Matt O.

I had dozens of codes initially. I cleared them out, ran it again. Had several that I believe were related to lower voltage (car was only in key-on position). Cleared them, started the car and ran it again. Below is the report. Does anyone know a good location to find what these codes mean?

Thanks, apologize if this is a dumb question. I don't see a fault code list anywhere and the info from the Durametric is a little cryptic.

deilenberger

This is a new car to you isn't it? Seems as if it might have been neglected. Since I haven't plugged my Durametric in since I got the iCarScan - can't say what those codes mean, but the Durametric generally gives a better explanation of codes like that (such as servo motor not responding.. etc.) It sounds as if there might be some work for you in the wiring harness in the right footwell.. that's the usual one that gets corroded first. Just checked mine over the other day, PITA job. The splices were further up the cable/firewall than on my old 955, and Porsche used what looks like a reasonably durable/waterproof splice. No matter - I cut the splices out and respliced using a soldering iron (old time electronics guy) - the splices are in the signalling wires - and I thought that might be the reason for the "no response" codes on the left and right vent stepper motors on my rear HVAC.. but nope. Thing is - the motors DO work fine - and the vents DO work fine, so I'm chasing a ghost. Given that you also have steering column errors, it might be worth taking a look at the drivers side too.

What isn't working on your heater aside from your heated seats?

Matt O.

Heated seats, and now I noticed that the "automatic" setting on the climate control isn't very precise. It was pretty hot in the car, turned it to 68F, and it barely blew anything. Manually turned it all the way up, and it blew full cold.

I was afraid of the corrosion issue. I'll dig into it...

Eskimo1

Off-topic a bit, but Don, what did you ever figure out for getting the carpet up, short of dismantling the entire interior? I was able to lift up the carpeting a little on mine after the seat was removed for running wire, but it was basically propped up - not something I'd want to be doing while trying to solder!

deilenberger

I did about the same thing, propped the seat to the rear. It would take someone much younger and stronger than I am to lift the seat out of the vehicle, and I didn't want to disconnect the 5 or 7 connectors connecting the seat to the car.

I was able to wedge the carpeting out from the seam toward the B pillar using a wedge tool. I managed to pop off part of the B pillar plastic cover using the same wedge, lifted it enough to get the carpeting out and above it. I then pulled the carpeting down from around the HVAC box into the footwell, and pulled it out from under the kickpanel on the passengers side. Doing all that, I could get it up a foot or so above the actual floor of the car. And I had enough room to snip tie-wraps holding everything down and together, and take some of the friction tape off the bundle. The splices were up in the friction tape area.

The funny thing is - the splices are of 3 pairs of orange/black, orange/brown signal wires for the system bus. Some of them have a lot of length sort of bundled up in the wiring bundle - like a foot or more of extra wire. DO be really careful when taking off the friction tape. I was using a scissor and snipped one of the wires going into the factory splices - so that was what encouraged me to redo them both. Thing is - the old splices really looked OK. I didn't dissect them, but I saw no sign of corrosion in the splice or in the wires coming right out of the splice.

While I had it open, I poked 4 drain slits in the plastic grommet in the floor of the footwell.. with the hope that if it ever started flooding again since that's the lowest point, the water wouldn't get up to wiring level.

The real joy was getting the seat back in place. Somehow one of the bolts decided to bugger up the threads in the body of the car, it would go in about 1.5 turns, then get really stiff. I checked the bolt against a nut that I had the same size and the bolt was still fine. I finally found another bolt of the same thread size, and using my dremel tool, cut slots into it like a tap would have, and used that to chase the threads. The bolt then went in, still requiring a bit more force than it should have, but it did get all the way in and seated. I'm going to pick up a set of taps soon, and probably go back in and chase the threads on the nut welded to the sheet metal.

Sigh, this was lots easier to do 4 or 5 decades ago.. (and never really needed to be done then, times were simpler.)