Yep. Different wire. Pic coming up...

I think on your car this is more or less right underneath the battery, the wire with the arrow pointing at it, going onto the back end of the starter, solenoid part. Usually breaks at the point where it does that right angle turn into the connector housing, sometimes insulation cracks and wire inside corrodes, copper strands snap one by one.  When there are only a few good ones left, it can produce these intermittent no-starts.

If you can get a hand to it, give it a gentle pull and don't be surprised if it breaks away completely.

 

 

 

This was mine (BLT) just didn't look the same as that pic BTW:

 

Can't really make out what I'm looking at there. Is that from above or below? Is the connector/wire in question the one at the bottom left of the pic, or middle left? Or somewhere else!

That is with battery and other sundries off and pic is looking direct into engine bay from the plate end (correct way up) in that pic I think. You can't see the gear selector arm so I guess that doesn't help.

Hence my confusion looking at your pic. I'm guessing its an ASZ so different from my BLT but same sort of area, from where the gear box selector arm is ?

 

Some different orientations of pics I took, from the same. I assumed mine was the "stretched" cable that appears to be a bit too much under tension in my shots, but looks nothing like your connector.

 

Do these help ?

 

Yeah the little red wire going to the solenoid

Yeah that one was fine with mine

TBF Its just age of the battery I'm sure

Found a thread on here I'd posted about replacing it almost exactly FOUR years ago (and it came with 4 year guarantee) good timing eh

 

It was on DRJs old post....

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/227335-replacing-the-battery-on-a-late-mark-1-fabia-vrs/#entry2696587

 

For about £60ish + for a 4 year battery, I'd buy another TBH....misremembered and put this more like 2 years !

 

To be honest it hasn't even failed yet.....charging at 14.4v ish but was low at about 12v this morning. Still turned over and started and got me work and back though STILL lol

They can be intermittent. Jason (Devonutopia) had that problem for a while.

 

With mine< turned on all of the lights/radio and checked they remained working/bright for a few seconds before turning the ignition to start position. If no change in lights/radio beforehand and then whilst starting, then the battery seemed good but the starter circuit was borked. If the starter was working but the battery borked, than I'd expect lights/radio to dim/stop.

 

J.

The charging rate has nothing to do with if your battery is ok,as that's the alternator creating that voltage.

Also the voltage is not a accurate way to determine a battery's health without the engine running.

Take it to your local garage/motor factors and get the battery tested,most places do it free.

The tester loads the battery like your starter will and checks the power of the battery,not just the standing voltage.

IMO it won't be your battery,as if your battery is knackered enough to fail to turn the starter at the first attempt how can it then have the power to start the car at the second attempt?

You really need to remove the wire mentioned above that goes to solenoid and lengthen it/rewire it IMO as a starting point due to how common a fault it is for that to give intermittent starting problems.

I was inspired to search for a replacement plug. Ha! Not so easy to find other than in references to dealers and TPS.

I found a useful part number though which brings up some helpful google images.

In the USA, one may buy a complete plug with "pigtail" wire for repairs.

 

1K0 973 751

 

J.

Thanks its going again reliably for now ( seemed to be the really cold spell that was problematic) but will revisit this as and when it start playing up again !

Guess I may need to revisit this again. Car hasn't started at all in days.

Tried on original battery, and was getting some issues keeping it charged so tried trickling and optomozing etc, but I starting doubting battery.

 

So bought a brand new Exide Premium on account of only really costing £56 from tanya anyway. But it still won't even try and turn over!

So back to square one. I guess I didn't really need a battery after all :(

Note to self if I can't see the wire break away easily,

to look at 591 on:

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/254615140/Fabia-diagrama-Flux-Curent#scribd

It was the damn wire......

 

How to get that damned connector off !!

Is it this type? If so the little bar which the arrow is pointing at has to be pulled a couple of mm with a thumbnail or screwdriver straight back towards the cable entry. Then pull the whole connector that way.

 

Edited 5 March, 201610 yr by Wino

To add to the above, the actual locking tab is tapered so you need to apply pressure as if your pushing the connector on while pullin that tab back and it should come off much easier. Not many people seem to know this and end up sticking large screw drivers in and snapping the clip... so might be helpful  

Top tip that, I forgot to mention that aspect.

Yeah I broke the clip bit If its as hard staying on as it was to come off, I'm not too worried about the connector every come off ! I might just use a cable tie and tape just to make sure its not going anywhere.

 

Also managed to remove the old actual female spad connector from the plastic surround ( the wire snapped off there too so I had to remove it) I noticed the blue internal tab thing you have to put out the way as it stops you pulling the spade female out ?

Don't be fooled by the 2 pin looking things at the front lol, they are a distraction.
I'm gonna solder fresh wire I got from maplin then push it back into the plastic surround.

 

Its so obvious now, I dunno why I didn't notice it when I stripped the lot down first time around, now I saw the pics where to look precisely,

it was really corroded near the loom bit at that end but I was looking further along where that loom goes to something else, and seems to be bending a bit under stress.

Any idea what part further down the loom is in case that may fail in future, or has done already ?

 

Now I have a brand new battery but the old one I don't think was even stuffed yet lol, thought I'd change it anyway,

guess on the wrong thing and should have checked this first ! Anyone want a brand new exide premium

I thought the spring/latch bit might actually pull all the way out to unlock it ( as it wasn't budging at all)

 

It was until I used mole style grips and gripped it really hard even then that the plastic connector budged,

it was really stuck on and I had to grip it really hard around where that spring release bit was to budge it.

If you've still got the connector off the car, can you have a look and see if there's a VAG part number on the housing?

Nah I gouged it when trying to get the thing off, it wasn't coming off with hands alone !

 

But I can tell you with confidence it is the 1K0 973 751 as mentioned above

As seen on this site http://www.matrixconnector.com/1280/ing/inonerow48.html

 

I was planning to just put the old one back on to be honest.

Maybe with cable tie/gaffa to try and ensure it stays well stuck in place but I have a feeling it will be tight fit going on as it was taking off to be honest.

Oh yeah, no problem mending what you have, I just thought it would be handy (for others in future) to be able to go at the job with a new wired-up connector that they could just splice onto the end of the old wire.

I'm sure VAG sell them, but never got round to looking at the part number myself.

Cheers.

Oh and and woo hoo I will be driving my fabia again tomorrow if I get this all back together ! Awesome ! Been at least a week since I've had downtime on the car.

 

Given my other car I roll about in is a beast of a mk3 black petrol octy vRS you might think that a bit odd that I'm hampering to drive it - but I have to say really really do miss driving the car its so fun and easy to drive ! I worry less than driving the octy which is a bit of a handful until you get on a roads and mways.

To add to the above, the actual locking tab is tapered so you need to apply pressure as if your pushing the connector on while pullin that tab back and it should come off much easier. Not many people seem to know this and end up sticking large screw drivers in and snapping the clip... so might be helpful  

 

This is good advice, pushing it on further means less effort for the tab to be pushed up which allows you to pull it off.

 

I snapped a good few before I figured this out

All sorted and drove first time in a while, not long after I'd been out in the Octy

(after spending ages polishing the bastar'd given the colour really lends it to look filthy and even washing it isn't enough).

 

Yellow car is far more forgiving, just a bucket of water of it and it looks great again !

Great fun, running nicely apart from brakes were a bit tarnished, now taking to work tomorrow !