Hi everyone. I've got a MK1 1.4 tdi fabia. It's 10 years old and has done 105000 miles. I've just had it serviced and a new water pump and timing belt change because the water pump was on its way out. It was great for a few days, then seemed to get a bit noisier and after a week the engine management light came on. I got it looked at a different garage and they cleared the codes. It was fine for a few days then juddered a bit at a traffic light tonight, then within a couple of minutes the light was back on. The codes that came up last week are 17911 P1503 load signal for alternator terminal DF: range performance (no idea) and 17699 P1261 pump-jet sporadic: valve: cylinder 1-N240 regulation range exceeded. I don't like the look of that second one. Does anyone have any idea what it is and if it's expensive/terminal? Thank you!

From what you have said there, I think you need to take it back to the garage that did the work and suggest that they correct their mistake - it sounds to me as though the bottom (crank) timing gear may have slipped slightly because the crak pulley may not have been refitted/torqued correctly.

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/17669/P1261/004705

 

Load sensor wire could be corroded or have been moved/ dislodged during the work.

 

Either way, for both jobs you need to take it back to the garage who did the work a said above.

Thanks for the advice. My partner is a bit reluctant to take it back there. It's a back street place and they took ages doing the last lot of work. I think I'll just have to accept the expense and take it elsewhere

It could be that injector wiring harness is on its way out and as above the load wire is broken.  These are at opposite ends of the engine to the timing belt, the injector wiring enters the head above the gearbox, so it could have already been poor before the work was done and moving the engine a bit has just finished them off.

I just hope it can be pinpointed quickly. The car runs well most of the time. These intermittent problems are such a pain.

This page http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/17669/P1261/004705 shows what to check, the wiring is the easiest and cheapest to replace and is the part which often fails due to its operating environment.

 

A big clue to having a broken load wire is that the battery light does not illuminate when you turn the ignition on.

Ooh thanks! I'll have a look for that. Would a broken load wire only trigger the warning light every few days though? Both times it's been on the motorway after a few minutes of stop/start traffic.

The injector fault would cause the engine management light to come on.  The broken load wire wouldn't cause a warning light to come on due to fact that it's broken, but it could possibly be behind other warning lights coming on due to low voltage faults.  I would say that these are two distinct unrelated faults.

Ah yes. Thank you. I hate cars. I'm going to be skint forever :-(

Edited 23 June, 201511 yr by Birdgit

Ah yes. Thank you. I hate cars. I'm going to be skint forever :-(

Look on the bright side; you'd be even more skint if you loved them

Does your battery light come on when you switch the ignition on?

The warning light stayed on all the way to work and then went off and stayed off all the way home tonight. The battery light does come on with the ignition.

Edited 24 June, 201511 yr by Birdgit

I thought you might say that. It's actually the blue 'exciter' wire (labelled L for lamp at the alternator) which, when broken, results in no battery light. The one you need to be checking is the 'DFM' wire from the alternator, it sends a signal to the engine ECU telling it how much of the alternator's potential output is being demanded at any time. On your car, I think this wire starts out as a brown/red wire at the alternator two-way connector, and becomes a purple/green wire at the plug/socket connection on the front of the gearbox. The plug/socket connection is almost always where this wire breaks.

 

The other fault is the one to concentrate on though. The DFM/load signal problem won't be related, as fordfan says above.

Thank you. It's off to the garage on Tuesday and I will pass the info on. I can't believe the light has fone off again. I'm sure it will stay off until Tuesday, the garage won't find anything wrong and it will come back on the day after...

Light came back on again. It's been the same situation every time. Urban stop-start traffic for about two miles, get on the motorway and do a couple of miles then it pops back on. Any significance?

Bloomin' light has been off all weekend and won't come back on. It's at the garage in the morning.

Car is at decent garage. Injector wiring harness has definitely had it. Fault code is saying injector 2 is duff. I'm tempted to just deal with the wiring harness and hope that fixes it. Can anyome help please?

Well if it was me I'd repair the injector wiring (and the alternator signal wiring down on the front of the gearbox), do nothing else and see where you are with function and fault lights/codes after that. If the wiring to injector 2 is duff, the ECU won't know whether the injector itself is OK or not, so you should assume it is, until the wiring is OK again.

Thanks for the advice. I was hoping you'd say that. It makes sense to me.

Well if it was me I'd repair the injector wiring (and the alternator signal wiring down on the front of the gearbox), do nothing else and see where you are with function and fault lights/codes after that. If the wiring to injector 2 is duff, the ECU won't know whether the injector itself is OK or not, so you should assume it is, until the wiring is OK again.

My thoughts exactly.

Thanks. I may end up chucking more money at it in the long run, but I think it's worth a punt. If it was definitely the dear part and possibly the cheap one, I'd probably do them both, but injectors are really expensive!

The saga continues. I had the wiring harness changed. Light stayed off for a few days and is back on almost constantly. It occasionally goes off when I reverse off the drive in the morning but comes back on about 2 miles later when I get on the motorway. I now have fault codes for injector 1, injector 2 and cam position sensor. Any suggestions please? I tried some diesel magic and it did nothing. I'm still getting 50ish mpg and it runs reasonably well although it's a bit noisy and I can feel it's a bit unhappy sometimes. If anyone has any solutions other than new injectors or scrapyard, I'd be really grateful.

Is there any possibility that it could be something to do with the new timing belt? All was fine before that was changed and the problems started about a week after.

Is there any possibility that it could be something to do with the new timing belt? All was fine before that was changed and the problems started about a week after.

 

I tis indeed possible that the timing is not quite correct, dodgy timing can make the ECU throw a cam sensor error, it is also possible that the wiring harness was strained while the O/S engine mount was removed and a bad mechanic shifted the engine to gain easier access to change the belt.