Hi guys. My steering light has been on/off for about 4 weeks now. Each time the light is on the steering becomes heavy, but when it's not on the steering is back to normal again. The light would come on about 50% of the time I start the car. Until a week ago, now its on every time I start the car.

After various false hopes I've decided to bring the car into the garage. They've told me it might be a problem with the steering rack, which is something they don't have the equipment to deal with.

After a quick Google, some sites are saying to expect it to be at least £400 depending on the manufacturer. Has anyone here had to replace/repair the steering rack on a fabia 2? And if so how much did it cost? And was that a garage quote or a self repair cost?

It won't be the rack, it'll be the pump or the sensor unless you have a dodgy battery or alternator.

Cheapest, easiest, quickest thing to check is whether the car battery is low in charge or poor condition, or poor condition of battery clamps (loose), post to clamps have crud/muck/crap, condition of cables and wires and their connections including earths, all need to be clean, secure and protected.

 

If your battery is low then you need to know why - short journeys and/or heavy use or battery or charging system fault.  Just because the car starts and the lights seem OK  doesn't mean the battery isn't low or other stuff I've listed above.  My elderly neighbour started his car (twice) on the drive today just to run the engine on the hardstanding (I wish he wouldn't as it just takes drains the battery more and does next to nothing for the engine or car), I checked his battery after (lot) less than 50% so it's on slow trickle recharge in my shed now.  Very small battery so it might be fully charged by tomorrow afternoon or early evening.

 

Edited 4 April, 20224 yr by nta16

I changed the battery about 2 weeks ago since it needed changing anyway. It appeared to have solved it until 4/5 days later the light came back on again. Only now its on every time I start the car up as opposed to half the time previously! Hopefully that's just coincidence

Have you scanned it for any fault codes as they will give an idea of what is causing the problem.

 

The other easy to check is the fuseable links on top of the battery, they an fracture and cause low voltage to the pump/controller you need to look very closely as the fractures are hard to spot again this would throw up a fault code for low voltage

45 minutes ago, Kieren89 said:

Hopefully that's just coincidence

I'll stick my neck out and say no it won't be a coincidence.

 

ETA: Nige8021 posted whilst I was typing so some overlap from me.

 

Provided the new battery was good and same for all your cables, wires connections and earths and you haven't depleted the new battery's store of energy then that's the battery dealt with - what you need is a good level of scan tool to test the sensor, pump (and perhaps alternator depending on state of new battery charge now) and wiring and wiring connection issues both electrical and communication.

 

You don't want to be guessing at what it might be when a good level of scan tool (or even perhaps physical inspection by someone who knows what they're doing) will narrow down or pinpoint the problem.

 

There are people on here who offer to use their scan tools (various levels) to help to try to narrow down the possibilities, always also consider there might be more than one fault that needs attention to any problem - but I'm not saying this is necessarily the case here, I can have no idea about this, and probably not but a good scan comprehensive scan should help pick up anything else too.

  

Edited 5 April, 20224 yr by nta16
ETA:

Check to see if the battery symbol lights up when you turn the ignition key to the position where lots of warning lights self-test.  Report back with the result (yes/no), please.

Aside from the steering light, the rest have been a regular feature on my dash.

I've tried two different obd2 scanners and neither of them discovered any fault codes (although they both appeared to connect), they worked on another car so this makes the situation a lot more annoying than it should be as it sounds like there's a separate issue there.

 

I've also uploaded with the fuse panel on top of the battery, it looks pretty grim but wouldn't know myself what issues this would cause

17 minutes ago, Kieren89 said:

two different obd2 scanners and neither of them discovered any fault codes

Unlikely that these would be able to interrogate/read the PAS module itself, VCDS/VCDS Lite is the type of thing you need.  See if there's a member (or anyone you know) near you with either.

On VCDS it's under the 'chassis' tab of module selection, module 44 'steering assist'. Or an autoscan will look at everything.

Edited 5 April, 20224 yr by Pete_Ex-Wino

That fuse tray has a green cover over the individual fuse strips, obscuring visual inspection. Don't suppose it lifts/hinges up out of the way?

I think it will be the far right one that is the PAS, so check for 12V on that crimp/nut that the thick red/black wire goes to, which will be absent if that fuse is completely bust now.

The battery symbol does extinguish once the engine is running, does it?

 

The green covers don't clip open so will have to figure out how they're secured when I'm next free. The test light responds though

 

Yeah the battery symbol disappears once the engine is running 

@Gizmo might be a possibility for a VCDS'ing if you two can communicate by PMs to come to a suitable arrangement?

Yeah sounds good to me, thanks for the suggestion 👌🏻

Update: I've managed to get someone round to scan the fault. So we're looking at a possible power steering control module as it wasn't getting any feedback from it, but without access to it I don't know for sure.  Do we need to get the car up to access it or is there another way? Could it be faulty wiring instead?

Edited 14 April, 20224 yr by Kieren89

2 minutes ago, Kieren89 said:

Could it be faulty wiring instead?

Yes, or even a (different) fuse potentially.  There's an ignition on 12V feed to the PAS module that might prevent comms if that feed isn't reliable, and the CAN wiring pair will definitely prevent scan tool access if not intact.

I'll have a look at wiring info now.

 

Does the car have front fog lights? I ask because on my Polo that doesn't, you can remove the nearside plastic blank that goes where a fog light would be, and it gives you direct access to the connectors of the PAS module. Not sure whether a mk2 Fabia has a similar convenient option.

Cabin fuse number 1 is the ignition on feed, but is shared with other things, so would probably be obvious from other faults if bad. Check for 12V at the connector pin when ignition is on, though.

 

CAN wiring is the orange/brown, orange/black pair at pins 1 and 2 of the 4-way which has the ignition 12V feed coming in on a black/yellow wire at pin 4.

Wiring conns look like this, be careful with connector latches if unplugging, it's likely they are brittle and easily broken:

 

 

 

20 minutes ago, Kieren89 said:

Update: I've managed to get someone round to scan the fault. So we're looking at a possible power steering control module as it wasn't getting any feedback from it, 

 

What sort of scanner was it ? as it probably would not respond to a generic OBDll reader ideally needs to be a VAG specific and even better VCDS