation data and POIs, and while I was waiting for the data to copy, I had noticed one of the hatch bulbs had burnt out; driver's side was illuminated just fine. So I grabbed the dead bulb out of the passenger light housing to reference when I got to the parts shop. At some point between that and my data transfer, I noticed my navigation screen (which normally sits on the Aston Martin logo during file transfer) had gone dark. File transfer finished, closed everything up and took my laptop back in the house. Came outside to go to the auto parts shop and my screen wouldn't power on. I shrugged it off and figured the unit had frozen so I just needed to let it sit so it would de-energize and get a fresh power-on.
I drove the parts store, and picked up the bulb, but it wasn't quite the exact one (right length, right voltage and wattage, different P/N) so the clerk let me take it outside to try. Lo and behold, now the driver's side bulb is inoperable. I figured I must have blown a fuse when removing the other one, so what the hell, grab some fuses while I'm here and I'll replace them when I'm home.
Driving back, I notice my mirror has done that annoying quirk these cars occasionally do when reversing and is pointing too far out. No matter, I'll just hit my seat memory to return it and... my seat memory isn't working. I use the mirror controls on the door, and that works fine. I try nudging my seat forward and backward and -- to my surprise -- that isn't working either. So again I'm chalking it up to a fuse having gone south on me and just happens to control a large variety of stuff..
Well I just spent 20 minutes poking through every relevant fuse in the boot and passenger footwell (based on the documentation I could find) and none of them appeared to be blown unless I'm rubbish at seeing a dead fuse or the fuse box reference I used is different from my model year.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas of what else I should check? Specific fuses I should check / replace and see if I missed something?
Tl;dr: Navigation screen, hatch bulbs, power seat controls all stopped working and I can't figure out WTH is going on, help please!
Vehicle is a 2012 AM V8 Vantage S.
I was in my hatch connected to the Garmin GVN54 updating my navigation data and POIs, and while I was waiting for the data to copy, I had noticed one of the hatch bulbs had burnt out; driver's side was illuminated just fine. So I grabbed the dead bulb out of the passenger light housing to reference when I got to the parts shop. At some point between that and my data transfer, I noticed my navigation screen (which normally sits on the Aston Martin logo during file transfer) had gone dark. File transfer finished, closed everything up and took my laptop back in the house. Came outside to go to the auto parts shop and my screen wouldn't power on. I shrugged it off and figured the unit had frozen so I just needed to let it sit so it would de-energize and get a fresh power-on.
I drove the parts store, and picked up the bulb, but it wasn't quite the exact one (right length, right voltage and wattage, different P/N) so the clerk let me take it outside to try. Lo and behold, now the driver's side bulb is inoperable. I figured I must have blown a fuse when removing the other one, so what the hell, grab some fuses while I'm here and I'll replace them when I'm home.
Driving back, I notice my mirror has done that annoying quirk these cars occasionally do when reversing and is pointing too far out. No matter, I'll just hit my seat memory to return it and... my seat memory isn't working. I use the mirror controls on the door, and that works fine. I try nudging my seat forward and backward and -- to my surprise -- that isn't working either. So again I'm chalking it up to a fuse having gone south on me and just happens to control a large variety of stuff..
Well I just spent 20 minutes poking through every relevant fuse in the boot and passenger footwell (based on the documentation I could find) and none of them appeared to be blown unless I'm rubbish at seeing a dead fuse or the fuse box reference I used is different from my model year.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas of what else I should check? Specific fuses I should check / replace and see if I missed something?
Tl;dr: Navigation screen, hatch bulbs, power seat controls all stopped working and I can't figure out WTH is going on, help please!
Was the car running or on a battery conditioner while you were doing the satnav update? If not maybe the battery voltage got low as a lot of the symptoms you describe match low battery. These cars are a little odd in that the voltage can be low enough for the electrical 'funnies' to appear but still high enough that the car will start. Of course after a few minutes of running voltage will appear normal but by then the various memories / settings have already been lost (or gone a bit nuts!). Maybe check to see if one touch windows are no longer one touch as that is another symptyom. Anyway, worth a reset, procedure is on here if you search but basically disconnect battery for a minute or so then work thriough the various reset procedures for seats, windows etc! It's a zero cost solution to try if nothing else!
I made an appointment this morning for next week just in case this was something more complicated. Also I tested the window auto roll-down and it worked just fine. No resets needed.
I grabbed a probe off Amazon to test the fuses, and went through every fuse in the boot with the ignition on. Everything either lit up as it was supposed to, or didn’t have any current running to it at all.
The solution was indeed in the footwell fuse panel as Hutch525 suggested. I repeated the same fuse probe exercise in the footwell panel, and 5A mini fuse F46 was only showing current on one side of the fuse. Don’t know how I missed it yesterday, but using the fuse tester was a huge help. Swapped the fuse, ignition on, and everything was alive again.
So there you have it: if your navigator computer, power seats and seat memory, and boot lamps are all not working simultaneously, check fuse F46, footwell.
The October 2005 revision workshop manual says F46 is “5A - Driver Information/Master light switch/Glovebox relay/Master lock switch Battery Off switch/Boot release switch/Speaker-switch/JBFB-R7/Centre console module/Bluetooth module”. This has obviously changed in later cars (as all of those things worked), but I can’t find an edition of the workshop manual relevant to the MY2012 car.
Happy ending, and appointment to franchised dealer cancelled.
I grabbed a probe off Amazon to test the fuses, and went through every fuse in the boot with the ignition on. Everything either lit up as it was supposed to, or didn’t have any current running to it at all.
The solution was indeed in the footwell fuse panel as Hutch525 suggested. I repeated the same fuse probe exercise in the footwell panel, and 5A mini fuse F46 was only showing current on one side of the fuse. Don’t know how I missed it yesterday, but using the fuse tester was a huge help. Swapped the fuse, ignition on, and everything was alive again.
So there you have it: if your navigator computer, power seats and seat memory, and boot lamps are all not working simultaneously, check fuse F46, footwell.
The October 2005 revision workshop manual says F46 is “5A - Driver Information/Master light switch/Glovebox relay/Master lock switch Battery Off switch/Boot release switch/Speaker-switch/JBFB-R7/Centre console module/Bluetooth module”. This has obviously changed in later cars (as all of those things worked), but I can’t find an edition of the workshop manual relevant to the MY2012 car.
Happy ending, and appointment to franchised dealer cancelled.
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