Excuse this for being the 1000th post (possibly a milestone) about PAS problems on the Mk1 Fabia, although mine seems to have gone a step further.

 

My Fabia started to exhibit the PAS light and loss of assist, flickering lights etc on the odd ocassion recently but tonight things went up a scale. I was nearly home and popped to the garage to pick up a couple of bits, got back in the car and got about half a mile from the garage when the PAS light came on, loss of assist, lights flickering really badly, ESP and ABS lights appeared on the Instrument Cluster and then  all of these lights started to go on and off randomly light a fruit machine. The engine was also incredibly unhappy, it apppeared to start lurching and 'chuffing'. I turned the ignition off and on again, all went back to normal and got the car home.

 

I had a good look around the engine bay this evening, all looked fine, PAS pump is nice and dry, my Fabia is a 2007 model, late 2006 possibly so does not have the padding around it like on the earlier models, PAS Fluid level was spot on, couldn't see any chaffing of cables etc. I am at a loss as to what the problem is here.

 

I changed the battery to a 77Ah Bosch S5 about a week or so ago in case it was the battery that was causing problems and things appeared to improve for a few days but now things have got a lot worse, I am lost.

 

I recorded a bit of a video which I took tonight which shows the problems, I was able to replicate it, if it helps. It is on YouTube under the following link: http://youtu.be/bjRTRTCyzqk . I have also ordered a VAG-COM cable as my exisiting Diagnostic reader doesn't seem to highlight any codes, always comes back with 0 even when the warning lights are up on the instrument cluster.

 

Any help would be very much appreciated.

 

Cheers.

Dodgy alternator?

Dodgy alternator?

Defo clutch pully has died and is slipping thus no charge into battery.

Need to know make of alternator and age of your car to give you part number needed

A few years ago my wife's 06 vrs had similar PAS and electrical problems and proved very difficult to find out the exact cause.

 

I spent lots of time and money trying to resolve it and in the end gave up and sent it into to the Skoda main dealers only to find they too couldn't find the cause of the fault.

 

Things got so bad my wife was in tears and said she didn't want the car anymore, then one day whilst testing the electrics (again)  I noticed that the resistance across the small earth lead from the battery to the inner wing had increased and was a little bit warm to the touch. 

 

I replaced the lead with a new OEM one and from that moment the problems went away and have never re-occurred. 

 

My son now owns the car and it is problem free.

 

HTH

 

Bill.

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.  I have the alternator off the car and it has been taken to an alternator re-conditioner for checking, will keep you up to date.

Well, believe it or not, Alternator back, fitted and fingers crossed! The guys that had the Alternator found a faulty Regulator and noisy bearing so replaced both. They noticed the Alternator pulsing from the off, total cost (let's hope that's it) of £42...

 

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction, much appreciated.

Happy to help mate. Glad you got it sorted.

the pas will always be the first thing to play up as its the biggest consumer of power.

TBH vcds would have shown an odd alternator load % and iffy charge voltage.

the pas will always be the first thing to play up as its the biggest consumer of power.

TBH vcds would have shown an odd alternator load % and iffy charge voltage.

Quite right, I had ordered a VAG-COM cable as well just didn't turn up before I found out what the problem was. I started to get a bit desperate as I didn't have a car to get to work. To be honest, I was grateful for the tips (yours included spud31) as it pointed me in the right direction. God forbid if it had been an alternative electrical problem taking an age to diagnose. The scariest and most embarrassing thing I encountered whilst this was going on was overtaking a Tractor from 2nd gear, revs up and with all that grunt and then losing PAS I nearly Pi$$ed myself, had to stop the car and then turn it over again and the Tractor overtook me again in the process FFS!

I seem to be experiencing this exact problem with my 06 vRS too.. did chaning the alternator cure the issue or was it something else?

Replacing the earth cable from the battery sorted this issue on my car.

Was your issue exactly the same? I have the exactly the same lights flashing in mine as described in this thread

Yes, it even cut out at one point.

Ive just been to measure my battery voltage etc.

 

Battery read 12.74/75 - think this is okay//

 

Measured from Negative terminal to where cable meets body and was reading -1.7ohm? Is this bad?

 

Measured from negative terminal to bosy of car and had 0 ohm?

 

Not sure are these correct?

I seem to be experiencing this exact problem with my 06 vRS too.. did chaning the alternator cure the issue or was it something else?

 

Hi Mayney, I kept meaning to come back to this topic and post my results. I did get it sorted, owing to the amount of grief the problem was giving it was quite straight forward in the end.

 

Here's the score, without a doubt my original alternator had an issue, replacing it resolved the issue for about a week, when the alternator was playing up I remember hearing a 'pop' noise come from what I thought was the right of the steering column, this happened when pulling out sharpish to overtake another vehicle at night. I thought the noise was my keys hitting the steering column casing and thought nothing more of it as I lost steering etc as I undertook the manoeuvre and had greater things on my mind as a consequence.

 

Anyway, as mentioned, I replaced the Alternator just after and all my problems disappeared for about a week, then all the problems came back and I came back to this thread.

 

I decided to look at the earthing and went from the battery onwards (I had recently replaced the battery so knew this wasn't the problem). This is where I feel like a bit of an arse..... I purchased a replacement battery earth lead from Halfords and swapped out the OEM lead from the battery to the suspension turret, on my way back to the vehicle to turn it over I noticed the Fuse Cover (to the side of the dash on the drivers side) was bulging, I popped it off and 2 of the fuses were hanging out!! One was for the Electric Windows and I can't remember what the other was but both were high ampage. I pushed them back in, turned the car over and all my problems disappeared!

 

I think what happened was due to the faulty alternator the fuses popped out and hit the fuse cover causing the 'pop' noise, as they were just making contact the vibration of the car was bonding the contact on and off, hence the flickering and instability.

 

I don't know whether this is of any help to you but it saved me a fortune as I was just about to take it into Skoda as I had just about given up, if they had got to the problem and had told me it was a fuse and they pushed it back in I would have died on the spot.

 

Good luck

Thanks for the detailed response, fortunely i still have warrenty on the car so it will be heading back into the garage for investigation tomorrow, where exactly is the fusebox becuase il have a look at that after work today.

 

Thanks

When you open the drivers door it will be right in front of you (on the right hand end of the dashboard where the drivers door meets the dashboard). You should be able to prise it off with a little effort, watch for the spring clips that hold it on as they may drop out when removing the cover, they just slide back into the cover if they come out.

 

Softscoop (above) show a good picture of the location in a previous post (thanks Sam) http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/246285-a-few-little-questions/?p=2889838

I too had same problems, earth lead was fried

Just done a few measurements at work the the multimeter

 

surface charge of battery - 12.82v

 

surface charged removed (Ignition & Lights on) - 12.22v

 

car started on idle  it crept to around - 11.77v but wouldnt rise Until Revved? then it went to 14.2v

 

measured voltage from battery earth to where the earth strap meets the car body and it was drawing a spike of around 0.8v once turned over?

 

Does this suggest a bad earth or am i looking in the wrong place.

 

I think my battery is good and im having the exact symptoms thta are described in the above post's

Load sensor wire snapped?

Yup thats what had happened, Just so everyone knows if you cant see your battery light upon switching on the ignition, your load sensor wire is probably fubard