[David Tansley]

2004 1600 diesel auto cmax
Following a small welding job to the wing on my daughters Cmax I started the car and drove it off the car ramps. The welding was done using a surge protector! The engine stopped after a couple of minutes and now I can’t restart it. There are no warning lights on the dash and nothing to indicate that I have damaged the ECU. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the likely problem?

 

[Nighthawk2018]

Personally I never trust surge protectors as we have no way of knowing if it's working or not until it's to late, it seems too much of a coincidence the car was perfectly ok before and now it won't start.
I would remove the ECU and send it off to a repair specialist for checking and possible repair as you probably know you can't just get another one from a scrap yard even with the same part number as their matched and coded to other components in the car.

 

[David Tansley]

Thank you very much for your comments, they make perfect sense when you think about it. Although we have an unknown here with cost, time and no guarantee we need a starting point! Although the car is old it is in otherwise reasonably good condition.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Oldman]

I wonder if it could be the dash pod instrument cluster soldering? Not sure if the immobilizer is routed via there, but I wonder if giving the pod a few smart smacks while trying to start wouldnt hurt.

 

[David Tansley]

I wonder if it could be the dash pod instrument cluster soldering? Not sure if the immobilizer is routed via there, but I wonder if giving the pod a few smart smacks while trying to start wouldnt hurt.

 

[David Tansley]

Thanks for that, I’ll give it a try before removing the ECU for checking.

 

[Nighthawk2018]

Do let us know how you got on.