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

Hi Pip, Yes, starting to think it's not necessarily (only) the rotor on the new wheel bearing. The fault seems to be a bit haphazard, I've done several short runs, and one longer one, today; some of the times the light and warning message have come on immediately, on other occasions it's come on after I've driven off (once when I reached about 35kph, once at 47kph, once at about 57kph). Pete the Badger (as per one of my posts last night) has an OBD reader and connected it to the car yesterday, that read the fault as "RHS Front ABS sensor implausible reading" - I suspect if it went on now it might read something else indicative of a failure - quite possibly the RHSF sensor. However carefully they are handled, they do seem to dislike being disturbed. I have another one on order (only another tenner on top of everything else I'm haemorrhaging money over at the moment) which should arrive this week. PS in my world, VCDS is Vice Chief of the Defence Staff - not sure if he drives a Skoda :-D :-D :-D

Morning all, Thanks again for all the responses. Sorry if my last post last night sounded grumpy! I did pop the sensor yesterday before removing the bearing, and it went in cleanly afterwards. We (my assistant Pete the Badger and I) did note that the cable went through a tight angle onto the sensor (the cable could have been routed more kindly!) but there was no evidence of wiring damage. After the first road test yesterday and first indication of an ABS problem, we went back, popped the sensor again - but there was no visible sign of damage to the sensor or wiring then either. We took it out again after that, exactly the same again (ABS light went out on starting, but then came on as we went up the road, stayed on). Interestingly, I just went out to the car and when I started it, the ABS light came on instantly and stayed on, even though the car didn't move (which says to me that irrespective of whether there's a problem with the rotor, there is another problem now?) In passing I had attempted the wheel bearing change earlier in the week, but stopped at the driveshaft as I couldn't at the time get the shaft out of the hub, so at that stage I had removed the ABS sensor and refitted/reconnected it, and it was fine after that.

Fantastic. So I've buggered the car up, and it probably wasn't even the wheelbearing that was at fault... Thanks guys. I was a bit afraid this would be the case. Oh well.

Yes, that's an option... but I hope it's not that as it'll be a major hassle. I'll need to get a new ABS sensor to confirm that it's the hub that's faulty, and find another hub that works, and swap them over, as I need the car to stay mobile... Not a five minute job and a lot of hassle. And as this hub will be wrecked by removing it again, the seller is likely to be arsey about it. And I don't know if I can find the receipt!!

Hi Wino, I used the 'collar' tool that looks a bit like an orthopaedic knee brace, to draw the bearing in. It puts all the load on the shoulder behind the spring clip, so no pressure on the hub face and no load being put through the bearing itself.

Hi and thanks for this. Glad it's not just me! I am going to try swapping the tyres round front/rear and side/side in the hope that makes a difference. The Proxes are marked "inside/outside" rather than being 'handed' left/right, so I can swap to my heart's content. I've run Proxes on a previous car and never noticed noise like this - but it was a genuine (road legal) racing car (MR ZR), so the noise levels were - erm - high already. Re the ABS, a mate has a Gucci OBD reader and read off "RHS Front ABS sensor implausible reading" - he cleared the fault, but it's returned every time I've driven the car since. So unless the sensor has packed up (which would be something of a coincidence) it looks as if the bearing doesn't have a working rotor Have to say I'll be more than a bit hacked off if the only solution is another replacement wheel bearing. Skoda quoted me (I only rang them up for entertainment purposes) about £160 plus VAT to supply the bearing/hub (fitting was relatively modest at about £150 plus VAT, but I did start wondering if the bearing was made of Unicornium and packed with Myrrh

Hi all, What a title! It has it all - drama, suspense, plot, pace, atmosphere... OK, back to reality. It's a Mk II Fabia TDi estate, 62 plate, about 103k miles. Discs and drums, alloys with Toyo Proxes T1R in good nick with lots of tread. I started to notice a droning noise (not coming from any of the seat occupants) which starts at around 30mph and continues up to around 60mph, irrespective of what gear the car is in (including drifting in neutral). The tone/pitch does not change noticeably with speed, though at around 40-45mph I have noticed a slight "pulsing" in the noise. It initially seemed to come from the rear, so I changed both rear wheel bearings. No difference. Then thought it was coming from offside front. Changed that wheel bearing. No difference, except that now the ABS is not working either. Re the ABS failure. I popped the ABS sensor before pulling the bearing out, and it has gone in (and out and in) again with no difficulty and no signs of damage. The replacement wheel bearing wasn't an Ebay "cheapest deal going, made of authentic Chinesium" but bought in person over the counter from an established 'chain' motor factor and specifically matched to the registration number and so should be completely compatible with the ABS. I am starting to get a bit wound up by it, so any help will be very much appreciated!

Hi, and many thanks for coming back to me so soon. I have the 1.6 TDi CR engine, 90bhp version. I've only had the car since June, and TBH (you know how it is) I can't remember specifically seeing or not seeing the oil warning light! The previous car (also a Mk2 1.6TDi) did NOT have the maxidot display, and I am sure the oil light worked fine on that one. Having done a service on this car yesterday, I switched the ignition on specifically to check the oil light went out quickly enough after starting, and hey presto, couldn't find a warning light! :-D The car's done about 25 miles since, so I am sure if there was a major problem it would already have told me, but still... (rolls eyes)

A million squillion apologies if this (a.) is a stupid question and/or (b.) has been done to death before, but... My Fabia Mk2 has the Maxidot display. I've just worked out how to access the menus (duh) but one thing is puzzling me. When I turn the ignition on, I get warning lights for the battery/charge circuit, ECU, airbag etc, but no oil warning light. I've read a couple of times that low oil pressure/low oil level will appear as a warning in the maxidot display, but is there supposed to be a separate warning light? With the LED warning light set-up and a black background it's hard to spot where any warning light should be on the instrument panel, and I can't spot it in the few images/videos I've seen online so far. Many thanks and once again my apologies if this is a stoopid question :-)

Hi, I'm Ian, just joined this forum. I'm a mid-50s "retired" former Operational Analyst (don't ask if you don't want to be very bored), now running a bespoke car workshop doing one-off restorations and modifications in West Berkshire. I'm on my third Fabia -the first was a Mk1 TDi 1.9 which lasted me nearly 10 years and about 200,000 miles, replaced last year with a Mk2 TDi 1.6 which I really liked - until a blind git of a lorry-driver smashed into me on the M4 in June this year. Now driving another Mk2 TDi 1.6 which is throwing up the odd glitch... I live on a narrowboat, make my own sloe gin and marmalade, play cricket, used to play rugby, I used to drive and navigate on rallies (not at the same time!) and I still take photographs.