I drive a 2000 Buick LeSabre Limited to and from work about 15 miles a day. My mother originally bought the car new and I inherited it about 14 years ago. It has 125,000 miles on it and gets 23 plus miles per gallon during my suburban to city daily drive during the work week with occasional short errands.Drives better than our 2019 Buick Enclave and 2017 Buick Lacrosse (which my daughter managed to wrangle away) and 2003 GMC Yukon XL Denali.
Anyway, from the time my mother bought the car, the "security" light will pop on periodically but has no ill effect on the car at all. She had it checked twice while under warrant and was told it checked out fine. That was our only electrical issue until the past year or so.
The instrument panel display that shows the mileage and if you want you can toggle through tire pressure,oil life, battery status, etc. is acting up. It will occasionally turn all one solid color displaying nothing or showing what appears to be hieroglyphics. This lasts a few minutes and then it will go back to normal display.Once it went all blank but that was very brief. Today the "security","ABS","traction off" and "brake light" all came on at once. These are separate from said display panel.The car drives fine. The system corrects itself at next start up.
Since this gremlin like activity only happens sporadically, will a scan pick up the problem? Is there a computer which controls all this? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
You're probably going to need a dealer-level scan tool for diagnosis. You could check simple things like grounds and connectors, plenty of opportunity for problems to develop in those areas over the course of 24 years.
The instrument panel display that shows the mileage and if you want you can toggle through tire pressure,oil life, battery status, etc. is acting up. It will occasionally turn all one solid color displaying nothing or showing what appears to be hieroglyphics. This lasts a few minutes and then it will go back to normal display. Once it went all blank but that was very brief. Today the "security","ABS","traction off" and "brake light" all came on at once. These are separate from said display panel.The car drives fine. The system corrects itself at next start up.
Since this gremlin like activity only happens sporadically, will a scan pick up the problem? Is there a computer which controls all this? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Yes, computer modules control pretty much everything on the car. First best step is to have it scanned and see if it's tripped any codes.
