ABS fault = expensive

[PolyJim]

Having bought my 16 plate Superb estate in June, I had been happy with it - particularly the fuel efficiency after trading in my Land Rover Discovery! However, the honeymoon period is now over and I feel inclined to share this with you.

 

In late September I noticed a strange issue with the brakes. On a couple of mornings, when I first had to use the brakes after leaving home, the pedal would feel very hard and then "give" and the brakes would be fine after that.  Then the problem evolved quickly into the brakes being hard for much longer in a journey, with a definite lurch to the left when braking. On one occasion, when having to react to an incident in front of me and braking harder than normal, the car veered violently to the left and nearly into the verge.

I took it in to a local independent, RAC approved, garage for them to look at it (the warranty having expired shortly before this happened). 

The first issue was identified as a caliper problem on the NSF. The caliper was seizing and appeared to have been overheating. That was replaced, along with the brake line to that corner, and the car then tested on rollers. The pulling to the left was still evident and the brake system unbalanced. The fault was then traced to the ABS unit and it was thought that this had been the cause of the NSF overheating. The garage had seen a similar issue recently on a Passat but had not expected to see a similar issue again so soon.

A call to Skoda for consideration of a goodwill gesture, considering the warranty had only recently expired, was politely refused so the garage went ahead and sourced a new ABS unit. The VAG part would have been £1060 ex-VAT but they sourced an alternative part, warrantied for life, for less than half of this.

So, having fitted the unit, it had to be coded to the ECU, adding further cost but this had been expected. The larger shock was an additional £500 to have the ADAS calibration carried out, which could only be done using the correct Skoda interface at a Skoda dealer. 

This was a new phenomenon to me and a quick web search brought up an interesting article about how much driver assistance system are increasing the cost of repairs - just a bit! 

 

After the caliper, ABS unit, calibration, labour and VAT, I am now over £1800 lighter. 

 

The technician at the garage pointed out that all sorts of basic work may now result in another £500 recalibration cost. In his words "if you go into a tyre dealer and they want to adjust your tracking, don't let them unless you want to pay that again!"

 

My strategy of saving money by having a more efficient car has been blown out of the water and I no longer fancy a long term relationship with my Superb.

 

I searched the forum for something similar and not found anything I thought this was worth sharing in case someone else comes across the same problem.

 

 

[silver1011]

Do you have the link to the article you reference that explains this in more detail?

 

How far out of warranty were you? Did the car have a full Skoda service history and was under 60,000 miles?

 

Skoda UK might have politely declined any contribution towards the cost of repair, but assuming the service history and mileage checked out I certainly wouldn't have been quite so polite back.

[Q102]

My sons Mitsubishi Colt had the same fault, brakes were dodgy for a few metres the ABS light came on and brakes were ok.

One garage tried to say the ABS unit was faulty, would cost more than the value of the car. Three independent garages all said the same.

 

Booked it in at our friends garage, ABS ring in front hub was broken- problem fixed.

 

Sadly many garages don't have the skill or ability to diagnose anything further than flat tyre

 

 

[PolyJim]

19 hours ago, silver1011 said:

Do you have the link to the article you reference that explains this in more detail?

 

How far out of warranty were you? Did the car have a full Skoda service history and was under 60,000 miles?

 

Skoda UK might have politely declined any contribution towards the cost of repair, but assuming the service history and mileage checked out I certainly wouldn't have been quite so polite back.

Hi Silver1101,

 

The article I referred to is https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/adas-sensor-calibration-increases-repair-costs

 

The car was an ex-company car and had 65k on the clock when I bought it. As it wasn't far out of warranty I thought there might have been a "fitness for purpose" case but couldn't really be too pushy about it. Just have to suck it up and move on!

[PolyJim]

33 minutes ago, Q102 said:

My sons Mitsubishi Colt had the same fault, brakes were dodgy for a few metres the ABS light came on and brakes were ok.

One garage tried to say the ABS unit was faulty, would cost more than the value of the car. Three independent garages all said the same.

 

Booked it in at our friends garage, ABS ring in front hub was broken- problem fixed.

 

Sadly many garages don't have the skill or ability to diagnose anything further than flat tyre

 

 

Thanks Q102. 

I have used the garage for a few years and not had any complaints about their work - they had the car for over a week, all wheels off, full tracing of the fault so I don't doubt that they have it right.

To be fair, it drives a lot better now than it did! 

[JackySi]

I sincerely doubt that whole ABS module is faulty... There is a lot going on inside, someone with skills could fix the unit itself.
But I truly understand why this is never done (time wise). It's simply cheaper/easier to replace the whole unit. That's how car industry works today. 

It works same for most parts in the car. If the light up/down motors are broken, no one will go and replace only the motor. They will replace the whole headlight. 

Edited 11 October, 2019 by JackySi

[Tech1e]

12 minutes ago, JackySi said:

I sincerely doubt that whole ABS module is faulty... There is a lot going on inside, someone with skills could fix the unit itself.
But I truly understand why this is never done (time wise). It's simply cheaper/easier to replace the whole unit. That's how car industry works today. 

It works same for most parts in the car. If the light up/down motors are broken, no one will go and replace only the motor. They will replace the whole headlight. 

 

It also depends on the manufacturers of the part and if they supply low level parts. Skoda obviously don't make headlamps, they are sourced from Wipac, Hella etc. So they order so many complete units for production and for spares. The headlamp motor to use your example may not be made by the same person as the headlamp. They may well buy them on from a third tier supplier, say Mitsubishi. So where do you go got the parts? Skoda may not have a direct trade agreement with Mitsubishi so ask Hella. Hella would rather sell them a complete lamp so won't supply the lower level part, it all gets very complicated.

 

There is also a question of end of line testing. a component such as an ABS module will roll off the production line having been tested. If that unit is then opened up and a component replaced, in order for that repair to be validated and approved then that unit will need to go through a very similar (if not the same end) end of line test. This more than likely isn't practical in any garage, so this is where the reman process comes in. Part is returned, repaired and tested.

[JackySi]

2 minutes ago, Tech1e said:

 

It also depends on the manufacturers of the part and if they supply low level parts. Skoda obviously don't make headlamps, they are sourced from Wipac, Hella etc. So they order so many complete units for production and for spares. The headlamp motor to use your example may not be made by the same person as the headlamp. They may well buy them on from a third tier supplier, say Mitsubishi. So where do you go got the parts? Skoda may not have a direct trade agreement with Mitsubishi so ask Hella. Hella would rather sell them a complete lamp so won't supply the lower level part, it all gets very complicated.

 

There is also a question of end of line testing. a component such as an ABS module will roll off the production line having been tested. If that unit is then opened up and a component replaced, in order for that repair to be validated and approved then that unit will need to go through a very similar (if not the same end) end of line test. This more than likely isn't practical in any garage, so this is where the reman process comes in. Part is returned, repaired and tested.

I know. You just detailed my comment. But in theory repairing parts like ABS module would be far cheaper than replacing it whole. 

[Tech1e]

3 minutes ago, JackySi said:

But in theory repairing parts like ABS module would be far cheaper than replacing it whole. 

 

Which is exactly why things like the G201 repair kit became available, and the replacement actuators for the CR turbos. These are usually driven by the warranty recovery process. The manufacturer will identify a repeat issue with their part or component then work out a cheaper way to fix it to reduce costs. Sadly this process doesn't usually cater for those outside the warranty scope (unless the issue occurs to vehicles inside the warranty scope as well). 

[silver1011]

Unfortunately the repair kits are usually released to reduced the manufacturers warranty costs rather than to help those of us looking to repair older cars more economically.

 

At least we benefit though.