Welcome to BamfordRose and its forum chat time. This week I’ve picked up on a post that someone had driven away from a garage and they have had a wash. I don’t think that was the root cause. The problem is just coincidental. But it’s a 4.3 and a sports shift car and the car has gone into a bit of an air estate. It’s come up with the check emissions engine light and it’s also flashed up. No gear shifts possible.

Best thing to do in an instance like that if this happens to you: pull over, key cycle, you know, turn the ignition off, unlock, and then unlock, put the key back in. And if the car starts up fine and continues to drive then at least it can get you home. And it indicates that it was just that Aston glitch. You know that they typically do have instead of a recurring problem.

But then what you should do is connect an intelligent diagnostic system up to the car and try and assess exactly the reason why that particular shutdown happened, especially on sport shift. Because early indication signs, early intermittent faults is a sign that there is a failure or breakdown looming.

If you weren’t able to rule out that the shutdown was just a glitch and perhaps it was an early warning sign, the breakdown is looming, then typically that breakdown is going to happen at the worst possible time and position.

We’ve done a previous video on the foxwell handheld tool and a reader like that is going to be able to inform you pretty much of any of the fault codes and the reasons why. We know lambda sensors and a few other glitches can commonly cause the emissions light to come on. And it’s safe to ignore those that reset that code, clear the dashboard or faults and carry-on driving. On a sports shift, gear selection not possible, could be as simple as a button issue or a micro switch issue and a one-off shutdown from those in cabin electronics is quite common. But to prevent the breakdown, you really want to rule out was it a pump glitch, was it an ASM pack glitch or was it somewhere static on the clutch.

The Aston commonly throwing those dashboard error lights can make ownership a little bit apprehensive. So, arming yourself with the correct diagnostic kit and interrogating the system will just make you much more in control of the drive of the problems, dispel some apprehension and then when you get in touch with a garage, you’re able to be in control and know what the remedial action was. That’s a far better way to enjoy an Aston rather than being a little bit blind and glitches causing you to have too much apprehension, which takes away some of the pleasure of the driving experience.

We’ve done a video about this in the past which is entitled “the Aston crying wolf” which it does nine times out of ten. And the advice is don’t laugh off those glitches, be in control of them and your ownership experience will be all the better for it.

Hope you like that forum chat, and as ever, it really helps us if you can like, comment and subscribe to our channel, and we’ll see you on the next forum chat.