QuestionQUESTION: My neighbor has this car which, about twice/month, shifts itself into neutral
and stays there for hours. The gear selector indicator switches to N and stays
there. When pushing on the gear selector lever, you can hear and feel
mechanical clicking from under the engine area. If you push the gear selector
level twice and release, you will here two sets of clicks about 2-4 seconds
apart.
He checks his oil level, located in a small black box on the passenger side of
his car (right hand drive in the UK) and says he sometimes needs to top it up.
However, the night I was with him, topping it up did nothing.
We pushed the car into a parking lot, left it overnight and the next morning it
went into gear like nothing had ever happened. We're both perplexed.
Any ideas or things I can help him check?
ANSWER: The pump might stop working because of poor electrical connections. Clean the battery terminals and while disconnected from the battery touch the cables together for 10 seconds to reset the computer. You can also clean any body grounds that you find. This is a very good start.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Hi Stephen,
Thanks for your very quick reply. Will do as you said, however there have
not been any electrical related issues with the car and the fact that my
neighbor said at times the fluid level has been low, leads me down the path
of something...pump related, something mechanical possibly.
If he has an intermittant air lock in the pump, what can we do to solve it?
Martino
Answerthat is a self priming system and it would be difficult for an air lock to occur. However, the fluid could become aerated if the level got low enough--but, you would then see foaming on the level indicator. The fluid level becomes low because of a bad seal. The intermittent nature of the problem suggests an electrical problem. Do you always hear the pump when turning on the ignition...
