...yeah, but happening once a day at a 75% clip (on offroad trips) does not sound like occasional. It has happened to me once; and I'm fairly sure it's related to the battery. I know my battery is weak because I've run it all the way down 2 times. The first time I played my stereo without the car being cranked for at least an hour...that was a while ago. The second time, which was recently and after my HDC fault, I only played it for about 20 minutes and it "died" by itself.
If these issues are not simply the battery itself, then it's a voltage issue that is indirectly fixed by replacing the battery. I'm not sure about the canbus explanation....seems like if it had to do with the digital architecture then we'd get all kinds of non-sensical faults a lot more frequently than we do. On the contrary, there seems to be a specific connection between this particular fault (HDC) and a lack of electrical juice.
I plan on getting a new battery before winter.
Well, no it's not occasional in terms of my offroad outings. However, it is in light of my total usage, where this is my daily driver. If recovery were more difficult, I'd be more concerned.
I forgot the other part of the tech's description of typical canbus faults. He said it is a system that is sensitive to momentary voltage drops, like if you're near-idling, AC is on, and say the compressor kicks on for a minute. His theory was that one particular sensor may put out a marginal signal anyway, and when there's a momentary voltage drop, that sensor is no longer read and trips a fault. He didn't have a suspect for the particular sensor, but that theory does explain why it's one particular fault, rather than just random faults all over the place.
I also have mulled over replacing the battery before winter. I have no other typical bad-battery symptoms, so I'll probably hold off for now.
