hoping someone can shed some light on this problem on my dads 2001 fabia 1.4. basically, since purchasing the car a few weeks ago, every now and again the power steering would stop working briefly then would be fine, this happened a few times getting more frequent until one morning, pulling into supermarket carpark, the steering failed again, he parked up did his shopping and when he tried to start it there was nothing at all-no lights, no power.

my brother got it started with some jump leads and drove it home. he thinks its the alternator as when the engine was running, he disconnected the battery and the engine died, suggesting the alternator is not supplying power. we removed the alternator and had it checked by a local specialist who couldn't find a problem with it but replaced the regulator as he said thats usually the cause of any problems.

we re-fitted the alternator and the car started first time! turned it off and tried it again - nothing again, we bump started it and drove it for 5-10 mins and nothing electrical worked (lights, indicators, radio etc) my brother is still convinced its the alternator but my dad is reluctant to spend the £160 odd quid for a new one if it isn't that

are the starting and steering problems related?(i have spent the last hour searching the forum and have found lots of info about the power steering but not the 2 combined) or is it just coincidence? any help or advice would be greatly appreciated as i feel bad after recommending the fabia to my dad after many trouble free years in a micra!

I could be wrong but I believe the battery is still needed to complete the circuit in order to provide power. I believe these problems are usually battery related and so would replace that first. Your symptoms sound symptomatic of a bad battery - starting drains quite a bit of power from a battery, so starting and trying to start again suggests this is the case. If the battery is the original it's long past its time for a modern car with power steering etc, and if you check the electrolyte level you'll probably find it is completely dried out with black deposits on the caps.

Eurocarparts have 30% off at the moment making their Bosch battery prices unbeatable. Discount code is SERVICE30 and I believe it ends on the 30th of this month.

Disconnecting the battery with the engine running can be fatal for a lot of the electronics on the car (inc the expensive ECU) Without the battery (which has low internal resistance) the alternator can pump out huge voltages. Sounds like you have a faulty battery, but have probably done a lot more damage.

Disconnecting the battery with the engine running can be fatal for a lot of the electronics on the car (inc the expensive ECU) Without the battery (which has low internal resistance) the alternator can pump out huge voltages. Sounds like you have a faulty battery, but have probably done a lot more damage.

If the car still runs as before I'd be inclined to believe everything is (fortunately) ok. Probably a load of fault codes left in the controllers though.

thanks for the replies. what confuses me is that one minute the car started fine, we switched it off and tried again to make sure and there was nothing, no slow turning over, no click just nothing so we bump started it and took it for a quick drive and thats when the lights, indicators radio etc wouldn't work.

now i may be wrong but if the battery was completely dead, surely driving it a couple of miles should have put enough charge in the battery to operate the lights etc? thats why i thought alternator because its that which charges the battery when driving?

also i've just phoned my dad to try it now as i'm typing this and its completely dead still, but the lights wipers radio etc all work fine. now i appreciate that running small items like the lights requires very little power from the battery and starting the car uses loads, but if the battery had enough power to run the electrical items, surely when trying to start the car it would try and turn over a bit or make a click but there is no sound at all.

doing a search on here i've seen that the wire to the starter motor can break which could explain how the car starts fine one minute then not the next, but this doesn't explain why the power steering keeps failing, unless these 2 issues aren't related and i'm just assuming they are? thanks again for any replies

If the battery is that low the alternator won't charge it, it needs a base charge in there to build up on.

Sounds like a faulty battery to me.

Or a faulty earth lead.

If the battery is that low the alternator won't charge it, it needs a base charge in there to build up on.

Sounds like a faulty battery to me.

Or a faulty earth lead.

this makes sense! so went up there this evening, removed the battery and took the one off my car, fitted that and hey presto it started fine, turned it off, started fine again and again! power steering worked ok too, so hopefully it is just the battery that was at fault! which battery do you recommend ampage wise? the old one was a 60ah, eurocarparts have bosch s3 and s4 batteries but these are only 42 and 52ah, will the 52 be ok? many thanks for all your help, even tho it turned out to be something simple and obvious! oh well, you live and learn!!

Didn't mention that often the EuroCarParts site will show you the wrong/different parts. It's unhelpful that it forces you to select your car rather than directly selecting a battery size. The best way around this I found is to research the sizes then search on Google for bosch (appropriate 3 digit number) eurocarparts.

I am guessing you have a 1.4 mpi (8v) and ECP site shows you the 012 battery. I think the battery specified for the 8v is the 063, but as the existing one is 60ah that rules out it being one of those.

I recently looked into batteries myself. Mine was fitted with a 063 44ah one which is two years old. I found after fitting an alarm and pager, and making less/shorter journeys of late, it died after about 10 days of non-use. Checked current draw on battery and that's not so bad (600ma). I got a tape measure out and figured the biggest I could get in there to fill the space was the 096 so I went for this one http://www.eurocarparts.com/ecp/c/BMW_3+Series_320_2.0_2005/p/Car-Parts/Electrical-and-Lighting/Electrical/Batteries/?444770968&1&85fc45e67b0f7136b7621a6c587ed3bbc6d732eb&BATT Hopefully it will fit when I get it, lol. That's probably total overkill. I believe different years may be fitted with different sized battery boxes so recommend use of a tape measure, or to check the code/type already fitted.

Bear in mind different batteries have different connectors, terminal positions, and base clamps so random numbers won't work. Appropriate ones are likely to be... smaller to bigger...

063 (L:207 W:175 H:175)

012 (L:207 W:175 H:190)

027 (L:242 W:175 H:190)

100 (L:278 W:175 H:175)

096 (L:278 W:175 H:190)

Just fitted the 096, Bosch S5008 to my MPI, which fills the battery box entirely. Total overkill I admit - but hopefully I can leave it a month with the alarm activated and still be able to start. Would recommend anyone thinking of doing similar measure their battery box first as vag-cat lists a few different part numbers for the battery box. Remember when you measure that the fuse box lid has a recess to accommodate the terminals, and that the left side of the box has a wider part at the top for the positive cable.

right, just a quick update. i fitted a new battery on tuesday evening, a bosch s4 (which was slightly smaller than the one it replaced) and all was fine until saturday when the power steering light came on and the steering failed again! so the battery is still going flat somehow :(

rather than start replacing suspect items one by one (which could end up rather expensive) its been booked into a garage on monday for them to try and pinpoint the issue. the battery earth lead looked ok, but didn't check any of the wires to/from the alternator as i was certain it was just a duff battery, i'm suspecting the alternator but is there anything else which could be causing this? maybe the steering angle sensor?

cheers

right, just a quick update. i fitted a new battery on tuesday evening, a bosch s4 (which was slightly smaller than the one it replaced) and all was fine until saturday when the power steering light came on and the steering failed again! so the battery is still going flat somehow :(

else which could be causing this? maybe the steering angle sensor?

cheers

Could be the steering angle sensor (original has a plastic cap and known to be faulty)

Could be wires infront of gearbox that break causing lots of lights on dash

The battery should say 60ah on it for a decent performance as has been previously suggested!!!!!