valleyVRS

Hi all this happened to me about 2 years ago. dont know if this is of any use to anyone but jeez if I'd know this in the begining i would have married them for the info. Symptons - ABS light, Power steering light, engine light. (particularly apparnent in wet weather) Loss of power steering. What i tried - all of the above basically but didnt change anything except the abs sensors. Ran a diagnostics and reset everything a few times but nothing worked and i couldnt find any fault. After hours / days / weeks of inspection I finally discovered the cause. Behind the OS wheel the abs cable had lost its last clip (which are ****) holding it to the wheel arch. This for the record is almost impossible to spot as the cable hangs barely a 1/2" out of place. This caused a minute fracture (presumably from friction against the wheel) in the cable which in turn led to corrosion along the inside of the cable and setting the ABS light off. This for some reason had an effect on the power steering sensor etc. Unfortunatly this cable or the plug cannot be replaced by a new part as it goes directly into the loom... feel free to enter that world but id sooner live with it than that. To fix - Took away the wheel arch and cut away as much of the cable as I could and whilst still leaving a good few inches to work with. replaced this with good quality 2 core speaker cable. Soldered the ends and shrink wrapped over. Taped the lot back over and reset the codes. I also made my own wheelach clip with some cable ties, screws and d bracket. she worked fine until about a week ago, but i think this time its the PAS as it looks knackered. But still worked for 2 years and passed to MOT's.

Ok Guys, this is what i did and it worked fine. Striped back the cables from the old long lead and from the new short lead (after removing the plug). used a standard small block connector to reconnect the wires. I went by colour to begin with as that seemed the most obvious choice. The brown cable which I assume is live has a bridge connector inside the unit so no need to run 2 cables from it. The 2 black cables are for the heater so connected those up too (turns out this unit did have a heater after all). I couldnt see any reason why it would make a difference which way these went as most heating filaments will work in either direction. Hay presto everything works. so for future reference you can buy a wing mirror unit with a short lead and plug and adapt it to fit an older model where the cable starts at the door centre! Very handy to know as the new units are cheaper and easier to come by it would seem.

yeah thats what I was thinking of doing. just wondered if anyone had an idea about the wire colours.

Hi all, I bought a n/s wing mirror for my VRS from a breaker but have just realised the cable on the new mirror is only 20cm long and has a plug on it. Where as the old one has a long lead that runs to behind the centre of the door card. Is it possible to simply join the 2 together ? The cables are colour coded so I would assume they just match together. I got a good price on this mirror and its in great condition. Its not a heated one as before but it fits the housing perfectly. Would like to avoid selling it on and searching again... besides It'll probably be less than a month before she smashes the next one off. cheers D