On my Fabia with the BBZ engine from 2005 the battery/alternator light does not always extinguish instantly as the engine is started. I have had the car for about 8,000 miles and it has always done this.  
Often, it will take a few revs and then the light goes out. There are no charging or voltage issues as chatted about this when I thought I was having steering pump issues a couple of months ago. 
 

The only thing, I have noticed is there is a slight single click noise coming from the dash area, exactly as the light goes out. This sounds a bit like a relay to me.  
So can anybody point me in the right direction to eliminate this minor issue as I don’t want it to get worse as winter arrives. 
Thank you for your advice. 

The steering pump issue reminds me of when the earth strap going between the battery and the body (front wing area) wasn't making proper connection, and as such, the electrics would have a fit sometimes. There may be something deeper that I cannot provide technical assistance on however.

A few months ago there was a false alarm about the steering pump going wrong on my car. It turned out to be a fault with the refurbished rack that had been fitted. This is fixed now so this is something totally separate. 

The alternator issue is simple to repair, it just needs a new brush pack, however getting the correct brush pack is a little trickier, I was able to take mine to a local reconditioner and he was able to supply a replacement for £25.

Just now, prt57 said:

A few months ago there was a false alarm about the steering pump going wrong on my car. It turned out to be a fault with the refurbished rack that had been fitted. This is fixed now so this is something totally separate. 

 

Noted. I had assumed they were connected issues from your post.

35 minutes ago, sepulchrave said:

The alternator issue is simple to repair, it just needs a new brush pack, however getting the correct brush pack is a little trickier, I was able to take mine to a local reconditioner and he was able to supply a replacement for £25.

Thanks for the info. 
what is the little “click” I hear as the light goes out? So is the alternator at fault?

 

Would I be correct in thinking that the output from the alternator is 90 amps?
The car is a 2005 model with the 100 Hp 16v BBZ engine. My car has air conditioning. As usual, the info on ECP is confusing!

1 hour ago, prt57 said:

Thanks for the info. 
what is the little “click” I hear as the light goes out? So is the alternator at fault?

 

Would I be correct in thinking that the output from the alternator is 90 amps?
The car is a 2005 model with the 100 Hp 16v BBZ engine. My car has air conditioning. As usual, the info on ECP is confusing!

 

Yes 90A.

 

The click is a relay.

 

Yes the alternator is at fault, you can confirm this by measuring the voltage at idle after starting the engine, it will be lower than 14.4V which is why the dash light is staying on until you blip the throttle.

7 hours ago, sepulchrave said:

 

Yes 90A.

 

The click is a relay.

 

Yes the alternator is at fault, you can confirm this by measuring the voltage at idle after starting the engine, it will be lower than 14.4V which is why the dash light is staying on until you blip the throttle.

Thank you very much for the information. I’ll give that a test in the morning. 
Please can you tell me why the charging circuit bursts into action after blipping the throttle causing the relay to click? Could the relay be faulty instead of the alternator? 
I suppose I am saying that I don’t know why the relay does not activate until 14.4V is reached? I assume the relay switching turns off the dash light. 

1 hour ago, prt57 said:

Thank you very much for the information. I’ll give that a test in the morning. 
Please can you tell me why the charging circuit bursts into action after blipping the throttle causing the relay to click? Could the relay be faulty instead of the alternator? 
I suppose I am saying that I don’t know why the relay does not activate until 14.4V is reached? I assume the relay switching turns off the dash light. 

 

The brush pack on the alternator contains a rectifier and voltage regulator in addition to the brushes, any of these components can be failing but replacing it will fix the low voltage issue.

I had a 1.4 16V like yours and it needed a brush pack nearly ten years ago, so I'm not surprised you need one now.

Just an update in that I did a thorough check of all the wiring in the brackets below the starter in front of the gearbox this morning and everything looked just fine. No splits or  cracks in the insulation. 
So I bit the bullet and bought a Lucas remanufactured alternator and fitted it this afternoon. 
The old alternator would do a whistling noise so maybe a dry bearing so I thought just change the whole thing. 
So far so good in that the battery symbol goes out instantly as the engine is started rather than having to rev it up to make the light go out. I checked the voltage output at idle and again it was fine. 
I will monitor it over the next couple of days but fingers crossed the issue is now fixed. 
With the winter coming I wanted peace of mind as the number of revs needed to put the light out seemed to be increasing recently. 
Thank you to everyone who had given their advice. 

Keep us updated. Hopefully this has cured the issues.

Final update after a couple of days. 
The dash battery light issue where it would stay on until the engine is revved is fixed. 
Just to help others, I checked all of the wiring that can be suspect under the car to the front of the gearbox and there were no cracked or broken wires. 
I installed a reconditioned alternator fairly easily. The plastic connector block and main electrical cable connection was rotated more clockwise compared to the original so a tip is to loosely install the lower fixing bolt to allow the unit to pivot towards you allowing easier connections of the cables then rotate back into place before installing the upper mounting both then torque up the bolts finally. 
Now on starting the car, the battery symbol goes out straight away so no revving needed now!

Glad that you've got it fixed.

On 15/11/2021 at 20:45, prt57 said:

Thank you very much for the information. I’ll give that a test in the morning. 
Please can you tell me why the charging circuit bursts into action after blipping the throttle causing the relay to click? Could the relay be faulty instead of the alternator? 
I suppose I am saying that I don’t know why the relay does not activate until 14.4V is reached? I assume the relay switching turns off the dash light. 

I'd suggest that somewhere in the car electronics there is a voltage check on the alternator output where the relay switches the dash light. Reminds me of a problem I had with an ancient car in my younger years where the switching circuit had failed and the charge light said "no chargee" but the battery was getting 14+volts with all electrics on at idle. Cure was a bit of DIY electronics, but thats not possible these days.

it's possible that the voltage is "just" below the shut off limits for the light and once the threshold has been crossed, the relay stays energised.

Edited 20 November, 20214 yr by VWD