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Hi From Yorkshire - Big electrical fault happened this evening


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Hi,

 

I'm John from Yorkshire and found this forum after googling an electrical fault on my car.

 

I am not sure is this is the right section but the problem is very urgent. At about 6pm today I was driving home along the M621 about to join the M62  (extremely busy time) when without warning, all the electrical systems in my cabin went dead. The indicators stopped working as did the radio,  the whole dashboard (except warning lights), the hazard warnings, the electric windows and electric locks, and most importantly the powersteering too! 

 

The only systems that seemed to be left working was the headlights (but dim) and the heating fan.

 

The only things I have done recently (today) that are different is to put in a cassette-to-headphone jack to connect my phone to the car stereo (old Skoda fabia cassette and radio combined), changed the time back 1 hour on the dash (the knob thing was a bit stiff and didn't work that well) and discovered the dash back light adjuster and pushed it up and down a couple of times.... 5 mins after fiddling with the dash light adjuster the total electrical black out happened.

 

I managed to get home but the car was losing power and not sounding good. When I finally parked up. I tried to level up a bit on the roadside when the car conked out and the EPC light came on. The  car will now no longer start (I presume immobiliser kicked in, does a 2001 fabia 1.2 mpi have one? or the EPC needs resetting).

 

Please advice and help me with my problem. I've owned the car for about 3 months. Is it a fuse fault or is it something else which is going to cost me a  lot of money?

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Many thanks

 

John 

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It's happened to me recently, it ended up being a perfect storm of broken load sensing wire, old battery, knackered alternator pulley clutch and broken aux belt tensioner.

To test the load sensing wire - does the battery light come on with the ignition before you start the car? If not it's broken, you'll need to reconnect the wire, otherwise the battery won't charge at lower revs

Check the aux belt (with engine off) if it's loose or missing, the tensioner has gone

With the engine running, and at idle, check the voltage across the battery. If it's not putting out around 14v then it's not charging

Cost wish, you're looking at 50 quid for a battery, about 100 quid for a decent exchange alternator, 30 quid for tensioner and belt, and just a bit of wire and solder for the load sensing wire

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Hi,

 

I'm John from Yorkshire and found this forum after googling an electrical fault on my car.

 

I am not sure is this is the right section but the problem is very urgent. At about 6pm today I was driving home along the M621 about to join the M62  (extremely busy time) when without warning, all the electrical systems in my cabin went dead. The indicators stopped working as did the radio,  the whole dashboard (except warning lights), the hazard warnings, the electric windows and electric locks, and most importantly the powersteering too! 

 

The only systems that seemed to be left working was the headlights (but dim) and the heating fan.

 

The only things I have done recently (today) that are different is to put in a cassette-to-headphone jack to connect my phone to the car stereo (old Skoda fabia cassette and radio combined), changed the time back 1 hour on the dash (the knob thing was a bit stiff and didn't work that well) and discovered the dash back light adjuster and pushed it up and down a couple of times.... 5 mins after fiddling with the dash light adjuster the total electrical black out happened.

 

I managed to get home but the car was losing power and not sounding good. When I finally parked up. I tried to level up a bit on the roadside when the car conked out and the EPC light came on. The  car will now no longer start (I presume immobiliser kicked in, does a 2001 fabia 1.2 mpi have one? or the EPC needs resetting).

 

Please advice and help me with my problem. I've owned the car for about 3 months. Is it a fuse fault or is it something else which is going to cost me a  lot of money?

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

Many thanks

 

John 

 

Relax, deep breaths.

 

Will the rest of you stop frightening him with prices, he's from Yorkshire (I think he mentioned it somewhere), you don't want a suicide on your conscience!  :D

 

First things first, the battery, whippet off and give it a good long charge, it's cap flat.

 

Once charged you should be able to start the car and make a simple voltage measurement across the battery, it should read between 14.0V and 14.5V with the engine running.

 

If not then either the alternator or the load sense wire is faulty, depends on the voltage.

 

Report back once done and we can take it from there. No money need change hands for now.

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