Bmwdumptruck

Been a while, but in the end we just scraped it. Our Lad buggered off to Wales with his latest skanky gf, had a baby with her, fell out and is still there no job no money. Tbh were happy he’s out of our hair. But on the fabia front, been keeping our eyes out for a similar fabia but in estate form for our own use. Was so impressed with the lads one, everytime I had to do anything to it was generally pretty easy. Everything came apart and went back together as intended. Genuingley feel these are some of the best engineered cars out there. So a few weeks back we happened upon a 56 plate Ambient 1.4 16v 100hp estate in my favoured Red with just 47k on it. Got a fair bit of history and the mot history confirms mileage. So we’ve bought it. Needs a few bits, noisy cv and I’ve not seen any evidence that its ever had a cambelt change. So both are top of the list before we use it too much.

Yes I’m watching that one. But not sure we want to try anything more. Wifes found another to look at tomorrow night. Slightly older 1.4 Estate with 67k, £900. But it’s a bit scruffy, but for the boy thats not an issue.

Definitely got 12v across fuse 52. Tested fuse and tested voltage on both sides with it in situ. Yes we adapted the TB to th ecu and adapted the original when swapping back to it. It moves and whines when going through the test sequence. The ecu doesnt like our new crank sensor, we’re now getting a fault code for that even though the cranking speed is nearer what it should be, apparently.

Just back from taking a look at the SH near identical car we’ve been considering as a replacement. Big advantage that it’s a runing and mot’d car, and with only 55k on it. Another ‘old fellas car’, like ours was originally. But being sold by a backstreet trader. However, all four discs are shot. The AC doesn’t work, although ours hasn’t for some years now either, not bothered about it tbh. But, plugging my original code reader in and every area I looked in has fault codes!! There’s one P1857 which is an abs fault? Although it was under ‘engine’. The seller said he’d been told the egr needed cleaning, but no egr fault showed. But the other one, potentially more worrying was a dashboard fault. I believe the dash is the other part that has to be coded to the car? Wife thinks they’ve maybe had it apart and pulled the engine management bulb!! At the moment were pondering it. At £1500 I see it too dear, but at £1000 I might be tempted to take a chance on it. We’d have the existing one for spares then, as they are exactly the same model, BBZ 1.4 Ambient models. But I worry we could very soon end up with another troublsome car on our front.

Seems every part we’ve looked at ‘hardly ever fails’. Clearly one is bucking the trend. At the moment the only reference I have to this is the opposite. The wifes mazda moves with just ignition switched on. I know it’s not the cause of the issue as we’ve tried a brand new OE one, but It’s a def a sympton, something is stopping it from being told to work. Old sensor, engine apparently turned over at 127. New sensor now says it turns over at 250-270, same starter, same battery. It’s not about what the engines doing but what it thinks it’s doing. As I’ve said it turns over as it always has. Atm I don’t see any reason to believe a tow start would make the slightest difference. After watching a handfull of youtube vids I bought a spark tester and tried one of the coil packs. Now I’ve been warned that trying a coil without it connected can blow it,(if you have operated the coil pack outside compression pressure ionisation, they fail.), but there’s three others and from experience we know it can start and run on three. Should I be testing for a voltage at one of the terminals in the coil pack plugs? So, atm, I feel we’re still looking for whatever is causing the ignition to not send the relavent signals to both the throttle body and the coil packs.

So after an afternoon struggling under and over the engine I managed to swap the crank sensor. And we’re no further forward. We have a higher cranking speed, nearer 250-270 from 130ish. But still no life and now we’re also getting a crank sensor fault code!! We don’t appear to be getting a spark either, so its no throttle body movement unless on the test cycle amd no spark!! Anyone know what’s involved in swapping an ecu? I assume keys need coding to it, anything else?

I was searching last thing last night for one. The pattern ones I found cover that part no as well as quite a few similar no’s. I’ve just ordered a pattern one thats on next day delivery so we should have it tomorrow or Sat at the latest. I’ll try and get out tonight and see if I can get the old one off. Fingers crossed….

Ours doesn’t appear to have a plug at the oval grommet. Our one seems to justhave a cable going through the grommet. The plug is up back left kind of under the dipstick. Guess i need to see whats inside the grommet.

I still keep coming back to why the throttle body is completely idle. On the wifes mazda, turn ignition on, press pedal and the butterfly moves in relation to the pedal. In the fabia its locked solid shut, but do the system test and it opens and closes. As yet I’ve not proven if we’re getting a spark. But it does look like I need to invetsgate a new crank sensor. Thanks for all your input though guys, It is appreciated. Hugh

We did see your suggestion, and did what we could to test it. Once we found it we disconnected it, cranked engine over and read the fault codes and it flagged up a faulty sensor. Reconnected and erased faults, cranked over again and no more fault. From that we assumed it was ok. But that of course doesn’t check it’s giving correct info. Be good if it can be done from underneath, but the wire disappears through a big grommit into the area behind the flywheel. So I’m guessing it’s part of the crank oil seal like the one we had on old 09 Sharan 2.0tdi.

But it’s not cranking slowly. It sounds fine, same as it always has. What’s being suggested is the sensor is lieing, giving false info.

It shows up in the measuring blocks in vcds. We’re only getting about 127 revs on the starter which aparently is half what we should have. Doesn’t sound any slower than usual, so I guess the suggestion is its saying it’s too slow to cause the next stage of ignition to happen. Need to get out and double check the cranking speed and to try the new spark tester that arrived yesterday to see if we’re getting any spark.

So I’ve been messaging a vw tech guy on a vw forum and he’s now suggesting the cranking speed is too low meaning the crank sensor is failing. Apparently it’s one fault that doesn’t show a code!! Pretty sure thats behind the flywheel, so a gearbox out job. The clutch is well worn so we’d have to replace all that too before finding out if a new sensor works. Could be a whole new bundle of money and time and effort for nothing.

Just done a compression test and we’ve one very low at around 50-70 pound. Rest are all 150-170. But, it would run at that, just roughly. Ordered a spark tester, but it wont come till tomorrow, that’s tomorrow nights tests.

Clutching at strawers now. Can’t get my head round why the Throttle body test moves the throttle to various positions, but the pedal doesn’t. We’re not even getting any fault codes now! I’ve just read about another box of tricks under the dash above the pedals. Is it as likely to be in that one maybe? Wifes got her eye on another near identical car thats not far away. Much lower miles and mot’d for a year. We could try swapping all manner of parts over. That would cost us £12-1300 to buy, plus insurance plus tax etc, and we end up with another car out front. Already got my old Astra with a dead turbo waiting for my attention!!