Nissan Micra problems

mdonaldson

I have a 2003 Nissan Micra for a couple of years. It passed its MOT recently with flying colours, no problems, no advisements, as usual! Yesterday, when coming back from the shops, the car suddenly jerked as if the brakes had come on and i was sure I saw some lights on the control panel flash for a second. I stopped the car for a minute but everything seemed normal and I carried on home with no other problems.

Today, though, was a different story. I drove to the shops fine but coming back all hell broke lose. Various warning lights appeared on and off on the control panel including ones for the ABS and power steering. The steering wheel began jerking to the left and the brakes stared to come on randomly like I experienced the day before. I was lucky there was a garage on the same road and I was able to drive slowly and get it parked there. By the time I got parked, only the ABS warning light was showing.

I have never had any trouble like this before with the car. Does anyone have any ideas what could cause this to happen so suddenly? The only thing I could think of is that we have had a lot of snow and ice recently and a lot had piled up on the car. Could water have got into the electrical system and caused this?

NotSkint

Yes it does sound like water has got into the electrical system from the symptoms as you describe.

markudman

Hi You need to get it on a code reader, its common for the ABS pump to be at fault, but also may be a sensor, but until you have had the fault code, do not guess.
Where in the county are you?

mdonaldson

The car is at the garage at the moment, they will be checking it tomorrow they should hopefully get the fault code. Could an ABS pump problem cause all the symptoms I described?

System

Yes it could. The ABS pump can apply the brakes to each individual front wheel. If it applied the left brake and not the right that would pull the steering wheel to the left.

markudman

Please let us know what they find

mdonaldson

Thought I would let you know how I got on with the car. Well, the ABS warning light was still showing the next day when the garage had a look at the car. They linked the car up to some sort or reader which can read error codes. They had difficulty getting a reader to work with the car as they said it was so old! The error code they got back was a bit of a mystery to them, they had researched online about it but with no luck.

They were able to cancel the error somehow and then drove the car around to see if anything would happen. The car drove absolutely fine, no problems at all.

I was told that there could be a problem with the ABS system but replacing it and getting Nissan to program it would be very expensive. They were not convinced that was the problem though and did agree that the recent snow and then heavy rain that we have had lately could have led to moisture getting into the electronics and might have caused the problems. I was told it might happen again but also might never happen again!

I collected the car the same day and drove it home without any problems. I will be driving to the shops again tomorrow so I will just have to see how it goes.

System

I would start to put some money away every month for a new car fund. Keep the Micra running for as long as it behaves and if it starts to do the same again sell it for spares or repair, someone will buy it.