Hi,

I recently had my '52 Reg Skoda Fabia Estate, 1.3 classic MOT'd and serviced at a garage. The following morning I did a 60 mile round trip. About 5 mins from home the dashboard indicators "died", the rev counter and speed dial didn't register anything and the oil warning light and a couple of other warning lights came on. I switched the engine off and on again and it was like that for a few mins. I called the garage and they told me to bring it in, so I did. By that time things had settled and the dials were working, however the airbag warning light remained on.

After I got home from the garage, after they'd told me nothing was wrong, when I got out of the car and locked it, the dashboard backlight remained on at full brightness. This remains to be true nearly 24 hours later.

Is there any advice? This has annoyed me as nothing like this happened before the MOT!

The dashpod is a sealed unit, so unless the garage swapped your dashpod out while they had the car in for it's MOT (pretty unlikely) I'd say the two are just a co-incidence. It sounds like you need a new dashpod though which will be quite pricey ~£250-£350 fitted.

I've had very good service from these people with cluster repairs. You either need to pull and send them the dashpod (Pretty easy really) or you need to leave the car with them.

http://clusterrepairsuk.co.uk/

The MOT will have nothing to do with it, since they touch nothing electrical with the car. It would have failed even if your car had not been MOT'd

I have removed the other post as it will only add confusion later on.

It could be a faulty dash panel, the airbag light would be on as the dash panel as likely lost communications with the airbag controller. I had similar a couple of years ago.

Fabia Dash Problem

A MOT is just an inspection without any mechanical work involved. Topics like this serve as an example as to the unworkability of checking for modified ECUs on the MOT, that may come into force in 2012.

Ah dammit! Sounds like it's my bad luck come to stuff me again! Fordfan; your Fabia dash problem sounds like what happened to me. I use my car for work as I'm self employed and it's just a bit upsetting when things go wrong as I can't really afford to buy a new car or pay for expensive repairs.

Just two more questions... If the dash backlight remains on after I lock the car, will it drain the battery? Also, if it is corrosion, is that cheaper to fix?

Thanks for your help and advice. Much appreciated.

Out of interest, and somewhat of relevance to the thread - as part of the emissions test, is the OBD2 socket used (I assumed it was to measure engine speed etc)? If so it could be argued that interference has occurred with the electrical system to some extent.

But I would concur such damage would most likely have happened immediately and not after a trip back home etc, and it's a nasty coincidence.

UPDATE

Today the car decided to shudder and eventually the EPC and engine management light came on. It did not accelerate like it used to and there was a delay between foot going down and revving of the engine.

There is something seriously wrong and am not looking forward to the prognosis! Currently it is with a Skoda garage and I should find out what they think is wrong. This has upset me a great deal as I liked the little Skoda! This may put me off buying one in the future.

P.s. There is also some radio interference from the engine. This never happened before Friday.

Edited 20 December, 201015 yr by cbeadling

What did the service include? Radio interference with engine could be spark plug related.