Narrowboat-Ian

I think that's right. I had a 'mare a while ago when I noticed a dead Main Beam on the driver's side, and spent ages, with lots of swearing and scraped knuckles, to change the bulb over. And wondered why it hadn't solved the problem... Then I realised I'd changed the dipped beam bulb!!!!

UPDATE - thanks for the responses 🙂 So I went ahead and bought a pair of "non polarity" LED lamps. As Sepulchrave says, the lamp is not sensitive to the polarity of the connections, though obviously the individual LED elements in it are. The lamps work perfectly in the car and are a lovely crisp white light. It's a bit annoying that I had to get them - I had bought a load of 'ordinary' LED lamps a while ago, but they are all polarity sensitive so wouldn't work in the housing as it is. The wiring harness is definitely the wrong way round as far as the polarity in the housing is concerned. I did try poking the terminals out and swapping them round - but after stabbing myself several times with the keys, and making no progress getting the little suckers out, I gave up on that (once I'd wiped all the blood off!). I also put LED lamps into the reversing light, but when I put one into the fog light it came up as a bulb failure - presumably the current was too low to register, and the car flagged it up because the fog light is a statutory item. My Spitfire isn't a lot more cooperative, by the way - I put LED lamps in the reversing lights and fog light, but I can't put them in the indicators because the flasher is a bimetallic strip, so it needs current to heat it up!

Hi all, apologies if this has been done to death before :-) My Fabia (TDi mk2 on a 62 plate, not that it probably matters) has DRLs, ok, so far so normal. They have standard incandescent 21W bulbs in - but those seem not to last particularly long, so I thought I would try LEDs instead. Except that the LEDs don't work on the car! it looks as if the bulb holder is wired with reverse polarity, so the cylindrical casing gets the +12V and the centre blob of the bulb is connected to ground. So I tried poking the terminals in the plug to get them out (using proper "keys" to release the tabs, of course), but they are so tightly in (mainly down to the waterproof bung, I suspect) that I can't get them to move. I think it's possible to find 'polarity free' LED bulbs, but thought I'd try the collected wisdom of BriSkoda before I spend yet more money... Has anyone else noticed this, and come up with any alternative solutions? VMTIA

Aaaaaah, I missed that - mea culpa. Yes, you can swap the rears round though I do agree (particularly when you consider how cheap they are) that it would have been just as sensible to simply pop a new one on

I've had plenty of problems with the latching connectors on VAG wiring. However, (to give it its due) the one on the OSF ABS sensor released easily enough - fat lot of good that did me, though!

"Unless you shunt it into another motorist" Umm, yeah. Intrigued at the "swapped the bearing from left to right" bit - you do know, don't you, that when you pop the bearing you break the retaining circlip? More to the point, did they? I can't see why your switch off/coast/bump-start approach would work, though I am sure you're sincere :-) so I will keep in mind...

It's one think knowing what the wire connects to, actually finding the blasted thing is another matter! It's buried somewhere under the air box... I think!

From about 20mph I have a loud, low frequency rumble, then overlaying that is a throbbing noise at around (at a guess) 15ish hertz, which continues and gets a bit louder. I particularly notice the throbbing noise as I slow down for roundabouts etc. There's no obvious vibration, I recently swapped fronts and rears round; the fronts have 5mm of tread and the rears are on 3mm, so a halfway stage might be to put the current fronts back on the back of the car and get a pair of something different on the front, that would (hopefully!) quickly show how much of it is actually down to the tyres themselves.

Well, yes. The challenge being to find the other end of the cable! That's my next job.

I don't want to sound obtuse, but not sure what this would achieve. I have plugged into the OBD port and even been able to produce graphs of the speed readings being seen at the OSF/NSF sensors, and there was a clear intermittent fault in the OSF reading. The fact that in between the faults the readings matched those from the NSF, to me negates Panzer's suggestion that the rotor in the bearing could be at fault**, and points instead to a fault in the sensor or the connection to it. I then detached the wiring plug, cleaned and reconnected it - and now there is no reading at all from the OSF sensor. The plug and sensor contacts are very, very clean and in good condition, so I doubt it's the connector. But someone previously has detached the plug, threaded it via a circuitous route that bends the wiring tightly around the hydraulic hose and I suspect that's crimped and damaged the cables, and my subsequent action in detaching and reattaching it may have actually finally broken one or other of the two wires. ** the rotor in the bearing is a simple plastic ring with metal inserts, it rotates with the hub and the metal inserts, when they pass the sensor, generate a current in the sensor (Hall effect) - the frequency of the signal indicates the rotational speed of the hub. The ring itself therefore is a very simple component that can't 'go wrong'

Hi Ken, Yes, I tried that, and no signs of rock or play. The car went through the MoT a couple of months ago (while the noise was present) with no problems then.

Until the last bit of messing around, when I seem to have completely broken the cable, the signals from NSF and OSF were identical apart from an intermittent, irregular drop in the OSF signal. It wasn't regular or frequent enough to be a missing part of the ABS ring in the bearing, and looked very much like a dodgy contact. Replacing the cable (as suggested earlier, splicing a "new" end from a breaker into the existing feed/return cable) will be much easier than replacing the bearing so is the obvious thing to try next. Separately, Skoda had a look at the car this morning and they reckon the droning/moaning/rumbling/whatever noise is all tyre related. Not sure I agree entirely, but they have stated in writing that there's nowt wrong with the wheelbearings, driveshafts or diff bearings. The tyres all have about 4mm left so I guess it's down to how many miles I want to throw away. One thing's for sure, I won't be buying Toyo Proxes next time.

Only if it was broken completely. TBH I'm struggling for other answers at the moment

UPDATE Re the droning noise - Tried swapping the wheels round, no change. Re the ABS - one of the others in the workshop has an even more Gucci code reader with comprehensive diagnostics, able to read the speed reading off each of the ABS wheel sensors. Comparing the NSF and OSF, the OSF (AKA my problem child) delivers intermittent, momentary dips in the recorded speed, while the NSF trace is smooth. Looks for all the world like a dodgy connection somewhere. The fact that most of the time the traces align, says to me that there's nothing wrong with the rotor on the bearing (thankfully). Nothing's been disturbed except at the OSF hub/upright. I've changed the sensor head itself but that made no difference. The wiring going onto the sensor, though, is taken round a tight angle onto the connector plug, so it's got me wondering if that cables have crimped and it's broken one... That cable wraps round the upright and then up and onto the back of the wheel arch, disappears behind a cover - so I'm hoping there's another connector behind the cover, so I can detach the whole of that cable to test and replace/repair...

Thanks. I'll be back at the workshop tomorrow, so can do that as well as trying out the 'swap the wheels round' game