Hi guys,

 

I am kind of a newbie in cars in general, and in enginers even more. Straight to the topic, if I empty the oil tank, and turn the key on (first position, not actually turning on the engine) for my Fabia 2005 (1.9 TDI ATD) shouldn't the oil light stay on?

 

I was changing my car's oil, and was like, ok, let me check if my "sensors" or whatever they are called, are working properly and if I will not have enough oil in the future it will actually notify me, so when the oil was emptied I turned the key one time all the lights came up, and everything went away (except the engine of course), does that mean that something is wrong, or it would have come up when I would have turned the engine.  

 

One thing (most probably totally unrelated, but I will just mention it) my battery light is not working (most probably the led is gone).

 

And another question, much harder to ask...sometimes when I drive I could hear a weird knock like it hits an empty piece of metal, I most usually hear it when I go over a pot or smth, but sometimes when I drive normally, but it is not every time, I drive over a pot, it is kind of random, and sometimes I could hear from the back side, sometimes from the front side. I am not sure, but I feel like it happens the most when it is kind of cold. In the beginning, I thought I had like ****s in my trunk, but I emptied it and still. Can it be diesel banging on the walls? 

I have recently changed (but the sound was also before) coupling rods. When I went to the mechanic I asked him to change both the coupling and tie rods, but he said the tie rods were fine, but the right coupling rod, was actually broken. The car has almost 400.000 km and wasn't not very properly maintained by the previous owners (I got it quite cheap, as a student it works well for me). What can I check with basic home tools?

 

Cheers! 

Does the car actually have an oil level sensor in the sump (you can see three wires going to it on the underside of the sump if present)?

I think in the UK market all Mk1 Fabias were supplied on fixed interval servicing, and so did not have this sensor (or brake pad wear sensors). Is your car on variable interval servicing?

 

Battery light is going to be the blue wire to the alternator broken, not the LED in the instrument cluster. 99.99% certain.

 

Knock might be an exhaust heatshield broken off one of its mountings, have a look under the back of the car for loose metal heatshields.

Edited 26 December, 20187 yr by Wino

@Wino well, * I guess I am going to check it at the next oil change, cause, it's too much hustle to remove all the protective cover. 

                        * Second I have no idea and I do not know how to check, I remember when I was figuring out when to change the oil, I was checking the book and it was talking about different servicing types, (q1, q2) and I never got to understand those, I just stick to one year or 15000km. 

                        * Yeah, but if the wire is broken wouldn't the alternator not charge the battery and battery go dead? Not sure. I know many were suggesting an issue in the wiring. 

                        * I will definitely check the mountings of the exhaust. 

 

And another question (sorry if I go off the topic, I am not sure if I am allowed to do so on this forum) sometimes when I try to put the car in the reverse gear, it would not go...naturally, so I would leave the clutch pedal and then press it again and it goes fine. Not sure how worried should I be about that. 

 

And another one, sometimes when I reverse, I can hear and feel one knock.....what can it be? 

 

Thanks for the replies

 

Edited 26 December, 20187 yr by elaasi

Is there an options sticker on the floor of the boot/trunk area? Or in the service book, if you have one of these to look at, the servicing code will be on there. Post a photo of the codes and we will find the right one.

Alternator may start up at higher engine revs, so may not always cause a problem, even with the wire broken.

 

Example of options sticker here, service code is QG0, start of last row, but yours may be different and not in the same position:

@Wino I will most definitely make a photo and post it. 

@elaasi - Seconded on your alternator load sense wire(s) being disconnected or broken.

@Wino so I have made a photo of the paper, now what does QG1 means? 

That means you're on variable interval servicing (or at least the car was built with that set) so it will have oil temp/level sensor and brake pad wear indicator.

 

I haven't tried to see what happens if the ignition is turned on with an empty sump (on my Polo, the Fabia doesn't have the sensor), so I'm not sure if it should show a low level warning in that situation. Was the bonnet open at the time? That may disable the warning.

 

Edited 28 December, 20187 yr by Wino

@Wino what does variable interval servicing means? and yes, the bonnet (it took me a while to figure out what does that mean  English is not my mother tongue) was opened. I anyway check the oil level myself, from time to time, but I wanted to know. But back to variable interval servicing, what does that mean, what are other types? 

This document isn't specifically about Fabias, but the basics will be the same across all VW group cars I think:

http://www.volkspage.net/technik/ssp/ssp/SSP_224.pdf

 

 

@Wino but for me the car doesn't ever (or at least I haven't ever seen) show a "Service" indicator, the only thing is that when I start the car, for a few seconds, where the KM (odometer) is, shows up a wrench and it disappears after a few seconds, as I said I usually change the oil (and all the filters) once a year (because I also drive a little under 15k km a year) and in regards to the brake pads/disk until now I inspect them from time to time (as I have disk breaks both front and rear and it is not that hard to visually inspect them + I have one of those electronic rulers). So I guess maybe the sensor for the oil level works in a different way, maybe it did not show up because the engine wasn't ignited, maybe because the hood was opened. 

 

But anyway thanks for the clarification. I did not have the opportunity to check the exhaust, when I will look at it I will write what I found out. 

 

And another little question. Does a 5.2 - 5.7 l/100km on the motorway and around 10 - 11 l/100km on a very heavy traffic city driving for a 400k engine is it decent or there are issues? 

 

Cheers!

Edited 28 December, 20187 yr by elaasi

I think the light is supposed to glow yellow for low oil level.

 

From the owners handbook...

 

Edited 28 December, 20187 yr by TMB

Fuel consumption seems OK, I think.