TDI vs. EMP- and the winner is...

My wife & I were in Myrtle Beach over the weekend at a beachfront hotel. I had the car parked right next to a 150kv transformer. We got chased off the beach Friday evening by a real Hollywood-movie-style electrical storm, & while sitting on the balcony a lightning strike hit just outside around front- not sure how close, but the flash & bang were simultaneous. Half an hour later, with the rain stopped & the lightning out over the water, we went down to the car to go to dinner. My first attempt to start the car resulted in the motor shutting down after lighting up- which I recognised as the anti-theft mode. Then I took a good look at the dash- glow light flashing, ditto check-engine, all other lites on, and most unusual of all- the clock was RACING. After a period of mild panic, I remembered a mechanic telling me his secret way of resetting a computer- by simply disconnecting the negative battery terminal, & letting the computer chill anywheres from 5 or 10 minutes to half an hour, depending on how sick it was. In this case, ten minutes did the trick- after reconnecting the battery, it fired right up, gave a little "hiccup", & settled into its idle like nothing ever happened. The clock, however, was still racing, & did so into most of Saturday- but when it stopped, it was on the CORRECT TIME- I never touched the adjustment stem!
My best guess is that my little Jetta got temporarily fried by what's known as an "electro-magnetic pulse", either from close proximity to the lightning, or the transformer I was parked next to. I don't think the car was actually struck, mostly because I saw no physical evidence of it- and if it had been, I don't think I would have been able to "reboot" it.
All's well that ends well- I logged my first highway mileage numbers elsewhere in this forum, and just wanted to hear any feedback from y'all as to my theory of what happened to my lil' wigglebug Friday night. Anyone?

PS. 04 PD, 5speed, no nav or trip computer.

My first thought after seeing the thread title was "I didn't hear anything about a nuke detonation anywhere..."

But then I read the post. Your explanation sounds plausible due to what was certainly a powerful electrical discharge near your car. I think the 'puter was stunned.

Sho-nuff. Hopefully, someone here is a computer-guru & may be able to shed some light on whether this bodes ill down the road. My radio went into safe mode for about ten minutes this morning, then just as suddenly as it happened, it stopped. Hmmm..... :\

Reminds me of this TopGear video (worth watching):

http://www.topgear.com/uk/videos/car-lightning

Oh, there is a VW connection. And I think it's a TDI (sounds like one toward the end)...

Paul

dieselyeti said:

My first thought after seeing the thread title was "I didn't hear anything about a nuke detonation anywhere..."

But then I read the post. Your explanation sounds plausible due to what was certainly a powerful electrical discharge near your car. I think the 'puter was stunned.

Click to expand...

heh, on a side note, tdi's are one of the few remaining cars that you could drive after an EMP hit. In theory you could power the IP with direct 12 volts and turn it over by directly hitting the starter. The mechanical timing would take care of the rest. You wouldn't have any throttle control since it's just a variable resistor that reports back to the computer, but you could work your way through the gears at idle.

Also note, you don't need a nuke to generate EMPs. There are actually tactical EMP's that generate a pulse by detonating high explosives in such a way to cause a metalic element to rapidly flix generating a very strong magnetic field.


OK, that was my useless trivia for the day

Heh heh... loved that episode

Yep, it was a TDI.