Hi,

My power steering has failed on my 2000 W Reg Fabia (120k miles). Sorry as I have mentioned this in a previous post.

In a bit of a dilemma. A local VW specialist has said it is the pump having done a diagnostic check on it. They claim is it £269 for a new pump (cheap in my opinion), £180 labour, £18 for the fluid. Looks like a £470 or so job. Might get it for £430 with a discount if I'm lucky.

I'm thinking it could also be the steering angle sensor, although no mention was made by the VW Specialist. So have decided to take it for £45 to the Skoda Dealer to check, they have said £210 for the sensor, fitting and resetting if that is the cases (the sensor is about £110). This could save me the heart ache of wasting money on an expensive pump.

Any thoughts? Both I know are weak point on the Mark 1 Fabia and Polo and Ibiza alike.

Is it worth getting it checked at the dealer before I proceed to the new pump, being such an old car I don't want to fork out the earth for it. By the way no steering symbol on the dashboard, did initially have this and it went out, but had the flickering lights before this then dead steering.

Will appreciate any opinions or anyone kind enough to plug it in to find out what has happened to it.

Thanks.

Bit of a toss a coin one this. Have to use financial logic.

Sensor 1st, if that's the fault £200+ saved. if it needs a pump, you could argue with sensor fitters and have a refund

You've already had a fault code scan and it came up with a pump fault code.....so surely it must be a faulty pump or pump related ????

However, befor you write off the pump, check the PAS oil level, if its too low you will loose your PAS but it will not display a PAS warning light.

Bill.

Hi,

Thanks for this. I think it is the thought of spending over £400 on a car which is at best worth £900. I'm going to have to have a look around. My arms are aching!!

Nigel

It is not quite true that this is a common fault with Polo or Ibiza as they all had the modified pumps and sensors from day one. As far as I know, its only early Fabias that had the "other" power steering system that initially used a crap design of sensor and heavily sound proofed pumps - most of the problems with these early pumps stemmed from them getting soaked with water and that got trapped between the sound proofing and the pump - and it did not like that for too long! Maybe removing this covering and making sure all the connections are still okay will sort it (its a slight chance and a bit like guessing the fault code is wrong and the cheaper component is the real problem -ie sensor and not pump). If you really want to gamble, why not get the independant place to replace the sensor - at least that will be cheaper than letting Skoda do that job - but remember which fault code was getting logged and maybe go with cleaning up around the pump wiring first of all.