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General >> Problems >> Disconnecting Battery......
(Message started by: Dave on Dec 30th, 2004, 3:22pm)

Title: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Dave on Dec 30th, 2004, 3:22pm
Hi All,

hope everyone had a nice Christmas!  :)

Quick question; I disconnected the battery today to replace some locks, reconnected it about 3 hours later. It wouldn't run very well (which I was expecting) but evened out until it idled fine. When moving off from rest it kept stalling but we assumed the ECU was relearning itself so carried on. Everything seemed to be smoothing out until we had done about 10 miles and came back into town traffic before it started stalling again when coming to rest!  >:(

I thought the car needed about 5 miles to relearn itself, is this accurate? When in Park it idles fine at about 750rpm as before. It kept restarting straight away and seemed to be ok before we got near home  :( Maybe it just needs a long run?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

BTW it is a '96 24v auto.

Chars

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Snoopy on Dec 30th, 2004, 3:57pm
Drive cycle learning can take some time especially if you don't do this procedure http://www.fordscorpio.co.uk/drivecycle.htm which sppeds up the learning.. It should however get there after a few miles  of town/urban work.....


Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Dave on Dec 30th, 2004, 5:30pm
That's great, thank you Snoop. Might be tough finding a road suitable for that proceedure, but we'll use it as best as we can. Just planning a route now...  actually there is a road. Ok.

Excellent. Scorpio Drive Cycle shall commence on 'the road' at precisely quite:late tonight!

Thanks for the help Snoopy, it's greatly appreciated.

We'll let you know what happens...
D

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by johnv on Dec 30th, 2004, 7:10pm
I have disconnected the battery on my scorpio's a few time and when i drove off, my cars did not do all that memory loss business.
They where the same as before i disconnected.
My question is, mine where only disconnected for 10 minutes of perhaps 15, no longer.
So is it the lenght of time that the battery is connected, because it would take a fair time to replace locks.
But what about those Draper memory savers, I got mine for £4.99 on Ebay plus postage.
They work on a square 9V battery, you plug them into you cigar lighter.
I also got one that is mains powered.
You can them have your radio on while you work.

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by johnv on Dec 30th, 2004, 7:16pm
i forgot to say on my last post, that i did not have the memory savers, when i dis-connected the battery as per my last posting.
but i have used them since and they work a treat

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Dave on Dec 30th, 2004, 7:25pm
Many thanks John - I think the memory savers are a good idea and may invest in one. Also as you say the circuits may "remember" themselves for a while but when disconnected for as long as ours was today it must just be too long without power.

Thansk for the replies  ;D

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by mr._floppy on Dec 30th, 2004, 7:54pm
Although I love my Scorpio with a passion that is rather worrying in a man of my advanced years , now and again I  feel the need to slap the designers of the car  round the head with a wet haddock .  This is one occasion ,  the absolute  boneheadedness  of neglecting  to  fit a back-up  power  memory system to  retain engine management  data while the  battery is removed  is  quite  unforgivable, given the number of times this will happen in the car 's  lifetime.


 What  were  those   Bavarian Buffoons  thinking of ?

  GRRRRRrrrr!

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by johnv on Dec 30th, 2004, 8:03pm
If I see any of those memory savers on ebay for less that £10 I will do a posting.
I say everyone should have one, keep it inside your glove locker so that you can find it when you need it.
I mean you carry a spare wheel don't you, so why not carry the memory saver.
I plug mine in the back, because there is not to much room at the front behind the gear lever.

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by johnv on Dec 30th, 2004, 8:37pm
WAKE UP, BECAUSE I ONLY GOING TO SAY THIS ONCE.
DON'T ALL DASH AT ONCE.
ITEM NO  7927591101 MEMORY SAVER. £6.60 Buy it Now. post £3.
That's on E-Bay of course.
Don't say I have not told you all.
By the way he has got 48 of these.

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Dave on Dec 30th, 2004, 8:57pm
Thanks John  ;D

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Dave on Jan 1st, 2005, 6:12pm
Hullo all, Dave here.

Right. Ben did the last door lock yesterday and now we can get into the car with keys instead of prayers. I took it out today to do the drive cycle as best as possible. Unfortunately the roads around here are too short and full of thousands of people who walk dogs in cars and take fleets of X5s and Cayennes to the pub for lunch.. and millions upon millions of Honda drivers, 18mph on your favourite back roads.

I digress. The car picked itself up after the drive cycle but still stalled at every available opportunity. After a few miles I just thought sod it, and began the left foot braking scheme. Did twenty miles hoping to find empty roads (it's new year's day for feck sake) but no. Stalling still bad. Then! Ben took it out tonight and said it cured itself little by little every time he coasted to 20. So tomorrow i'll carry on with a similar theme.

I am surely cursed by cars that can't idle. Every single one of my motors has had medium-serious idling issues for long periods of time. Grrr! Problem with the Scorpio is i'm burning a fiver of optimax on every test.

Anyway. I've rambled too long. Take care all

I hate new years.

Love Dave.


Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by mr._floppy on Jan 1st, 2005, 7:17pm
My sympathies.


One good thing about living in the   countryside is the relative  quietness of the roads  and lack of traffic lights and junctions.    Also,     nearby,  is  a 7 mile stretch of road  with  7 or 8   lay-bys ,  ideal  for  test  driving   and  on - the - road    tweaking   and  adjustment.

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Dave on Jan 1st, 2005, 10:07pm
Aye : ) Sounds nice. Remind me to move house next time I need some roads.

I've been trying to get the family to move out to the country for a while now. We all want it... well, not mum so much. Rest of us do, though. One day. One day!

Don't take your open roads for granted, Monsier Flop! You obviously don't : )

D

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Eddie on Jan 3rd, 2005, 3:49pm
A scorpio on learning cycle shouldnt give the sort of problems you describe.

It should start at a theoretical/safe best setting and gradually improve.

Are you sure you havnt left something disconnected or disturbed something alse??

Have a good look around the engine area for loose dangly bits??!! :o

eddie

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by johnv on Jan 3rd, 2005, 7:10pm
Hi to Dave, not much use I know, but on page 114 of the owners scorpio guide it says this.
If the battery has been disconnected these vehicles may exhibit some unusual driving characteristics for approximately 5 miles after battery reconnection. This is due to the automatic relearning of the engine management system to the actual engine and may be disregarded.
So its saying 5 miles and you must have done that by now, so it looks like it must be something else.
Sorry can't be more help

Title: Re: Disconnecting Battery......
Post by Dave on Jan 4th, 2005, 9:44am
Hi,

(Ben here this time)

Thanks to John and Eddie for that. I am absolutely sure
that I did not touch anything else when disconnecting the battery but as you say it might be a good idea to check for anything unintentionally disturbed  >:(

The car ran absolutely fine prior to this, it obviously just doesn't like me  ;D

Dave was not quite accurate in an earlier post though - I found what seemed to help was coasting down to a stop (as far as possible with an auto) a few times, it ws definitely more stable after doing that and didn't stall for me once despite me putting all electrics on and turning the wheel as I came to a halt.

Anyhow, thanks again for the replies

Cheers



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