My wife's Fabia whch she has owned for 11 years from new and has only done 30,000 miles has had it's power steering fail.

I had hoped that it would be a simple fix (especially as the rack was replaced 1,000 miles ago and is still under Skoda warranty), but the dealer says the diagnostics point to a failure of the wiring loom.

They say that there has been water ingress into the loom (suprising, as the car spends most of its life in a garage) and that the loom needs to be replaced, at a cost of £1573 - which is more than the book value of the car.

Even worse, they say that the loom would be a special order and will take three months to arrive!

Unsurprisingy we are not inclined to go down this route so it looks lke we we will be writing off a car that is an otherwise good condition and has only done 30K. Not a good advert for Skoda!

Has anyone else had a similar experience with a MK 1 Fabia?

What year is it?

What is the 3-character engine code? (you can find it on the options label in the service log book or under the carpet in the boot).

It's only likely to be one wire that has failed, so £1573 is ridiculous

Without knowing the specific model...

IIRC, there are :-

3 wires to the steering sender

2 big power wires

1 switched power wire

2 CAN-Bus wires

Normal PAS failure is either fuse, earth, angle sensor, not a full loom.

Just had the same with a 51 Fabia, and a £2500 quote

If you post the 3-character engine code (you can find it on the options label in the service log book or under the carpet in the boot), I will post details of the wires you need to check/replace.

Hi,

 

I'm new to the forum, but today have been given the same diagnosis that my PAS warning light is on on my 03 plate 1.4 mpi fabia due to water ingress in to the wiring loom and quoted £1921.26 for a new wiring loom to be built in the Czech Republic.

 

My engine code is AQW. Any help would be much appreciated!

 

Hi,

I'm new to the forum, but today have been given the same diagnosis that my PAS warning light is on on my 03 plate 1.4 mpi fabia due to water ingress in to the wiring loom and quoted £1921.26 for a new wiring loom to be built in the Czech Republic.

My engine code is AQW. Any help would be much appreciated!

Assuming this is a UK car and hence has a TRW PAS pump...

There are three connectors.

1. A 2-pin connector with very large wires. This is the main power. The brown is ground and red/black is +12V fed via fuse 3 on the battery fuse holder. Check you have 12V across the pins of the connector.

2. A 3-pin connector which connects to the sensor. Disconnect at both ends and check the 3 wires for continuity, shorts to each other and to ground.

3. A 4-pin connector that usually only has 3 wires. Check that you have 12V (via fuse 7 in the main fusebox) at the black/yellow wire with the IGNITION ON. The orange/brown and orange/black twisted pair are for CAN-bus. If ALL ELSE IS OK then these wires are OK if you can connect to PAS via diagnostics.

If any of the connections are bad, then an auto electrician will be able to make a mini-loom with only the required wires.

WARNING: Just because you have been quoted for a loom doesn't mean that it isn't something else!

Usually dead steering angle sensor that causes these faults but there are heaps of threads on here on this subject... Do a search of this forum is my advice.

Colzie64

see http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/186217-fabia-power-steering-problems/