My Mother was out for a drive in her 2005 S40 D5 auto, handbag on the front passenger seat with mobile phone inside it. At the precise moment that her phone received an SMS message, the car's electrics went berserk - dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree, windscreen wipers working of their own accord, etc. When she pulled over she reckons she couldn't even turn the engine off, and had to stall the car to do so.
Roadside assistance could find no fault codes or anything amiss with the ECU. Only suggestion was to consider changing the car's (original from new) battery since it was slightly weak and winter is a-coming.
So: only other explanation/suggestion is that the incoming SMS signal temporarily upset the car's electronics. Is this plausible?
Battery duly changed next day, car hasn't displayed any further odd behaviour...
Any similar stories out there? Or should she be trying to find an alternative explanation?
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Plausible I would say. But still could be coincidence, or related to a vulebrability caused by another fault.
The electrics on a Galaxy (the rebadged VW version) I had did something similar - unable to stop the engine or lock the car which was locking and unlocking itself, lights could not be turned off etc.
Turned out to be a submerged control box in a well under the passenger seat, filled up by a water leak. Never found out where the water came from because the car was due to be collected a week later anyway so I just parked it up and left it (it was at home at the time).
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Aliens.
Abduction will be the next step.
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I go with the wet electrics or duff battery theory, there must be millions of phones used in cars daily without problems.
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MI5 I would think. Car Smurf
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Aliens are military activities. You can explain almost anything as alien to the gullible.
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In my MK1 Kia Cee'd if I place my mobile too near to dashboard, it can cause all dashboard lights to be switched off (can't see dials in the dark!) randomly. However, engine electrics and headlights were not affected.
It happened few times randomly. Didn't happen in last few years.
I now keep my phone in water bottle holders.
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The car alarm in my Mazda always goes off if I leave a mobile phone or a tablet or some such in the car. That isn't related to incoming text messages though, I think the alarm system detects the signal from the phone itself and interprets it as a 12-year old boy from Liverpool (or Stoke - maybe Hull or Derby) with no teeth wearing a tracksuit and baseball cap.
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>> the car's electrics went berserk - dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree, windscreen wipers working of their own accord, etc.
Do the indicators now work though?
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>> Battery duly changed next day, car hasn't displayed any further odd behaviour...
>>
>> Or should she be trying to find an alternative explanation?
The first thing any car electronics are tested for and protected against are mobile phones, the second is mobile phones and the last is mobile phones. So, it wasn't mobile phones.
The one thing they are never tested or protected against are Aliens or EMPs.
They don't test against either because each means the end of the world and there will be no warranty or damages claims.
It was the battery.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 15 Oct 15 at 13:02
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>>each means the end of the world
Rubbish. Will Smith and Peter Capaldi will protect and save us.
p.s.
"The one thing they are never tested or protected against are Aliens or EMPs"
That's two.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Thu 15 Oct 15 at 13:05
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>> The first thing any car electronics are tested for and protected against are mobile phones,
>> the second is mobile phones and the last is mobile phones. So, it wasn't mobile
>> phones.
Which is the same as saying that if the mobile phone triggered it then there is another fault, either with the phone or the car or both.
Everybody knows mobiles interfere with electrical stuff. They transmit. Police etc transmissions have notoriously interfered with car security/locking systems.
I have had a dying battery put the warning lights on one by one, charge light (big clue), airbags, brake warning, ESP fault, the lot. It was a dead alternator. But I could still stop the engine, just not restart it. In this case I assume the car restarted before it was taken home and recharged. Battery not dead.
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The ECU will be designed to deal with any interference, the interference from HT leads etc will be much greater than any mobile phone related issue.
I was having some odd ECU problems, my battery always charged to 12.4v instead of 12.6v, I changed it to a new Bosch battery and put some sealed the ECU connector to stop damp and it solved all the problems.
My 'weak' battery could start the car no problem but caused problems under load.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Thu 15 Oct 15 at 14:06
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My mid-90s Saab 900 came with dire warnings about the sensitive systems - ECU, ABS, KGB, DFC and bar - an undocked mobile phone could interfere with if used in the car. No-one took any notice, of course, and nothing - to my knowledge anyway - went wrong. But car makers used to worry about such things; I expect it's all shielded as a matter of course now.
Weren't our mobiles supposed to have given us all brain cancer by now?
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>> Which is the same as saying that if the mobile phone triggered it then there
>> is another fault, either with the phone or the car or both.
>>
>> Everybody knows mobiles interfere with electrical stuff. They transmit.
Which is why cars are made immune from them.
Police etc transmissions have notoriously interfered
>> with car security/locking systems.
Didn't interfere with the car. Merely blocked the signal from your fob. The car is fine.
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The first thing any car electronics are tested for and protected against are mobile phones, the second is mobile phones and the last is mobile phones. So, it wasn't mobile phones.
The one thing they are never tested or protected against are Aliens or EMPs.
They don't test against either because each means the end of the world and there will be no warranty or damages claims.
It was the battery.
In this day and age, probably. However, car makers are not good when it comes to Electro-Magnetic Compatibility. Some years ago, the first ECU equipped Volvo police car would limp to a halt whenever the police radio was fired up. I doubt the power of the radio exceeded 25 watts, 10 would probably be enough. Not police frequencies, but I have transmitted 100 watts from a car, but the car I did it from was nice clockwork mechanicals, no silly ECUs.
Some the frequencies used by car remotes to this day are poorly chosen, do you really want to use a frequency that I or any other full amateur radio licence holder can transmit 400 watts quite legally on?
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>> However, car makers are not good when it comes
>> to Electro-Magnetic Compatibility. Some years ago, the first ECU equipped Volvo police car would limp
>> to a halt whenever the police radio was fired up.
Which is why cars are now hardened against rf transmissions.
>> I doubt the power of
>> the radio exceeded 25 watts, 10 would probably be enough. Not police frequencies, but I
>> have transmitted 100 watts from a car,
I too have have transmitted more than 100 watts mobile. The only effect was on the engine output trying to turn the alternator to supply the amperage for the RF amplifier.
Mobile phone output is about .6 watts max.
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>> Mobile phone output is about .6 watts max.
You can go on about this but it's like the lottery. 14,000,000* to 1 makes it impossible to win the jackpot in my book, but somebody wins it every week or two.
The odds of a phone causing a problem may be small - possibly in the same order as above - but they must exist.
As to your 0.6 watts - low powered yes. But as I'm sure you know, the inverse square law applies to radio propagation. If that phone is 6 inches from the component it is exciting, that is equivalent to 400 watts 100 metres away. Coincidentally the body control module is often under the passenger seat (as in my 1996 Galaxy).
Given that the trouble occurred the instant the phone went off I would not bet my house on it being unrelated.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever "proved" that mobiles cannot cause problems to aircraft systems. I suspect that aircraft are much more 'hardened' than cars too, as well as having more redundancy.
*Even longer odds now they have created more "opportunities to win" with some extra numbers.
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I say implausible. SMSs are being transmitted indiscriminately all the time, they are not 'beamed' to a specific handset.
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>> I say implausible. SMSs are being transmitted indiscriminately all the time, they are not 'beamed'
>> to a specific handset.
It's the handset transmission that the question is about.
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>> The odds of a phone causing a problem may be small - possibly in the
>> same order as above - but they must exist.
This morning, in the uk, on the road, will be about 10 million cars. 8 million of them will have mobile phones in them. How many of them are going to stop because of the mobile phone?
Globally, there will be hundreds of millions of cars on the road today, with hundreds of millions of mobile phones merrily transmitting in them, how many of them will stop by the side of the road because of the mobile phone?
None of them.
>> As to your 0.6 watts - low powered yes. But as I'm sure you know,
>> the inverse square law applies to radio propagation. If that phone is 6 inches from
>> the component it is exciting, that is equivalent to 400 watts 100 metres away. Coincidentally
>> the body control module is often under the passenger seat (as in my 1996 Galaxy).
and how many times did your mobile phone cause your 6 inches away body control module to act up?
>> To the best of my knowledge, nobody has ever "proved" that mobiles cannot cause problems
>> to aircraft systems. I suspect that aircraft are much more 'hardened' than cars too, as
>> well as having more redundancy.
>>
How many planes do you think take off with every passengers mobile phone off? I bet none of them. How many have had issues due to mobile phone use?
EMF issues with electronic equipment have existed in cars in the past. They don't any more. A car is an electrically hostile environment so it has to be designed out.
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How am I (or you) supposed to know how many problems are caused or contributed to by EMI? There are plenty of problems and many are never diagnosed successfully.
The example we have here could be - but you say it isn't, and that adds to your pile of 'evidence' of absence. It's completely circular.
You couldn't prove your assertion for £1m. prize and you know it.
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>> You couldn't prove your assertion for £1m. prize and you know it.
Well if you wish to ignore the evidence of your own eyes and experience then fine.
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>> Well if you wish to ignore the evidence of your own eyes and experience then
>> fine.
It isn't me ignoring evidence. There are two accounts in this very thread of mobiles having an effect on car electronics.
Your contention is based on an absence of evidence which, even if that were the case, is not evidence of absence.
Good argument though...:)
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 16 Oct 15 at 23:34
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>> Your contention is based on an absence of evidence which, even if that were the
>> case, is not evidence of absence.
>>
>> Good argument though...:)
Oh god, stand by for forests, trees, noise, hearing, people, falling.
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>> Oh god, stand by for forests, trees, noise, hearing, people, falling.
Resorting to mockery when there's nowhere else to go:)
Bertrand Russell said he was agnostic because he couldn't prove the non-existence of God, but I think he was joking.
I see you ignored the part about the two accounts in this thread of it actually happening (not counting the OP).
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>> >> Oh god, stand by for forests, trees, noise, hearing, people, falling.
>>
>> Resorting to mockery when there's nowhere else to go:)
>>
Indeed as you use it yourself I thought you would be quite at home with it.
I see you ignored the part about the two accounts in this thread of it actually happening (not counting the OP).
The OP didn't happen, it was a duff battery, the alarm one was not affecting car electronics, so that leaves us with one unsubstantiated claim about lights.
And I didn't also quote your example where you claim your body control module was 6 inches away from your mobile phone, yet was unaffected.
Foot shoot self.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 17 Oct 15 at 10:59
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I said not counting the OP.
What about the other two, that you are still ignoring?
No it's never happened to me with a car, that I have noticed. What has that to do with the price of fish? I said long since it's like winning the lottery - very unlikely for the individual, but could be happening to somebody somewhere week in, week out.
A lot more people have tickets in the mobile phone/car lottery than in the other one. It is just not credible to me that the effects of the EMI (that undeniably exists) can be eliminated 100%. 99.99999% maybe.and of the 0.000001%, very few will stop the car and even fewer will make the aeroplane fall out of the sky.
See - I 99.99999% agree with you:)
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Volvo S40 - Mobile phone interfering with ECU? - Manatee
