Evening all,

 

I’ve just had my first hiccup on the car in just shy of 2yrs.

 

I had just pulled into a car park to meet our lass after work. While doing less than 20mph ESC light, Park Assist unavailable with flashing button, Forward alert unavailable, Hill assist unavailable and Tyre pressure light came on dash. Parked up and turned the car off fully opened and closed the drivers door. Then restarted the car. All lights back came back on. When I checked the Vehicle status it also came up with Stop/Start error. I turned off and restarted again, lights back on. I kept the status screen on and drove out the car park. Clear space and accelerated upto about 30 and slowly the lights turned off one by one. 
 

Now the car only came back from the repair centre on Tuesday after some buffoon drove into the back of the car while parked outside and then drove off. Virtual pedal, elec tailgate and parking sensors all worked after the damage. Only damaged caused was bumper skin, valance panels up underneath and repair to tailgate. 
 

I’ve checked the battery terminals, both secure. It’s the first time it’s happened. The car had been behaving sluggish over the last couple of days according to the other half. Rear pads are due for changing next week and it’s only 3k off it’s next dealer service at 154k. I’ll keep an eye on it over the weekend to see if it reoccurs. 

Any ideas? Battery was changed in Feb by RAC cover and programmed into the car by them.

1 hour ago, Swede90 said:

Battery was changed in Feb by RAC cover and programmed into the car by them.

Alternator turned off to "save fuel"?

I’m aware that they have a smart system for the alternator but I can’t see how that would save that much fuel and cause this random fault. I’ll put it on Launch and the Solus Edge units I have at work to be on the safe side tomorrow. The drivers window did take a couple of touches to raise earlier but it’s been a bit sticky since I bought it.

18 minutes ago, Swede90 said:

I’m aware that they have a smart system for the alternator but I can’t see how that would save that much fuel and cause this random fault.

You did notice that I put "save fuel" in quotes? Exactly because I don't think it saves much, and if you're driving gently, it does risk undercharging the battery enough to start ECUs complaining about low voltage. I have seen a VCDS scan from an earlier car that had a loose alternator control wire.

I had this happen for the first time departing a ferry a couple of weeks ago. The idiots behind who were in a massive rush to depart (where do they think they’re going to go?) all honking and flashing lights, so I pressed the starter and immediately pulled away before the startup check had finished and that was it; all hell broke loose - like yours, on came all the lights, ESC Unavailable, DCC Unavailable, ABS Unavailable, Blindspot Detection Unavailable, Front and Rear Park Assist Unavailable, Tyre Pressure System error light flashing, Adaptive Cruise Unavailable, HHC Unavailable, Lane Assist Unavailable, Parking Brake Unavailable and all accompanied with dings and bongs. So I pulled over when I could, stopped the engine, pulled on the parking brake (never had to do that before!) and waited for a couple of minutes. Pressed the button and waited before I started it up and most went off; the ABS, blind spot and a couple of others continued so I started it up and drove off; for a couple of hundred metres they stayed on then off they went and it was all back to normal. A day later I tested doing the same manoeuvre and yes, I had exactly the same scenario occur - party lights and sounds. I’ve always waited for all lights to go out - probably not completely consciously - before engaging drive and pull away. No idea if this helps or not but I know in my case what caused the problem and what solves it.

Edited 24 July, 20214 yr by numskull

All sounds very similar to my Touareg, and another guy's on the Treg forum, when scanned it showed an ABS sensor (rear left in my case) and I believe the same sensors are used on the Superb, So you need to get it properly scanned with a VAG based reader preferably VCDS and take it from there, FYI the sensors are around £90 from the stealerships I did find copies on eBay for as little as £10 but I hate think what quality they are ??

The dealership price doesn’t bother me. As long as the ABS sensor doesn’t need coding into the car then I’ll just get the part from TPS. I’m putting it up on the ramps at work this week to change the rear pads. Both rear TPMS warning take turns to shout ever 6 weeks or so.  It’ll go into the local Skoda when it reaches 154k. Give it to the dealer every 20k service, do it myself at the 10k or annual and only use genuine service kits. It’s cheap enough through work discount.

Please don't just go replacing the sensors in the hope of a fix, far better to pay £30 to get the codes read at least you will know one way or the other and it'll say what sensor it is, then, If  the fault code scan says it's an ABS sensor, they don't require any coding however you'll need to use the same diagnostic kit to clear all the fault messages, Please don't just go replacing the sensors in the hope 

I spoke too soon. All the fault codes have returned again and they won’t switch off. I have to return to the dealer again on Thursday to try to get them to reset the service indicator back to variable after they set it to fixed. I'll get them to see what the problem is then as this appears to be  an ongoing issue. I’m wondering if it’s a loose connector block, as it first appeared leaving the ferry, whilst driving over the multiple slab plates  on the ferry and dockside. 

Edited 26 July, 20214 yr by numskull

Does the clock and date reset?

Dunno, haven’t checked that; why do you ask?

8 hours ago, numskull said:

Dunno, haven’t checked that; why do you ask?

I’m thinking down the line of a dodgy battery - a momentary power interruption could explain the lights and if the clock goes back to 12.00 (else 01.00 BST) then I’d certainly be looking there…………

Yep, good point. I’ll get it checked, albeit the clock is on time. Thanks!

Edited 27 July, 20214 yr by numskull

On a 480 mile drive yesterday, the system crashed in at least 15 times. I noticed that there was an ABS rattle through the brake pedal each time the ABS warning light came on after an ignition off, door open/close wait 10 seconds and restart routine, which was then followed by tyre pressure warning, ACC, front and rear traffic alert, ESC, XDS, park pilot, parking brake, HHC, lane assist and blind spot monitoring were all not working. Using the car today for a 3 or 4 mile trip and it failed three times.
I’ve braced myself for a massive bill for a replacement ABS unit and fitting cost. Fingers crossed it’s a loose sensor… 

Edited 6 August, 20214 yr by numskull

9 hours ago, numskull said:

On a 480 mile drive yesterday, the system crashed in at least 15 times. I noticed that there was an ABS rattle through the brake pedal each time the ABS warning light came on after an ignition off, door open/close wait 10 seconds and restart routine, which was then followed by tyre pressure warning, ACC, front and rear traffic alert, ESC, XDS, park pilot, parking brake, HHC, lane assist and blind spot monitoring were all not working. Using the car today for a 3 or 4 mile trip and it failed three times.
I’ve braced myself for a massive bill for a replacement ABS unit and fitting cost. Fingers crossed it’s a loose sensor… 

All very curious - not to mention worrying………

It is. Yesterday, it played-up three times, so on each occasion, I stopped the car, turned it off, opened the door, closed it, locked it, unlocked, opened the door, restarted the ignition and waited for all lights to go out, apart from the abs and tyre pressure lights and then engine starts and I drive off. It’s was all fine on the fourth time and it has been fine again this morning, excepts for the ACC warning flashing up momentarily and then it went off again. 
So I can’t get a bloody appointment at any dealer within 100 miles for three weeks and none of them have any courtesy cars available for months. So I’ve now decided not to go down this route; I actually now feel it’s a complete scam, in that they have the cheek to charge you £125 to discover what’s wrong so they can get your business to put it right. So I’ve got an appointment next Tuesday with a very reputable local VAG specialist who’s been in business since 1979 and I’ll get a courtesy car too. Oh, their labour rate is £85 an hour. Update next week…

On 23/07/2021 at 21:43, KenONeill said:

You did notice that I put "save fuel" in quotes? Exactly because I don't think it saves much, and if you're driving gently, it does risk undercharging the battery enough to start ECUs complaining about low voltage. I have seen a VCDS scan from an earlier car that had a loose alternator control wire.

Sorry but this is a load of rubbish. Driving gently or fast wont make a slight bit of difference. You can leave the car to idle for hours and it will always come out with more charge in the battery than you started with... 
If youre having issues like that, your car has the issues, they arent designed to not have enough power?

Ours suffers occasionally with same symptoms, and originally only after swapping from my wifes to my driving position (She is 5 foot 2 & I'm 6 foot 3), but never after changing from mine to hers.

I have captured video & scans of it occurring and the list of error codes is horrendous and hits almost all systems making it pretty much impossible to tie down to 1 ecu on any of the many affected sub-systems.

 

Now it is starting to happen when I make a minor adjustment to my seat position whilst driving. For our issue, my thoughts are that its an issue with the under seat harnesses or one of the several components or ECU's under there. So once we get back from our hol's in Italy in a week or so I'm going to have a careful poke around among the under seat harnesses to see if I can force the failure and hopefully get some direction to solving it. Will let you know if I get anywhere.

UPDATE.

Took the car to the Independent dealer this morning. Spoke to the owner, Colin Marshall, who said yep, he was sure it’d be a failing Wheel  sensor causing all the issues and they’d call me later. I also asked them to centre the steering wheel as that’d been annoying me for 16 months. They brought round a nice VW Up (free) and I went on my way. 
 

At 16.45, they called to tell me it was all sorted and I could pop down to collect it. Arrived and we were seen within 2 minutes. Colin was just competing the bill. It was indeed the OSR Wheel Speed Sensor which had a mechanical fail and they’d replaced that. They also had a odd fault with the NSF sensor which was Magnet Field Too Low (anyone??) on the 26 July, but it was fine once it was cleared. He gave me the complete VCDS print out too. 
 

So the final bill was £253 which was less than I expected. 
 

So massive thanks and a shoutout to Wheelbase Garage in Hersham, Nr Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey (Link here) and there are masses of great reviews on Honest John Good Garage Guide (Link here). Colin was very pleasant and clearly very knowledgeable on VAG products and after this positive experience I will be using Wheelbase for our future servicing needs; annoyingly, this is how Skoda dealers used to be like 20 years ago - thank heavens there are still some dealers who actually still value their customers. 

On 10/08/2021 at 20:04, numskull said:

UPDATE.

Took the car to the Independent dealer this morning. Spoke to the owner, Colin Marshall, who said yep, he was sure it’d be a failing Wheel  sensor causing all the issues and they’d call me later. I also asked them to centre the steering wheel as that’d been annoying me for 16 months. They brought round a nice VW Up (free) and I went on my way. 
 

At 16.45, they called to tell me it was all sorted and I could pop down to collect it. Arrived and we were seen within 2 minutes. Colin was just competing the bill. It was indeed the OSR Wheel Speed Sensor which had a mechanical fail and they’d replaced that. They also had a odd fault with the NSF sensor which was Magnet Field Too Low (anyone??) on the 26 July, but it was fine once it was cleared. He gave me the complete VCDS print out too. 
 

So the final bill was £253 which was less than I expected. 
 

So massive thanks and a shoutout to Wheelbase Garage in Hersham, Nr Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey (Link here) and there are masses of great reviews on Honest John Good Garage Guide (Link here). Colin was very pleasant and clearly very knowledgeable on VAG products and after this positive experience I will be using Wheelbase for our future servicing needs; annoyingly, this is how Skoda dealers used to be like 20 years ago - thank heavens there are still some dealers who actually still value their customers. 

On 10/08/2021 at 20:04, numskull said:

UPDATE.

Took the car to the Independent dealer this morning. Spoke to the owner, Colin Marshall, who said yep, he was sure it’d be a failing Wheel  sensor causing all the issues and they’d call me later. I also asked them to centre the steering wheel as that’d been annoying me for 16 months. They brought round a nice VW Up (free) and I went on my way. 
 

At 16.45, they called to tell me it was all sorted and I could pop down to collect it. Arrived and we were seen within 2 minutes. Colin was just competing the bill. It was indeed the OSR Wheel Speed Sensor which had a mechanical fail and they’d replaced that. They also had a odd fault with the NSF sensor which was Magnet Field Too Low (anyone??) on the 26 July, but it was fine once it was cleared. He gave me the complete VCDS print out too. 
 

So the final bill was £253 which was less than I expected. 
 

So massive thanks and a shoutout to Wheelbase Garage in Hersham, Nr Walton-on-Thames, in Surrey (Link here) and there are masses of great reviews on Honest John Good Garage Guide (Link here). Colin was very pleasant and clearly very knowledgeable on VAG products and after this positive experience I will be using Wheelbase for our future servicing needs; annoyingly, this is how Skoda dealers used to be like 20 years ago - thank heavens there are still some dealers who actually still value their customers. 

Well well well...Looks like it's happening to me too😂

Yep, looks that way…🙄

On 11/04/2025 at 22:22, numskull said:

Yep, looks that way…🙄

I replaced battery. All back to normal. Also looked at the BEM code on the old Banner battery. It's the original from 2016 August.

It's nearly 9 years old now... No wonder.

Happy Days. Although it's only 1 test drive in.... Hope it stays that way.

That’s really good news.

My 2016 MOL battery failed in October 23. I think my short commute takes a toll on a battery.