My 2005 vRS Mk I diesel shows washer bottle warning light on even when the bottle is full. Not an earth-shattering fault, but a nuisance when the buzzer sounds just as I'm reversing out of a narrow garage door.

Haynes manual 4376 wiring diagram section 12*26 shows the sender (item 66) as a variable resistor similar to the fuel gauge sender. Is this a mistake by Haynes? - I would expect just a simple switch.

Haynes doesn't say whether earthing the wire shows bottle empty or bottle full.

I don't fancy removing the front bumper to get at the washer bottle. Can I (now old & arthrytic) easily disconnect or earth the feed wire?

The reference to a parts diagram (if available online) would be very useful.

Thanks in advance, gents.

 

You can get to the washer bottle just by removing the wheel arch liner. 

Thanks very much, TMB. I'll have a look over the weekend, but the arthrytis will still be there! Any other access?

The sensor is part number 7M0 919 376. It just has two probes...

 

Edited 29 March, 20197 yr by TMB

2 minutes ago, timber said:

Thanks very much, TMB. I'll have a look over the weekend, but the arthrytis will still be there! Any other access?

 

If your arthritis is too bad for even light hand tool use then you can't fix this yourself.

The sensor looks like it's right at the front, so maybe a bumper off job afterall...

 

 

 

 

Edited 29 March, 20197 yr by TMB

Thanks again TMB for the pics. I left Teesside in 1960, was brought up in Darlington and worked at ICI Billingham. We also bought the Fabia privately in Darlington in 2007 - a long trip from Suffolk but worth it to get a low mileage car.

$1000 question, if I were to unplug the sensor, would the screenwash level warning light be always on or always off?

$1001 question, where does the other end of the warning light wiring end up? The earthy side is shown by Haynes as brown/white, the "live" side as brown/purple.

I don't mind losing the  screenwash warning light, but would like to get rid of the buzzer sounding.

A further mystery, Haynes doesn't list or show the screenwash warning light in the wiring diagram 12*26.

Thanks, Sepulchrave, for your comment - and for correct spelling of arthritis! My hands are fairly OK; problems are a stiff back and osteo-arthritis in hips & knees; 3 artificial joints so far and awaiting a "new" left knee.

On 30/03/2019 at 16:55, timber said:

Thanks again TMB for the pics. I left Teesside in 1960, was brought up in Darlington and worked at ICI Billingham. 

 

........

If you unplug the sensor the light will be on permanently. If you join the wires together it will be off.

 

Not sure whether the wires go to the ECU or the cluster. The is a member on here called Wino who is much cleverer than me at this stuff and he will probably know or be able to find out.

 

 

Edited 7 May, 20197 yr by TMB

Thanks again TMB. The Billingham area is I think much changed for the better since 1960. Our Fabia is red, by the way!

 

Is it possible to contact Wino?

 

I'd like to know if it's possible to supply an earthy signal to the circuitry (to disable the low level warning system) without having to take off the front bumper. And very preferably without breaking into the loom or other dubious interference with the electrics - an easily reversible fix would be best.

5 hours ago, timber said:

Thanks again TMB. The Billingham area is I think much changed for the better since 1960. Our Fabia is red, by the way!

 

Is it possible to contact Wino?

 

I'd like to know if it's possible to supply an earthy signal to the circuitry (to disable the low level warning system) without having to take off the front bumper. And very preferably without breaking into the loom or other dubious interference with the electrics - an easily reversible fix would be best.

 

Yes, definitely changed for the better around there. Red is a good Fabia colour 

 

Here's Wino's profile. I don't know how busy he is at the moment but you could drop him a PM...

 

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/profile/86339-wino/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whereabouts in Suffolk are you timber?

The non-earth wire goes to pin 30 of the 32-way connector at the back of the cluster. blue/lilac wire according to the diagram I'm looking at. Earthing that wire with a scotchlocked wire to chassis is probably the second easiest fix.

Easiest may be to recode the Cluster electronics to not look for the information. (i.e. tell it that washer level monitoring isn't fitted, as it isn't in most Mk1 Fabias.)

Will research this later.

Edited 3 April, 20197 yr by Wino

@Wino - Is a BodgeLok ever a good idea?

They get a bad press Ken, but Insulation Displacement Connectors are actually wonderfully reliable and present in just about every electronic device you can buy today.

In this case, his system isn't working right, probably because of a broken wire, bad connection etc. If the scotchlock caused any problem with this wire, he'd be no worse off anyway, he just wouldn't have solved the problem.

 

As it happens though the VCDS coding change appears to be trivially quick and easy. You'd just go into Module 17, Instruments and subtract 4 from the second digit of the existing software coding, by the looks of it. Someone more expert with VCDS may be able to confirm.

Screenshot imminent.

Edited 3 April, 20197 yr by Wino

Thanks very much, Wino & Technojock.

I'm located in the middle of nowhere about 12 miles north of Ipswich. Looking for a fairly near specialist Skoda/VW for servicing & cambelt now I'm too old to get under easily - used all genuine fluids etc, mileage only 49,000.

I don't have any gear to interrogate the software but have a laptop (Windows 10 pro). Also a good Fluke multimeter.

I do have scotchlock connectors, earth tags, soldering iron and a crimping tool. Is the 32-way connector readily accessible?

The engine code I think is ASZ but will check.

Thanks again!

I'll be in Mildenhall on May 12th and could bring the laptop/VCDS cable to recode for you if you were to visit briefly, but the cluster is pretty easy to extract and the connector then obvious.

 

If I remember right, there's a small piece of plastic trim just above the steering wheel cowling that just pulls off. That reveals two Torx head screws that hold the cluster in. Once removed, the thing just pulls back towards the steering wheel. 

Haynes may well cover this.

 

 

Thanks very much for your offer, Wino. Sorry for the late reply, I was due at a pre-op clinic for my "new" knee on 12th but have changed the date.

Do you earn a living doing ECU programming? Please let me know, I was thinking on the lines of a bottle of wine!

We don't use satnav, but I have a Street Atlas showing Mildenhall at 3.5 inches to a mile. Afternoon would be best if this suits you.

Thanks again.

No I don't do anything car-related professionally, just a keen amateur.  I actually think I should've said Saturday 11th of May, rather than the 12th.

Don't have detailed plans yet but afternoon sounds fine.  Should only take five minutes.  I'll experiment on my car first (over Easter probably), telling it that the level sensing is installed (though it isn't), see if I get warnings, then change it back.

My clinic was 13th April (now 27th), how wrong can you get! Must go for an Alzheimer's/dementia test.

Peccavi!

Is the kit to make ECU changes - link wire & app for laptop? - expensive or difficult to obtain? Can the app be used for other marques? My son is deep into IT; we could use Ford, Saab, BMW and Porsche info.

11th MAY pm now pencilled in.

The kit involved is a licensed version of the VCDS Lite software, plus a third-party cable that connects the car to a USB port of the laptop.  The software is a free download, but the license is 99USD. The cable varies in price, but mine from a UK-based VCDS distributor 'Gendan' was £20. Much cheaper ones can be found on ebay.

 

I'm not 100% sure that the unlicensed version won't do the job, but I have a feeling that module coding isn't supported by the freeware version. You could research that on the Ross-tech website; somewhere there's a comparison table of what the various versions can/can't do. https://www.ross-tech.com/

 

The 'Lite' version only works on older (VW group) cars, of which the Mk1 Fabia is one, most newer stuff requires a CAN diagnostic interface rather than the K-line available on the Fabia.

I'm not sure what it does on non-VW group cars, much less, I believe. Again, details are probably on the Ross-tech site.

Edited 4 April, 20197 yr by Wino

Many thanks yet again for your expert advice! My homework now to research ross-tech. Not too put off by costs if the kit would cover all our cars; Fords & BMW newish, Porsches 1976 & 1995.

After dates debacle, little grey cells need lots of exercise - eg battling with Win 10 updates.

I'm getting a new computer at work tomorrow. I expect a lot of frustration and annoyance!

I enabled the washer fluid warning on my 2000 VW Passat by adding the value shown now in VCDS by using VAG-COM as it was known at that time, as well as enabling brake wear warning, again by adding in what is now shown in VCDS back then these values came from the internet!

 

VCDS will offer the normal OBD2/EOBD engine faults on all manufacturers that now comply with that directive - these are mainly only emissions related but better than no fault code decoding.

3 hours ago, rum4mo said:

as well as enabling brake wear warning, 

 

Did the pads already have the wear indicator wires in them? I don't see how it could work otherwise?

Obviously, I would not have tried and succeeded making either of these changes if that car was not built to include them!

 

I’d think these omissions in the coding were either a factory error or a PDI error.

29 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

I’d think these omissions in the coding were either a factory error or a PDI error.

 

Ah, OK.