Fabia Suddenly Stops, ECU Fuse Replaced, Now Won't Stop At All!

[Breezy_Pete]

Oh, good to have found that vac hose problem. Let me check part numbers, but I may have a completely intact spare of those if no change between an 05-plate AZQ engine and a 55-plate BME.

Just off out for an hour or so, but can check when I'm back.

Edited 12 December, 2016 by Wino

[Breezy_Pete]

It does look like the same part number. I replaced the one on the missus's car this year, in a dumb attempt to fix a non-problem with its brakes...

Turned out I was just unfairly comparing the 239 front discs/rear drums of the Fabia, and finding it lacked bite compared to the 256 front discs and rear disc system on my Polo...

Didn't want to remove the existing pipe before having a replacement, in case I broke it getting it off, so splashed out the £35 for a new one.  Didn't make an ounce of difference, 'cos even with the closest scrutiny, there wasn't a single thing wrong with the factory original.

 

So I can't quite understand why your daughter's had got so bad, maybe the car spent a lot of time in traffic, with hot engine bay during its early life?

 

I'll take a couple of photos of the old one off ours, but if you want it, email me. I would certainly consider it safe.

 

 

Intrigued by the relay fault code, 'cos the one we've been looking at isn't the fuel pump relay?

[Breezy_Pete]

Well, OK, on second inspection I have found one or two tiny splits that don't go all the way through, at the engine end. Maybe not quite such a good spare to offer.

 

Edited 12 December, 2016 by Wino

[felicia16v]

carefully cut the pipe away and just buy the correct size rubber servo pipe and cut it to the lengths needed, the hard male ends are barbed so once the rubber pipe is on it wont come back off, sometimes have to heat the rubber pipe in boilng water to get it on. 

The plastic pipe splitting where its expanded over the joints still happens on the newer stuff too sometimes so a bit of a poor show by vw really

[mogwye]

Same happened to one of my cars 2 weeks ago, new pipe £32.00 ish.

 

Replace with a genuine OEM pipe from a Skoda dealer - It's not worth doing a DIY repair, if it happened to go again in the near future causing an accident and an Insurance inspector spotted the DIY job, they would probably wash their hands of your claim.

 

DB.

[NeilTM]

WIno replied:

 

> Well, OK, on second inspection I have found one or two tiny splits that don't go all the way through, at the engine end. Maybe not quite such a good spare to offer.

>

 

Well, they say its the thought that counts, and I do sincerely appreciate it, thanks, including your greater care and vigilance than VW AUDI have clearly shown.   It seems as if you really did a fortuitous thing in replacing this pipe, given that it was defective and on the way out.  There is no way however that I would trust an OEM replacement from a company happy to continue to fit known to be defective critical brake parts to new cars 6 years on!

My wife and I have been really shocked by this.  Our mechanic was shocked, and further shocked when we checked and found no recall had been issued, but had been on many other models for the same fault.

I just did a search on this and came up with a top hit on this very forum from 2010!?:

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/170923-fabia-brake-failure/

This potenially lethal brake fault has been known about, and the effect on the braking felt for the past 6 years at least.  Who knows whether anyone has been killed or seriously injured by it, how many cars bent by it?  It is to weep to see the fumblings in the dark struggles of hapless owners trying to get to the bottom of why their brakes are coming and going, when they should already have had their vehicles recalled!

WHY WAS THE FABIA NEVER RECALLED?!

And what is wrong with the recall system that it failed to trace all affected vehicles?  The supply chain will be fully audited and known.

It is the same fault that was considered serious enough to issue a recall on other models.  It was clearly the same defective material of the pipe which should never have found its way onto a braking system, yet continued to be used for years after its deficiency was discovered.

This is corporate crime.  I just don't know how they have got away with it and for so long.  Even knowing the company's ethics does not balk at putting cheat routines into the ECUs so that they can detect when they are being put on the fraudulent EC mandated rolling road economy test, I have never been this shocked at what they are capable of.  If you look up the Ford Pinto online, this was the first occasion that a corporation was charged with homicide after 3 young women were burned alive when their car was rear ended and burst into flames.  The fuel tank was located just behind the rear bumper and this fire risk in a collision was not only known about, but as Ford used in its ultimately successful defence of the charge, other manufacturers did the same, as if multiple wrongs make a right.

The story reveals that they were calculating that lives could be traded for $10 worth of begrudged improvements per model.

I assumed that since there was a gap of 6 years between the manufacture and the first recall in 2013 that this was how long it took for the perishing to develop and that somehow a 2005 model was only just beginning to show up with the same fault, but then I discover from this forum that this has been known about on the Mk1 Fabia since 2010 at least!

Incidentally, I experienced plastic fuel pipe failure through fracture on a Xantia, and this turned out to be a known fault.  It had me skidding about the road on my own diesel!  The part was too inaccessible to change, and besides, why would I want to buy more sub standard rubbish?  So I bypassed it with proper fuel hose.  That was bad enough, but this just leaves me shaking.

What are we worth?  I intend to ask this rhetorical question of the VW AUDI group, but I already know the answer.

Neil



 

[Breezy_Pete]

So are you going to follow felicia16v's advice and mend it 'better than a VW new one'?
Better to light a candle than curse the darkness, no?

Edited 15 December, 2016 by Wino

[NeilTM]

Same happened to one of my cars 2 weeks ago, new pipe £32.00 ish.

 

Replace with a genuine OEM pipe from a Skoda dealer - It's not worth doing a DIY repair, if it happened to go again in the near future causing an accident and an Insurance inspector spotted the DIY job, they would probably wash their hands of your claim.

 

DB.

 

Sorry mogwye, but felicia 16v has the better measure of this.  While it is to be hoped your OEM replacement will last the rest of the life of the car, provided that isn't too long, the issue is a cynical betrayal of trust in the quality of OEM parts if they can demonstrate this degree of negligence.  You might possibly be right about an insurance inspection, but such a repair should be entirely defensible upon any inspection, and in the context of the untrustworthiness of the original manufacture.

 

Bite me once, shame on you.

 

Bite me twice, shame on me.

 

I will not be purchasing a replacement pipe from VW AUDI who should be whisking the car away today to repair it at their own expense while issuing a courtesy car to my daughter.  In my dreams I expect.

 

Neil

[Breezy_Pete]

The good news is that you shouldn't need to be doing any more fault finding in respect of the idle roughness.

 

There are some very expensive possibilities for what was causing that which we didn't even touch on earlier.

 

Please let us know what you find in the way of 'rubber servo pipe' as referred to by felicia16v, it could be a good option for quite a few people to repair their own rather than replace with identical new. (And they do look absolutely identical, we can but hope the plastic compound is different, but then it would/should have a different part number from the original? Could be a manufacturing process change, I guess).

 

Looking forward to the next instalment of 'relay news'.  You could always set up a little circuit with a battery and bulb to investigate the old diode more thoroughly?

Edited 13 December, 2016 by Wino

[NeilTM]

So are you going to follow felicia16v's advice and mend it 'better than a VW new one'?

Better to light a candle than curse the darkness, no?

I don't know what I'm going to do yet, I can't calm down yet from 'cursing the darkness'.  I want nothing more to do with such a cynically deficient product I cannot trust with the life of my daughter after this, and I will be seeking a remedy to this homicidal state of affairs.  But then what are the alternatives?  No other car manufaturer will have any more integrity. They are a global cartel now anyway, and the badges on the grills mean increasingly little as they swap arts and even whole models around between them. Corporate responsibility is an oxymoron.  Corporations are psychopathic, they just lull us to sleep with good PR and BS.

 

This is not me overreacting to the danger, if it was serious enough to issue recalls on other affected vehicles.  For something like this the DVLA posts notifications to all the registered keepers of affected models. 

 

Flexible brake hoses to the wheels are inspected at 3 years of age and annually therafter at the MOT because it is accepted that with such flexing, there will be eventual failure and loss of brake fluid and pressure if not periodically renewed. I have just changed these pipes at the last MOT on the Fabia, and as I have often had to do on my cars. The MOT tester was most vigilant as I could not see the cracks until I had the pipes off the car.  But he didn't spot the cracks in the servo pipe because it is not part of the MOT to be checked.  And the reason for that is that if proper vacuum hose had been used as we are entitled to expect, there should be no expectation of failure for the normal life of the car, and there wouldn't be.  Unless you want to say the MOT is deficient in not inspecting this part I suppose. Its a question perhaps.  The extent of this crime is probably determinable if you could get hold of the records for the number of such replacement pipes sold since it is hard to imagine why many should have been sold at all.  Why do governmental bodies charged with investigating such faults not demand such information?  I intend to ask.

 

So this doesn't just put the manufacturer in the dock (I wish), it puts the government recall system into question that it could apparently half heartedly recall some but not all affected models.  What evidence or information about the supply chain of these parts did it request from the manufacturer to independently investigate the extent of the problem?  Have we not been let down by this recall system that seems to just leave it up to the manufacturer's discretion to determine if they can risk staying shtum about a known defect so that they can carry on perpetrating it and profiting from the parts sales?

 

We should not be taking stuff like this on the chin, and handing over more of our hard earned to let them off the hook for supplying us with dangerously defective parts like this.  We should realise that given the indifference the system shows here to policing our safety, the bottom line is we are the real police force and should be demanding proper protection from such homicidal negligence, not the tokenism this incident reveals.  It frankly frightens me what we will put up with because if we never draw a line in the sand, the distance travelled over the point where it should be drawn might be infinite, and in my opinion roughly since this millenium began has resulted in car manufacturers globally grossly insulting us all in a myriad of ways.  One example just from yesterday, our mechanic just showed me a rear light cluster out of a newish Mercedes.  They welded the bulbs in!  A bulb goes and you have to stump up for a entire new rear lamp cluster at Mercedes prices. They could have made them all LEDs if they were going to do that, but no, only the brake lights.  A fool and their money are easily parted it seems.  Why are we such fools?  It is not as if we can't spot what's going on.  But knowingly spiking the brakes just has me as mad as hell at them for this. 

 

When your life is threatened it should trigger the fight or flight response should it not?

 

Neil

[NeilTM]

The good news is that you shouldn't need to be doing any more fault finding in respect of the idle roughness.

 

There are some very expensive possibilities for what was causing that which we didn't even touch on earlier.

 

Please let us know what you find in the way of 'rubber servo pipe' as referred to by felicia16v, it could be a good option for quite a few people to repair their own rather than replace with identical new. (And they do look absolutely identical, we can but hope the plastic compound is different, but then it would/should have a different part number from the original? Could be a manufacturing process change, I guess).

 

Looking forward to the next instalment of 'relay news'.  You could always set up a little circuit with a battery and bulb to investigate the old diode more thoroughly?

 

You are right in determining that the manufacturer cannot reasonably be trusted to have corrected this fault after so many years over which they have known about the defect and chosen not to correct it.  Perhaps I will make such a repair, since I couldn't trust the manufacturer's replacement even if they fixed it for free, and feel able to trust it with my daughter's life, but I will never again feel able to trust the safety of any car after this, new or old.  I know too much by now, and it is always worth listening to the shocking tales professional mechanics can tell you.  I learned for eg. that in the earlier days of ECUs, Ford were found out putting in a random number generator routine that after a certain point would go live and then randomly kill the ECU.  This was apparently in the mainstream American press but I have been unable to confirm the story online.  I was forced to sell the youngest car I had ever bought, thinking the Citroen C5 might be a nice replacement to the Xantia I really enjoyed despite its occasional spiking by delinquences like plastic clutch clips that broke, unplated strut tops that rusted and suddenly appeared pushing the bonnet up as the car collapsed onto the road.  I coped with or averted all that, but the C5 was a culture shock I never got over.  It was unfit for purpose by design, dangerous to drive from faultering power no one else on the forums ever solved, and I had to get rid of it for something older before it self destructed or stole my wallet, and luckily I did.  That was the point at which I realised that there was real malevolence beyond mere cynical exploitation towards their customers.  Then I discovered it was not alone amongst its contemporaries.  Stories for another place.

 

Good idea on the diode test.  I do intend to get to the bottom of this and will of course share what I find, but I'm being forced to fry other fish right now I think.

 

Thanks again,   Neil

[Breezy_Pete]

:thumbup:

 

Servo function is part of the MOT test, but obviously it could pass that one day and fail the next if the pipe is cracked as alarmingly as your car's.

[NeilTM]

:thumbup:

 

Servo function is part of the MOT test, but obviously it could pass that one day and fail the next if the pipe is cracked as alarmingly as your car's.

 

Yes, AFAIK they only test brake pedal pressure, and that probably subjectively.  I'm pretty sure there is no visual inspection of the brake servo hose, which is sufficiently inaccessible anyway to make a thorough inspection problematic.  The testers can't take anything apart, not even lift the air fiter assembly on top of the engine, or remove any cover over anything, something which they sometimes pointlessly complain about on the comments sheet.

 

My daughter never consciousely experienced any problems with the braking, but I now recall that some weeks ago she did complain about the car seeming to have lost some of its power. I drove it to see for myself, but could not detect any loss of power, but then I'm not as familiar with driving it as she is, and these pipes failing are reported to do so intermittently. If you read the 2010 thread, others experienced this also from the servo pipe being split as you would expect from air getting in and spoiling the cylinder vacuum, and loss of fuel economy was also reported.  I've always checked mpg every fill up as it is such a great early warning pointer for any number of possible faults, but my children unfortunately haven't.  But this points to the pipe having been leaking for some time before the current demise, but probably not linked to it?

 

My wife has now found more VW AUDI group cars with this recall and as late as a 2002 model SEAT Inca recalled in 2003, which suggests the splits in these pipes could have been present at or near to the time of vehicle assembly, but certainly within a year!, but interestingly the search engine on the gvt web site that allows you to search on a fault description in order to find all vehicles with that descriptor doesn't work reliably.  This is easily tested by using strings from reports like the one for the Octavia, which it didn't find.  That hardly helps does it?

 

That these pipes might fail from the get go is even more worrying, and undermines the assumption that this is invariably an ageing fault, unless hardening from engine heat can happen in under a year, from a higher mileage perhaps?

 

Neil

[rum4mo]

I'd think that that SEAT Inca pipe recall was for the nasty vac pipe - started off being flexi-ish that was used on 6N Polo and 6K Ibiza, my older daughter bought a "late" 6K Ibiza that was reg'd in February 2002 and it had a recall for that pipe. That variant of vac pipe, which was as usual thick walled and with fabric webbing to strengthen it, seemed to start life as well or part aged and just got worse, a real VW group triumph of choice of materials - or a dodgy manufacturer/supplier. I think that Inca as a design, kept using 6K Ibiza as its base until it died off!

[NeilTM]

I'd think that that SEAT Inca pipe recall was for the nasty vac pipe - started off being flexi-ish that was used on 6N Polo and 6K Ibiza, my older daughter bought a "late" 6K Ibiza that was reg'd in February 2002 and it had a recall for that pipe. That variant of vac pipe, which was as usual thick walled and with fabric webbing to strengthen it, seemed to start life as well or part aged and just got worse, a real VW group triumph of choice of materials - or a dodgy manufacturer/supplier. I think that Inca as a design, kept using 6K Ibiza as its base until it died off!

[NeilTM]

 

 

Looking forward to the next instalment of 'relay news'.  You could always set up a little circuit with a battery and bulb to investigate the old diode more thoroughly?

 

Done.  It lit a 21w bulb both ways round.  I assume that lays that mystery to rest, and that the diode is closed circuit?

 

New one comes tomorrow hopefully, so will repeat test on that before fitting, but may not risk fitting it until we've found the whatdunnit, dunno yet, it is tempting just to see if it is a fix and hope the short does not recur in a brief test.

 

I also will rebuild the pipe with proper vacuum hose to a proper spec.  It so happens there is a company in Milton Keynes where I Iive making vacuum pipes so I might well go and see them, otherwise I imagine most car spares counters will have a reel of the right thing.  Provided the plastic ends the pipes join to are serviceable and the pipe is the right internal diameter and spec I don't see why anyone should be afraid of doing this as you will simply be replacing not fit for purpose hose with the proper stuff, and its just a push fit.  I notice from the 2010 thread that in 6 years they have doubled the price of their replacement.  Says everything about their priorities IMO.

 

I've decided not to dignify the crooks that made the car by communicating with them at all, but they will hear about this, and I've worked out more or less how I'm going to go about this also.  I'm keeping my powder dry on this though, so don't ask, and it could be months before this is resolved if I'm successful.  I think I have a pretty good idea as to what has been going on here already, and now I shall endeavour to test that.  I promise I will return to this thread if/when the time is right to say something about that.  However, don't let that deter anyone else from pursuing this in their own ways should you wish.

 

And I'll also let you know how I get on getting Fabio as my daughter calls it back on the road.  I think we still have to find a shorting wire somewhere which looks likely to be the hardest thing to discover, but this thing has been full of surprises so far, so who knows!

 

Neil

[Breezy_Pete]

I'd say that proves categorically that the diode has failed short-circuit, yes. 

Important edit: If you do decide to test the diode in the new relay by your bulb method, be aware that a 21W bulb may draw more current when lit than the diode is rated to handle in its forward direction, and a brief inrush surge of considerably more when it's cold, so use a much lower rated bulb if you must. But I would stick to testing with multimeter. There's no reason to suspect it won't be working.  I do understand you wanting to see a difference, but don't want you to kill the new diode by overstressing it before it even makes it to the car!

 

I reckon you should chuck the new relay in when it arrives, repair the vac hose as you suggest and pat yourself on the back having fixed and improved the car.

 

Only thing I'm still baffled by is the fault code pointing to the fuel pump relay, when the observed problem, and fuse blowing/misbehaviour is all focussed (thus far) on the ECU relay instead. 

Relays do generate high-voltage reverse-polarity spikes when their coils are de-energised (example ref.), so it's possibly one of those that has killed the diode in the ECU relay.

Edited 14 December, 2016 by Wino

[NeilTM]

carefully cut the pipe away and just buy the correct size rubber servo pipe and cut it to the lengths needed, the hard male ends are barbed so once the rubber pipe is on it wont come back off, sometimes have to heat the rubber pipe in boilng water to get it on. 

The plastic pipe splitting where its expanded over the joints still happens on the newer stuff too sometimes so a bit of a poor show by vw really

 

 

Same happened to one of my cars 2 weeks ago, new pipe £32.00 ish.

 

Replace with a genuine OEM pipe from a Skoda dealer - It's not worth doing a DIY repair, if it happened to go again in the near future causing an accident and an Insurance inspector spotted the DIY job, they would probably wash their hands of your claim.

 

DB.

 

felicia16v and mogwye,

 

Could you tell me what years and models your cars were that you had to replace the vacuum pipes on please?  I'm trying to get a picture of how long this problem which began at least on 1997 cars has continued for, and even if it is still afflicting new cars.

[mogwye]

2004 Fabia 1.4 TDI - Vacuum Pipe failed on 29/11/16 - Pipe was replaced on 2nd December 2016.

 

DB.

[rum4mo]

NeilTM, sorry to butt in again, but, the SEAT Inca pipetype/material and the pipes that you are complaining about, I think, are two completely different materials, I'm guessing here that you are complaining about the "shiny hard preformed" newer pipe that VW group are currently using.  Initially I thought that some people and some recalls were due to the adaptors/stub ends fracturing - that rings a bell I think.  Okay most of these problems cover piping used for the same function, which still makes it all a bit naughty!

[NeilTM]

I'd say that proves categorically that the diode has failed short-circuit, yes. 

Important edit: If you do decide to test the diode in the new relay by your bulb method, be aware that a 21W bulb may draw more current when lit than the diode is rated to handle in its forward direction, and a brief inrush surge of considerably more when it's cold, so use a much lower rated bulb if you must. But I would stick to testing with multimeter. There's no reason to suspect it won't be working.  I do understand you wanting to see a difference, but don't want you to kill the new diode by overstressing it before it even makes it to the car!

 

I reckon you should chuck the new relay in when it arrives, repair the vac hose as you suggest and pat yourself on the back having fixed and improved the car.

 

Only thing I'm still baffled by is the fault code pointing to the fuel pump relay, when the observed problem, and fuse blowing/misbehaviour is all focussed (thus far) on the ECU relay instead. 

Relays do generate high-voltage reverse-polarity spikes when their coils are de-energised (example ref.), so it's possibly one of those that has killed the diode in the ECU relay.

Relay just this minute came in the post, and checks out as it should for the presence of a diode and expected resistance across the coil, thereby further confirming demise of the old one.

 

As you say the fault code 17909, "fuel pump relay circuit short to ground" which did not recur after clearing remains unexplained, and so will have one more last go at a visual inspection of associated wiring in so far as we can even find it.  It occured to me that if there is a short in the wiring to the relay it ought to be possible to detect it by checking continuity to earth against the pins, or with ignition on, finding a voltage between a pin and earth, but without knowing what is to be expected at the pins, we wouldn't be able to understand what we found, and of course Haynes is as silent on such matters as its wiring diagrams are not wiring diagrams.  Mechanic says if you ask them they have to tell you, but their manuals are not available to their customers.  This would take too long.  We'll risk having to wait for another relay and setting fire to one of those nasty plastic fivers made from bits of animals in them, (and hopefully nothing else).

 

What you say about relays producing "high-voltage reverse-polarity spikes when their coils are de-energised" is interesting, but I'm not sure how it might be relevant here.

Are you saying that maybe the relay committed suicide, (ie. we are not looking for a further cause), and why you consider this a proper fix if everything works?  From the document you referenced I got that such 'transients' as they call them are dealt with by resistors in parrallel with the solenoid coil as one of the ways, and must be the case with this one both from the circuit diagram and the visible presence of a resistor.

 

Go and bite the bullet soon I suppose.

 

Thanks again,   Neil

[NeilTM]

2004 Fabia 1.4 TDI - Vacuum Pipe failed on 29/11/16 - Pipe was replaced on 2nd December 2016.

 

DB.

Thanks for that.  :-)

 

Neil

[Breezy_Pete]

Yes, I think that's what I was saying.

Just thought of another useful measurement comparison you could do. Resistance of relay coil, old and new. Can't tell you pin numbers right now as I'm out walking the dog, but I reckon you can work it out. Use the pin without the diode.

If the coil on the old one has gone short circuit it could explain fuse blow and diode failure, I think.

Edited 15 December, 2016 by Wino

[Breezy_Pete]

But the relay couldn't work...

Dodgy theory that one.

[NeilTM]

NeilTM, sorry to butt in again, but, the SEAT Inca pipetype/material and the pipes that you are complaining about, I think, are two completely different materials, I'm guessing here that you are complaining about the "shiny hard preformed" newer pipe that VW group are currently using.  Initially I thought that some people and some recalls were due to the adaptors/stub ends fracturing - that rings a bell I think.  Okay most of these problems cover piping used for the same function, which still makes it all a bit naughty!

 

Please don't apologise, I hadn't properly processed what you were saying earlier, and now need to re-check the wording in the recalls to see if they do mean the same thing, as they have varied the wording slightly between recalls, although I thought it always came down to splits in the pipes where they join.  Could they possibly have sourced two different sorts of inadequte pipe that fails in the same way?  The mind boggles.  That the solid pipe terminals that are joined to could themselves have been subject to failure is as additionally worrying as it is dismaying.  Why not just make the cars out of play doh and be done with it eh?

 

If anyone has any scrap of information relating to these pipes from their own experience, or heard elsewhere, please share as the more pieces of this hideous jigsaw puzzle we find, and find where they go, the clearer the picture that might emerge of what they've done.

 

Thanks,    Neil