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Thread: Electrical burning smell in cabin, interior lights intermittent, possibly related?

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  1. Electrical burning smell in cabin, interior lights intermittent, possibly related? 
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    Hi all,

    We've got a 2014 Alhambra diesel. We were getting in the car yesterday and after opening all the doors and getting in there was a very strong smell of electrical burning inside the cabin, in the front. I had not yet switched on the ignition, so we know it's not engine/exhaust related and the engine was stone cold. The smell dissipated and we couldn't decide whether it had come in from outside so we set off and made our journey without further issues. When we were setting off home again later I once again smelled the same burning smell. Again, I had not started the engine. Thinking about it, my wife and I noticed about a week ago that sometimes when we open the front doors the interior lights do not come on like they should. They do come on sometimes when the doors are opened but not every time, and they do come on if I manually operate the overhead switch to turn them on. I am wondering if there is an electrical problem/short somewhere to do with the interior lights or maybe the switches in the front doors. Has anyone else experienced this or something similar? Is it a common issue? I know some of the Alhambra's had issues with door wiring but I wasn't sure what years/shapes were effected.

    Just for now we've got the interior lights switched off via the overhead switch in the front, not that I'm sure that'll help much. It smelled like something wasn't far off catching fire, like a soldering smell, so I'm a bit worried about this one. Any suggestions please? All help gratefully received as I don't really know where to start looking.

    Many thanks!
     
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  2. Re: Electrical burning smell in cabin, interior lights intermittent, possibly related? 
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    I had this a few years back on a barely 3 year old Altea, the owner saw smoke come out of the door lock, this didn't blow a fuse but did fry the CAN BUS and BCM.

     
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  3. Re: Electrical burning smell in cabin, interior lights intermittent, possibly related? 
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    Quote Originally Posted by Crasher View Post
    I had this a few years back on a barely 3 year old Altea, the owner saw smoke come out of the door lock, this didn't blow a fuse but did fry the CAN BUS and BCM.

    Hmm, that looks nasty. I guess the loom's been chafing on that v-shaped cutout and has gone through the plastic insulation causing a short. Mine hasn't thrown any error messages about a failed unit (yet) but I don't know if it would be one that appears on the driver information display? Or would I need a fault code reader to show that one up?. Everything else on the door seems to be functioning ok for now.

    Where would I need to start looking to see if something similar may have happened to mine, please? Is that picture from inside the door?

    Thanks
     
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  4. Re: Electrical burning smell in cabin, interior lights intermittent, possibly related? 
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    Well that one had me scratching my head because when he said he saw smoke I thought he must have been imaging it but the entire car had shut down and the only thing that worked was the engine. The assembly method of the door has the screw at the bottom of the trim go all the way through to the window window lifter frame and in manufacturing it must have dropped out of the retainer into the gap where it was trapped and took over three years to fail but the car was very low mileage. When I failed to find anything else I thought what the hell, taking the door card off is easy and then I found that damage. As I keep lots of scrap VAG harness I was able to patch it in with solder and heat shrink as a new door harness was £200 and on backorder. I don't recall ever doing one but I think the Sharambra 2 uses the same design.

    Last edited by Crasher; 04-04-2022 at 10:43 AM. Reason: smellin missteaks
     
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  5. Re: Electrical burning smell in cabin, interior lights intermittent, possibly related? 
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    Would suggest you also check the rubber bellows near the door hinge which the door wiring goes through.

    The wires can fracture due to the constant bending then intermittently short out.
     
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