Hi there,

I have a fabia 1.9 TD 2007 TD which has been fine but I returned from holiday a few days ago to find that the instrument panel was faded and the car would not start. I left it for a while and it seemed to sort itself out and started but the airbag fault light was illuminated. Today whilst driving the rev counter and speedometer failed and most of the lights on the dash do not illuminate. The digital display is also a little faded. I thought it might be a fuse problem but everything looks ok. The car driver fine. Any ideas?

Sounds like battery is low. Is the car on the original battery? If so I'd change it and try to get a good make if possible as I got a cheaper one previously and it failed quite quickly.

 

If you can, use a multi meter to see what the battery voltage is whilst the engine is running, Should be 14.2V across the battery terminals. If thats low then might be alternator but more likely battery ready for replacement, as it sounds like it got drained when you were on holiday.

 

You MIGHT find a long 30 min drive will charge it back up, but if you do, keep electric's turned off to help it charge (so no heated mirrors, or screens, or heated seats etc).

Update.......a friend came over today and we had a play about, the problem goes whenever he sits in the passenger seat so makes me think that this might be related to the airbag sensor in the seat or something to do with the passenger seat belt sensor

Weird!