Electrical incident, then a/c stops working

[FenLad]

Hello All, 

 

My 2015 Skoda Yeti has just had the following issue and I'd be grateful for any advice. The missus just got back from the school run and complained that a raft of electrical functionality had stopped working, e.g. windows not opening, indicator clicking noise not sounding (though the indicators themselves did work), and a message came up about the auto engine on/off not working (she didn't tell me exactly what it said). We left the engine switched off for a few minutes and on restart all that functionality suddenly worked again, with no error messages, except for the a/c. Air still pumps out, but it's not cold. As of yesterday it was blowing out freezing air, so it's unlikely to have de-gassed that quickly, and it's too much of a coincidence for it to have just suddenly stopped working.

 

Does this set of symptoms sound familiar to anyone? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Ta.

[muppix]

With such a raft of issues you'd need to find somebody with a diagnostic machine to shed some light. Could be something really simple; I recently traced a cacophony of dashboard warnings back to a faulty wheel speed sensor which cost £20 and took 10 minutes to replace, but I'd never have known if it weren't for a friend with some fancy tools.

 

The one thing I'd say without knowing more about your specific situation is that a battery on its way out is said to be responsible for a lot of symptoms, and since you mentioned the school run there's a chance your car is mainly used for short journeys with a lot of stopping and starting, which will put strain on the battery over time. Have you access to a decent charger / conditioner that you can leave plugged in for a while?

[FenLad]

Muppix, thanks for your reply. I haven't got a charger I'm afraid, but the car is due a service next month which I can bring forward and let the mechanics go over the details.

 

An interesting update to my initial post is that I left the car alone for over an hour and then tried it again. This time everything worked fine, including the a/c. On the face of it this seems like it's all sorted, but of course this is not the case as it doesn't explain the original fault or guarantee that it won't happen again soon. 

[gumdrop]

I had stuff dropping out and finally the radio stopped working and the dipped lights went off, I was stuck for nearly an hour

in a traffic snarl up, when it started moving I started the engine first go. I went home and put the battery on charge (Ctek)

this took a while as it was very low on charge. Finally charged everything worked properly except the radio which was a seperate fault

(and was replaced eventually under warranty). *Advice, use your phone to record error messages that helps if you have warranty problems.

[FenLad]

Hi gumdrop, thanks for the comment. It increasingly looks like a weak battery, which has been in the car since new. Since that's five and a half years I think that's a reasonable innings for a battery and will replace it anyway.

 

By the way, the missus used the car this morning without any issue, so if it is the battery then it's probably got a bit of life left in it yet, but better safe than sorry.