Evening all, 

 

So im an Octavia owner again and love it, however, on several occasions now my car has struggled to start and brought up a 'Start stop error'. So heres the sequence of events: 

 

I hop in the car, turn the key so lights all come on, whilst the glow plugs do their bit I put my seatbelt on. 

 

I then turn the key to start the engine, and it struggles to start, it turns it self over 5-6 times (today when I picked it up from the skoda garage it did the worse yet, turned over so much it stopped itself trying to start then started up again!!)  before starting then displays 'Start stop error' in the display! 

 

I turn rhe car off and immidientlt back in and it starts perfectly and no error message. 

 

Its been in with the dealership all weekend but they can't do much as theres no fault code to go off! Then as I started the car at the dealership it did it again! (As mentioned above) the worst its ever done it! 

 

When it first happened, I had the breakdown come out and they found a fault code on the system to do with the crank shaft position sensor. They said its possibly to do with this if the engine doesn't know where things are lined up?!?! It had a timing belt change last year (its a 14 plate) because of a failed water pump. Could it be the possibility of it being replaces wrong?

 

Just wondering if anyone has any ideas??? 

 

I've attached some pics of the error, and the fault code. 

 

Any help is welcome.

 

Thanks

I find with mine, if I get in, turn the ignition on and whilst waiting on all the warning lamps doing their cycle, I plug in the seat belt and do any other checks / adjustments required, it takes a few turns to start, but if I immediately try to start, it usually starts right away - as far as I know (haven't read the manual on this), if you turn the ignition immediately, it'll wait until all checks are successfully complete before starting anyway.

 

I haven't had that error message though.

Edited 12 September, 20178 yr by Jock

I would suspect that the error with the crankshaft position sensor is causing your problem.

These sensors can be sensitive to how they are fitted as they operate with a very small gap to the trigger Wheel that they are detecting.

 

When the garage looked at it last time, did they change, replace or try to diagnose any problems with it?

 

When it has this problem, are there signs that fuel is being injected like stutters/stumbles with the engine or is it just dead-cranking?

If there is a problem with the crankshaft position sensor, the engine will not be synchronised & the injectors will not be activated.

16 minutes ago, Gabbo said:

I would suspect that the error with the crankshaft position sensor is causing your problem.

These sensors can be sensitive to how they are fitted as they operate with a very small gap to the trigger Wheel that they are detecting.

 

When the garage looked at it last time, did they change, replace or try to diagnose any problems with it?

 

When it has this problem, are there signs that fuel is being injected like stutters/stumbles with the engine or is it just dead-cranking?

If there is a problem with the crankshaft position sensor, the engine will not be synchronised & the injectors will not be activated.

Hi,

 

When it starts, it simply turns over and over, doesn't stutter or judder.

 

The problem is, when the fault occurs it needs to be plugged on to diagnostic to see a code. When I turn the car off and restart, the code seems to be cleared! The annoying bit was, when it happened at the garage when I collected it yesterday, the techs were all packed up and walking home so couldn't stick it on the diagnostic there and then! Which meant I'd of stopped the car and the fault would of gone. 

 

I don't know what testing they did, I kept trying to point them in direction of the sensor and the possibility of timing (maybe to do with the cam bely change??) 

 

 

I guess its not impossible that they mabe slipped a tooth when refitting the belt & water pump but normally the engine is pinned in position during the proceedure so it shouldnt happen.

However, I would expect there to be more problems than just intermittant starting in this case as you would be running with a perminant offset.

 

I dont know where the sensor is located relative to the water-pump but perhaps the wiring loom, connector or sensor was damaged/dislodged during the proceedure causing an intermittant problem.

 

It is strange that the fault code dissapears & cannot be viewed afterwards.

When a fault is not longer present the error code should be shown as a "pending" or "historic" DTC.

Are you sure that VCDS is not clearing the fault codes automatically when you disconnect?

 

 

4 hours ago, Gabbo said:

However, I would expect there to be more problems than just intermittant starting in this case as you would be running with a perminant offset

Funny you should say this, I droped the car back in today and going to leave it with them for the next week and half! (I'm off to sweden for a week on sunday) Thet gave me a Yeti 4x4 Identical engine and gearbox to mine and it feels a lot more punchy and nippy! I phoned to the garage when I got home to ask what engine it was and mentioned it gelt miles better than mine! 

 

I just need to hope it does the error whilst they have it for the next week! Haha 

 

Oh and I mentioned over and over about the error code that was found, I also told them that the previous owner had the water pump changed along with cambelts and then 4 months later the last owner also took it in with a query regards to Start/Stop problem but they couldn't find anything! 

 

The big problem is I'm talking to the service desk rep..... not the actual tech no I've no idea of they are getting all this info I'm telling them! 

 

So news back from the garage. They suspect its the battery throwing up the problem. They tested it yesterday apparently it came up as 'Good. Please charge.'

 

So they charged it over night, checked it this morning 331a, Reading 'Good' 

 

Started the car and left for a bit then switched off and went back to it about 3 hours later. Tested battery again and it had dropped to 300a?! 

 

So, new battery on order.... Cost..... £200 fitted luckily the garage I got the vehicle from are taking the bill heres hoping the problem is sorted

So, its had a new battery fitted, went and collected the car. When I started it at the garage, the fault was back! So wasn't the battery causing the problem :/ 

 

I asked there and then if they could have the techs put it on the diagnostics machine while the error was there! The head tech said because it had not been started for about 4 days (I was in sweden) its likely the power would of dropped a bit?! Surely not enough to struggle starting on a new battery?? 

 

Anyway, it has since happened again at home, this time I managed to film it occuring! Please follow the link to the video: 

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-561y-dBlQFa29Kamp4bE5WYVU/view?usp=drivesdk

 

I cant afford to have it in the garage at the moment so I have told the dealership I got it from and Skoda that I plan to take it to Dover with me on 6-8th and see how it is, but I'm not hopeful....

 

Anyone have any ideas? Apparently the crank shaft position sensor error wasn't there when they checked. But I wonder if that's because they were looking when the stop/start fault was present? 

There are lots of posts on prolonged or cold cranking like

 

 

I had the 320F software fix on my vRS TDI but have since had it come back, though much less often and never when using Shell V power, so I suspect my issue was to do with injector drift, your cranking however seems even more prolonged so may be something else? 

 

No errors shown on my car either, you were spot on videoing it, that’s what convinced my dealer to look at it.

 

Good luck in getting it sorted, these type of faults are very frustrating!

Couple of years ago i posted on a slow starting issue, nothing to do with start stop, just cranked for too long before firing. My dealer cured that with a software fix.

 

I had this problem on my Passat bitdi it turned out to be the fuel rail pressure sensor.

on the PD units this was a problem with a combination of factors.  If the starter was worn enough to drop the cranking speed by a certain amount and the oil temp was too high then no fuel would be supplied. A quick crank-stop-crank would get it started first time.  Mine was finally fixed with a remap after a re-furbed starter, new battery and a few other things failed to fix.