Just got the car back from Skoda, just like the first time it went in a couple of weeks ago, there Diagnostics machine did not pick up any fault codes or historic codes. Was told it was not a good idea to disconnect the stop start function. from the battery. Just have to keep pushing the A button instead. No solution.

'They' will tell you not a good idea to disable it as they can not tell you it is a good idea and you tell the world. On Social Media / Forums etc.

 

I can show you the threads though when there were issues with Stop / Start / Batteries and Skoda Main Dealership Techs disabled the Stop / Start until the fault could be resolved.

 

Owners / Drivers sent off for weeks and weeks with no functioning Stop / Start.

They can not diagnose the fault that is the problem even though I took a photo of the error message on the vehicle status ERROR: Stop-Start System.

This can be the issue if the Dealership has incompetents in the workshop. 

 

I do not touch Electricery as it is all magic to me, & as i know Sparks that know their stuff.

 

@rum4mohas not posted in your thread.  He might have had some experience or has knowledge of your issue.

Well now that I've been mentioned, my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 100PS, has only ever had its battery dongle lead removed once, and that was by a forgetful VW tech when replacing the gearbox upper mounting rubber.

 

Edit:- how did I work out that that lead might be disconnected, well since it had come back from that warranty visit, auto Stop/Start had been inhibited, so it was easy to put 1 + 1 and get straight to the cause/reason why!

 

Currently my wife's Polo has been exhibiting an annoying "thing" wrt to charging!

 

Out of curiosity maybe, I bought a plug in DVM that has a connector that allows it to get plugged directly into the "ciggy lighter" socket, prior to that, probably when the car was new, I did connect up a DMM and so that I could see what was happening when wrt voltage at that point - ie lowish voltage of 12.5>12.7V while under power and 13.5>13.7V when on the overrun.

 

For the last 18 months or so, until 2.5 weeks ago, that was still the case, a quick glance down at that DVM every few minutes to make sure all was still okay.

 

Then, one day about 2.5 weeks ago it changed, 14.7>14.9V constantly, when cold under power, when hot under power and on the overrun at cold or hot, which meant that the battery was ending the day proper stuffed full of charge - I was not too happy about that.

 

I checked the battery stats as well as checking for logged faults - no faults logged, the battery stats claimed all was well and the voltage was what was required, I stuck with this for a few days, trying to work out what to do next, new or used alternator to fit until I had got the original one checked over, a problem with the battery management part of the CAN Gateway controller, an out of spec battery monitor unit, or a dying battery. The battery stats proved that the car's system thought that the battery had decayed in useful capacity from 59Ah to 34Ah although I could not find where the "energy throughput" statement was - that I believe is where the battery usage gets counted and when it reaches a certain value relative to one of the theoretical battery design specs, it is considered ready for the dump.

 

Edit:- I even resorted to charging the battery overnight to see what effect that might have on this constant high charging voltage - no change!

 

As one last idea, I changed the battery serial number by one unit, then used the car the next day, for the first 20 minutes it remained as before, then it changed to doing things the way I had witnessed for its almost entire life with us. So after maybe 200 miles and maybe 6 outings including a 24 miles each way journey, it is back to being almost as before, at first the battery was being run well down before charging happened on the overrun, but now it has crept back up to roughly 13,2V under power and roughly 14.7V on the overrun, so not exactly back to where I had previously expected it to be.

 

I did check that auto Stop/Start did operate when this first started happening just in case the battery was now not fit to be kept up to that charge level - but it always shut down at lights etc.

 

My next step, well, early on, probably driven by tales of early life failure of EFB batteries, I ordered in the next size up battery tray and jacket - and now I've bought the next size up Bosch AGM battery, talking online to someone that fixes these cars, he said that just too many battery monitor units have been failing, so just in case that this is an out of spec battery monitor issue that will attempt to kill my new battery, I've scatter cashed this and bought in a new battery monitor unit.

 

My, baseless thoughts on this are, that one possibility is, these battery monitors can misbehave and the owner nothing about it until the battery dies - I'm sure that less than 1% of people are bothering to keep an eye on the voltage or the charging behaviour.

 

I was told that for instance, VW Caddy battery monitors are on back order currently and they end up on back order frequently, now maybe only VW Caddy battery monitors are not "too good" - I don't know, the battery monitor on that 2015 VW Polo is made by Lear Corporation in Spain, and maybe "annoyingly" for me, when I got one ordered in, they were in stock at the warehouse and the new one's Lear manufacture date was 07/08/2020 and the VW Group stocking date was 14/07/2021 - so maybe not demand wise in the same league as the VW Caddy version, who knows, as the cost of the battery monitor is roughly 1/3 of the AGM battery I bought, I have considered, in the absence of any better or firm ideas or worked out facts, either I hand it in and it seems that from an outsiders view of this NFF and pay for that report, or I use that money spend on parts!

 

Sorry that this does probably not help out the OP - or does it give some insight maybe, maybe buy one of these cheap (£5) plug in DVMs - when I mentioned this issue while trying to help someone on another forum, the first reply to my posting suggested that my cheap DVM was the issue, that would have been just too good to be true, but I had checked that out in the first place.

Edited 28 October, 20214 yr by rum4mo

2 hours ago, Mikerp said:

They can not diagnose the fault that is the problem even though I took a photo of the error message on the vehicle status ERROR: Stop-Start System.

Yes that is the problem exactly.  You really need some one with a full professional deep scan tool that knows how to use that tool and interpret the results, this might exclude the missing or no-show error codes.

 

I'm sure there are may odd glitches and errors codes that come up for various reason and mean very little as they relate to that time and instance only but a display on the Infotainment screen and going into limp home mode are a good few levels and priority above those.

 

Personally now I'd 'write a letter' to the Dealership and Skoda UK and stating that if it happens again and they are unable to diagnosis and/or resolve it that the car would be taken to a diagnostics expert (one who can use the machines, gawd knows where these people are though) and have the report paid for by the Warranty (unless it's a third party Warranty provider then it may or may not be worth the (toilet) 'paper' it's printed on).

 

To my (very simple) mind, as I keep putting these systems, battery, start/stop and others are so invasive and VW's ,in particular, programs so complicated that if a brake light bulb goes on my wife's car it possibly puts your wife's car into limp home mode! 

 

Microsoft have (successfully) been doing their very best for decades to warn us about the perils of computer programs!

 

Companies often use the divided technique - "you're the only one to complain about this" (it must be you that's wrong), I and others hear it all the time about classic car parts quality (or lack of).

 

I got the right 'ump now. ☹️

 

(Mikerp's photo brought forward from earlier in thread)

 

Yes, it is very frustrating. I assume they have the best diagnostic equipment money can buy and they still cannot diagnose the fault. They just tell me to monitor it which I did and even gave them the error on the vehicle status. I wish I knew someone with the expertise to diagnose this problem.

49 minutes ago, Mikerp said:

I assume they have the best diagnostic equipment

I wonder if the Dealerships actually do have the full pro VW/Skoda scan tools and/or the fully trained Technicians to use them, fully that is.

 

They're quick enough to send you a video of their free "health inspection", why not a video of the scan tool results and the proper toools can do a lot more than just show error codes.

 

Did the start/stop error not show up as (loads of) error codes, surely limp home mode must also have (loads of) codes?!   Live data from road runs, although that might require the fault(s) to actually happen on the run, there's stored details to the error codes.

 

Just as an example, this is from IIRC a sub-£100(?) scan tool of my wife's car (the date and time is for the fault not scan)  -

Faults:
                U11B800 - Interface for external media
            No communication
                Intermittent
                    Priority - 4 
                Malfunction frequency counter - 20 
                Unlearning counter - 72 
                km-Mileage - 61240 km
                Dynamic environmental data - 02867818E801 
                date - 2021-05-12 17:21:55 

 

Later my neighbour's £800 scan tool IIRC brought up 638 items for the engine alone that could be looked at, a full pro machine would be £0,000s and do much more.

 

Edited 28 October, 20214 yr by nta16

Talking of Health Inspection, the technician falsified it. on the 1st October I was given a health report and again today 28th October, Both inspections gave the same type tread depth for all 4 tyres. But on the 5th October I had both front tyres changed. He never bothered to check them today or he would have noticed the new tyres. I have already sent them an e-mail

I am just going to disconnect from the battery and see how that goes. Skoda advised me not to.

10 minutes ago, Mikerp said:

Talking of Health Inspection, the technician falsified it. on the 1st October I was given a health report and again today 28th October, Both inspections gave the same type tread depth for all 4 tyres. But on the 5th October I had both front tyres changed. He never bothered to check them today or he would have noticed the new tyres. I have already sent them an e-mail

I'm sure they'll just say it was a typo or simple mistake.

 

Ticksheet "working", previously my wife had 7mm across the width of the spare tyre that doesn't exist and on a previous car I think two tyres actually gained tread depth between visits without the tyres having been moved or changed.

 

20 minutes ago, Mikerp said:

I am just going to disconnect from the battery and see how that goes. Skoda advised me not to.

You rebel! 

 

Somewhere on here someone put they ran like that for a good time (couple of years?) - BUT do bear in mind they will pick that up on a scan and then they might say this caused the/a problem(s) (as they've already told you not to do so)!

 

I'd be tempted to do that if it went into limp home mode again, but of course that might be too late to help or your wife might not feel confident doing so especially if she has to limp the car through traffic looking for somewhere safe to pull over to lift the bonnet to do so.

 

Edited 28 October, 20214 yr by nta16

I have had it disconnected for 3 weeks already and they didn't pick that up on their scanner, 

6 minutes ago, Mikerp said:

I have had it disconnected for 3 weeks already and they didn't pick that up on their scanner, 

Did they even scan the car?

 

They said they did how would I know. they charged me £60. I would imagine if they didn't and it was found out there reputation would be down the drain.

I don't know but £60 sounds very cheap for a diagnostics, is this a Skoda/VW main Dealer?

 

Yes, Murray Skoda in Plymouth

Fair enough, I can't think you'd get a lot for £60 now.

 

You've really got to know what you're doing with scanners.

 

 

ETA: Patrick McGoohan's the daddy, well he was in this film.

 

Edited 28 October, 20214 yr by nta16
ETA:

LOL, do you think that they have different levels of scan for different prices? I have seen Skoda scans for £107 at Marshall Skoda in Barnstaple 60 miles away.

Well .... there were different levels of Scanners in 1981, the newest appeared to be the better, but you'd have to know the film, I'm not sure it went to Germany for VW to pick up from. 🙂

 

Edited 28 October, 20214 yr by nta16

Skoda fixed price servicing and maintenance showed first 30 minutes of a diagnosis @£60.   That was until recently so just look again at the website.    If their diagnosis is limited to reading fault codes and finding nothing then that takes less than 30 minutes from picking up the keys at the reception desk, putting on a seat cover and driving round the building.  Hopefully not kerbing a wheel if they do a test drive / pick up the bacon rolls. 

10 hours ago, Mikerp said:

I have had it disconnected for 3 weeks already and they didn't pick that up on their scanner, 

 

When that cable is disconnected a scan will report "battery monitor disconnected" - I've noticed that, but I can't say if that gets logged as a fault and stores it as a fault especially if you reconnect it, I'll try to remember to check that today when I check something else for rosstech.

I agree with @roottoot, well especially concerning the "over" talk that SEAT do when giving a very good set of reasons why you should always get them to service your SEAT, they read and clear the stored faults, check for any outstanding S/W updates at every service visit.  This, in my experience/mind translates into, if you have reported any faults and if the engine fault indicator light is on, them will do something, also if you report an issue that matches up with a known S/W update, they will apply that update - or hopefully all safety associated S/W updates - otherwise as said, once round the block if convenient or into service bay, minimum service activity, reverse back up - the trip round the block will only be necessary if finding a space to park it is proving tricky!

 

My wife's August 2015 VW Polo was handed over with the wrong EVAP pipe fitted to it, so either Skoda engine plant messed up or if that part is only fitted at the car plant, then VW SA messed up, that version of pipe was changed in initial build 6 months earlier than even the engine build date.

39 minutes ago, roottoot said:

Skoda fixed price servicing and maintenance showed first 30 minutes of a diagnosis @£60.   That was until recently so just look again at the website.    If their diagnosis is limited to reading fault codes and finding nothing then that takes less than 30 minutes from picking up the keys at the reception desk, putting on a seat cover and driving round the building.  Hopefully not kerbing a wheel if they do a test drive / pick up the bacon rolls. 

Fair enough, for some reason I got the idea it was a Warranty issue, no idea why, yes if they are trying to save the customer money and not really trying to sort the issue and add to their knowledge of these cars, unless they already know what the problem might be and can do nothing about it.

 

I'm not an expert in anything especially computers but I'd have thought there'd be error codes - to pick up on rum4mo's point the sub-£100(?) scan tool certainly picked up my battery had been disconnected (or battery monitor perhaps) and stored the code.  My neighbour's £800 scanner picked up the codes I thought had been wiped by the sub-£100(?) plus one other the other machine didn't pick up and codes from after the previous scan so I'm surprised a Dealer's scanner hasn't picked up anything on a car going into limp home mode.

 

As the garage has looked at the car before and found nothing and are then shown evidence that the car has presented an error message on the Infotainment I'd have thought they'd go deeper to find it.  Perhaps they did try and didn't succeed, or saw what they knew they couldn't deal with(?).

 

If Mikerp was nearer I'd suggest that my neighbour's scan tool was plugged in to see what it shows, as has been said it only takes a few minutes for the machine to do the full scan, a lot quicker next time if the files are kept on the machine for that vehicle.  That of course is only the very start of any diagnostics, the difficult part is to interpret and use this information and continue the diagnostics to find the real problem and resolve it.

 

Mikerp, was the scanner used by the garage a similar model to the one below?

 

That's the mk2, they only have the mk1