As per the title line, not a Fabia Mk2 but an Ibiza 1.4 SC 2009 - so I think that it has the old electro-hyd steering system.

 

This car, over the past year or so has suffered from the battery discharging if it has been left unused for more than 5 days, after replacing the original battery, which was obviously not still 100% this car will now last about 15 days between uses - or the battery will need recharged.

 

Now, there was (internet) talk about Ibiza SC of this age being fitted with wrong S/W in the BCM and when they were presented at the SEAT dealer with a discharging battery problem, the BCM were reflashed after checking the car over.

 

With this in mind, I booked the car into SEAT and mentioned the possibility of it needing a BCM S/W check/change and they took this in, but the diagnostics has now revealed that the steering angle sensor is to blame, by the way, I scanned the car before handing it in and no faults were present.

 

Really just one question, are there supplies remaining active after the sequential power down via the BCM that could cause this reported issue?

Edited 31 May, 201610 yr by rum4mo

Ah well, no responders, so, in the spirit of helping others, I am reporting back after the garage has had this car in for diagnosis for a few days.

 

The workshop found that the only thing that was causing/contributing to the battery drain was the combined assembly called the "ring" which contains the clock spring for the steering wheel air bag + the steering input sensor for ESP (this car is 1.4 85PS so no ESP) and fog light operation as static cornering lights. Their logic to back this up, in my words so maybe not 100% was, that any unusual activity, ie a varying steering input signal, would keep awake or waken up the systems as this would be spotted on the CAN bus lines.

 

Only time will tell if this has sorted out this annoying problem with this car, so that means not using it for a month and I'm monitoring the battery voltage with a fused test lead across the battery - and checking that now and again so that I can get back to the garage is this battery drain continues. I'm lucky as I can leave this car for a month, but in my mind it is important to restore confidence in this car's ability to start when you jump into it if for instance it ends up being parked at an airport for a month or so, as my daughter will eventually return to UK and "re-own" it, leaving it at an airport car park is something that she would be inclined to do! Me, I suppose I could have always just taken a battery lead off to stop that - if I'd remembered to take the tools and not get flustered after being held up in motorway traffic for hours on the way to the airport!!

Thank you for your input regarding your issue. It may be of some help to other forum members as some point in the future. Hope it is cured now.

I still have reservations about this being the root cause of this sort of problem, but I'm sure the tech in the SEAT dealer knows a lot more than I do on these issues! It is just that the cause seems a bit weird to me, time will tell, ie a month of not using this car and I'll report back yes or no. That was a £463 bill which breaks down into roughly I hour diag £154 + part £155 + 1 hour fit, calibrate and test £154 - still I did not ever get to the bottom of this issue on my own!

 

Edit:- this thread tittle is slight wrong, I was using the Tech's reported title for that part, in the parts break down it was listed as "ring" and I've seen on the proper VAG parts listing online it gets another long name which describes its purpose, which maybe on later cars includes the old "steering angle" function.

 

Another Edit:- again if this fix is good, it points out that while many people might have an issue that has a common root cause of failure, sometimes that is not quite true!  A lot of talk on the Ibiza forums infers that this battery drainage issue, when it happens to a 2009/2010 Ibiza 1.4 SC, is either down to duff alternator, duff battery or incorrect programming of BCM full stop.  Lots of people have claimed that they walked into their SEAT dealer, described the problem, tech rushes out and re-flashes the BCM and they are sorted - or are they? Most people will only ever experience a battery drain problem after they have left the car unused for a week or so, like at summer holiday time, certainly in this case, if this car was being used regularly there would be no hint of this happening, what I'm suggesting is, when some of these Ibiza people that got a quick re-flash of their BCM, next go away for their summer holidays, they might have a nasty surprise waiting for them, I was just planning to minimise that occurance.

Edited 2 June, 201610 yr by rum4mo