Hi all,

 

Got into car today, turned steering wheel and heard a faint clock noise.  Airbag light came on with message Error Airbag.  Also none of steering wheel buttons work.

 

I'm thinking it needs a new clock spring. Anyone have any experience with this fault, and what it may cost?

Answering my own question incase it helps anyone in future.

 

Dealer is £800.

Got mine repaired for £150 while I waited.  KG auto Electronics.  They do a postal service or you go to them - either in Birmingham (handsworth) or Oldham.  So far so good.

I have recently tried various stalks in order to retrofit AAC, the clock spring was included with the stalk assembly. Parts were from broken down cars, so used but they were around the £50-70 mark (spring and stalk assembly together). Fitting the spring only is around a 15 min job.

 

I needed coding some extra coding and my VCDS was not capable to do the full coding, so I replaced the original parts for now.

To the uninitiated what is the function of a clock spring in the steering column.?

 

Thanks.

It's basically how the steering wheel controls and anything that turns with the steering wheel connects to the rest of the car. This includes the horn, airbag, and all the buttons on the wheel itself, excluding the stalks which are stationary compared to the steering wheel. It's a spool of ribbon wire which allows you to turn the wheel about 2.5-3 full turns in each direction. When this ribbon wire breaks, the car cannot communicate with the modules on the wheel and that's what causing the errors to show up.

Many thanks for your most comprehensive explanation, another thing  to fail!

 

I prefer the old and uncomfortable with static controls on the dash ,no bells and whistles but cheap and straightforward to maintain.

The clock spring is a fairly old thing in the cars, the horn and steering wheel airbag was mostly done with these before the smart features.

I'd say not turning the wheel lock to lock is a good way to prolong their life as this puts less stress on the wire. There is some slack built into them, around an extra half turn worth of wires, but not turning the wheel until it locks definitely helps.

In electronic parlance perhaps the clockspring would just be called a ribbon cable!

I'd never heard of 'the clock spring' - every day's an education on here. Thank you!

On 15/04/2024 at 19:00, Geoffcapes said:

Answering my own question incase it helps anyone in future.

 

Dealer is £800.

Got mine repaired for £150 while I waited.  KG auto Electronics.  They do a postal service or you go to them - either in Birmingham (handsworth) or Oldham.  So far so good.

hi this has just happened to my 2018 karoq and I’m booked in on Monday with the same guys I was checking it’s legit as I’m driving down from Scotland! Nobody up here seems to even know what it is I had to tell the garage, after googling and searching. Is yours still working ok? I can’t see what year you posted this thanks

1 minute ago, Sandyuk said:

hi this has just happened to my 2018 karoq and I’m booked in on Monday with the same guys I was checking it’s legit as I’m driving down from Scotland! Nobody up here seems to even know what it is I had to tell the garage, after googling and searching. Is yours still working ok? I can’t see what year you posted this thanks

I went to the one in Handsworth (Birmingham). It is legit, there were 3 of there at the same time and all got sorted quite quickly. I'm guessing you're going to Oldham?

It's still working over a year later with no issues whatsoever.

1 hour ago, Geoffcapes said:

I went to the one in Handsworth (Birmingham). It is legit, there were 3 of there at the same time and all got sorted quite quickly. I'm guessing you're going to Oldham?

It's still working over a year later with no issues whatsoever.

Yep the one in Oldham as it’s closer I can’t believe I can’t get it done up here! Crazy I’m glad I found your post thanks funny how vw have extended the clock spring warranty for 15 years not for skids though I’ve had mine since new. They site excessive turning of the wheel as a problem by the owner 🙈 you couldn’t write it

Certainly on the first variants premature failure was usually the result of ingress of long hairs becoming knotted up inside.

34 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Certainly on the first variants premature failure was usually the result of ingress of long hairs becoming knotted up inside.

??

Hairs shed from long haired usually female drivers plus dust etc became would up in the clockspring due to inadequate sealing.

3 hours ago, J.R. said:

Hairs shed from long haired usually female drivers plus dust etc became would up in the clockspring due to inadequate sealing.

Ahhhh ok well I have long hair 🙈 but that’s ridiculous they haven’t been sealed? Plus I don’t drive with my head 🤔 be interesting to see when the guy removes it tomorrow if it’s my hair 🤣🤣 I thought a leaf had fallen into it last week so dropped the steering down couldn’t see anything then the next day it all went off

Human hairs are around 100 microns thick, its impossible to seal a dry unpressurised seal assembly like that totally but the early variants left a lot to be desired

Glad my hippy days are over, in that case! Only referring to hair length, as now not much to fall out! Still a hippy at heart.✌️

Spoke too soon. My repaired clockspring has just failed 13 months after replacement:(

Stop turning the wheel! Sorry joking funny how they cover the other models in the group but not the Skoda I’m thinking of getting rid of mine they don’t want to know after you’ve paid for it