Hi,

 

I'm having an issue with the power steering on a 2000 Skoda Fabia 1.4 MPi which I hope someone may be able to help with. Let me describe the symptoms,

 

Firstly I have a steering light on the dash. With the engine on, if the steering wheel is turned slowly in either direction the power assist is fine. But whenever I need to turn the wheel in either direction with a bit of pace i.e. a sharp turn there is no assist.

 

Haven't performed any physical exam of any steering components yet. The battery is 2 years old and appears fine when checked with meter.

 

The following DTCs are on the system, taken using VCDS lite (unregistered)

VCDS-Lite Version: Release 1.2Sunday, 19 April 2015, 14:33:51.Chassis Type: 6Y - Skoda Fabia IScan: 01,02,03,08,09,15,17,19,25,37,44,46,55,56,76 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Address 01: Engine       Labels:    Controller: 047 906 033 A   VCID: 115536474871-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Address 09: Cent. Elect.       Labels: 6Qx-937-049-B.LBL   Controller: 6Q1 937 049    Component: BORDNETZ-SG.        1S30   Coding: 09362   Shop #: WSC 13765   VCID: F883EBE3CBCB4 Faults Found:00906 -  Horn (H1)            28-10 -  Short to Plus - Intermittent00778 - Shareware Version. To Decode all DTCs            49-00 - Please Register/Activate01324 - Shareware Version. To Decode all DTCs            49-00 - Please Register/Activate01044 -  Control Module Incorrectly Coded            35-00 -   -Has anyone ever experienced something like this before or have any suggestions on where to start?

Cheers,

 

Hi,

 

Connect to the steering ECU, and get the fault code from that.

 

I had something similar recently. Turned out to be the sensor, but no point swapping parts until you get an idea of what's wrong. The fault I was getting was:

 

Address 44: Steering Assist Labels: 6Q0-423-156.LBL
Controller: 6Q0 423 156 E
Component: Lenkhilfe 0001
Coding: 00110
Shop #: WSC 00000
1 Fault Found:
00816 - Power Steering Sensor (G250)
37-10 - Faulty - Intermittent

 

Cheers,

Iain

Thanks for taking the time to reply Iain. I did an auto-scan. Would that not include the steering ECU? I can see now that there is a steering assist (44) option within the Chassis tab in VCDS-lite. I will try that!

 

Can I ask you what symptoms you had exactly?

 

Cheers,

Hi,

 

When I tried an autoscan with VCDS-Lite, it bombed out at address 08 (from memory), saying it was shareware or something. Did you get that?

 

Symptoms were: Warning light would come on after ~10mins of driving, flickering electrics, and occasional loss of power assistance.

Autoscan doesn't work unless you have a registered version of VCDS.

First thing I would check is the cabling to the power steering pump, they sometimes work loose or get corroded which only shows up when the pump motor needs more current.

Hi,

 

When I tried an autoscan with VCDS-Lite, it bombed out at address 08 (from memory), saying it was shareware or something. Did you get that?

 

Symptoms were: Warning light would come on after ~10mins of driving, flickering electrics, and occasional loss of power assistance.

 

I am using an unregistered version of VCDS-Lite. I've read that autoscan run on a shareware copy only scans the first couple of modules then stops. I think I'll try and query address 44 (Steering Assist) and see what I get! Next step then will be check cabling at pump.

 

The steering assist only stops when the wheel is turned sharply when I'd expect more current is required by the pump!