About 2 months ago my Fabia reported a Stop / Start Error and the EPC light was lit up - My localish dealer where I bought the car from quoted silly money to diagnose the fault and couldn't book the car in for almost two weeks. I called a local garage who service the car, they also service a local taxi fleet that are 80 percent Skodas. They asked me to bring the car in the following day. Car drove fine, on the journey to the garage the car started to report that the driver assist was not functioning, Componant Protection appeared on the Infotainment System and the Interior lights were not coming on when opening the doors or switching on.

The garage called after an hour to advise that the battery had failed, it was the original and almost six years old. On collecting the car I was advised that the battery had been coded and the garage had had to get a code from Skoda. Car drives great and everything apears to be back to normal.

I have noticed that the radio will only find two DAB ensembles or three of the six normally receivable in the area when scanning. If select a preset memory for a station on an Ensemble that the scan didn't find the station plays fine, but the other ensembles it had on the station list has gone and those previous missing are visible.

No idea of the issue, pretty sure it's not the aerial as the stations on DAB and FM are received fine, none of the usual "bubbling" sounds that occur in poor reception areas.

I wonder if it's a firmware issue.

Thanks

Dave

Edited 23 July, 202523 Jul by Grendel
spelling mistake on title

I sent you dwonilk link for MEN2_EU_SKGPx_P0080L_8755 in PM.

Thank you

Dave, if you want to you can make your new battery last more than 6 years by very occasional preventative recharging of the battery either by driving the car or better still using an appropriate battery charger maintainer following the instructions in the 'Owner's Manual' for the car and instructions for the charger maintainer.

The stop/start not operating when it should is the first sign of a low battery, even though the headlights seem bright enough and the engine starts easily, it's getting too low for the car's computers and they can then throw up all sorts of unexpected warning, unseen error codes and issues on the car. Let the battery get too low and/or too often then even with recharging the battery may not fully recover and possibly killed.

Plenty of threads and posts on Briskoda about low state of 12v battery charge and the problems from that and posts about 12v battery maintenance.

I've no idea why your garage had to phone anyone for a 'code', the actual VW battery 'codes' haven't been used for years, and 'coding' the battery is a very simple DIY job (with an appropriate scan tool which are a wide choice and very available) but must like all data input (typing) to a computer program must be done accurately and even professionals can make mistakes.

A low battery state of charge, and health, will also put more work on the alternator as they work as a team.

Your DAB issue may just have been a coincidence, or perhaps not help by low battery as the computers are very dumb and can easily get their panties in a twist, let alone their brain-farts.

It could also be the antenna thats failing. Not DAB radio but my octavia stopped receiving certain stations. It was the amplifier in roof ariel that had water ingress.

Alasdair

10 hours ago, nta16 said:

Dave, if you want to you can make your new battery last more than 6 years by very occasional preventative recharging of the battery either by driving the car or better still using an appropriate battery charger maintainer following the instructions in the 'Owner's Manual' for the car and instructions for the charger maintainer.

The stop/start not operating when it should is the first sign of a low battery, even though the headlights seem bright enough and the engine starts easily, it's getting too low for the car's computers and they can then throw up all sorts of unexpected warning, unseen error codes and issues on the car. Let the battery get too low and/or too often then even with recharging the battery may not fully recover and possibly killed.

Plenty of threads and posts on Briskoda about low state of 12v battery charge and the problems from that and posts about 12v battery maintenance.

I've no idea why your garage had to phone anyone for a 'code', the actual VW battery 'codes' haven't been used for years, and 'coding' the battery is a very simple DIY job (with an appropriate scan tool which are a wide choice and very available) but must like all data input (typing) to a computer program must be done accurately and even professionals can make mistakes.

A low battery state of charge, and health, will also put more work on the alternator as they work as a team.

Your DAB issue may just have been a coincidence, or perhaps not help by low battery as the computers are very dumb and can easily get their panties in a twist, let alone their brain-farts.

Thanks - will read up. Also have a Fabia TSI Estate that is aproaching 5 years old.

10 hours ago, Alasdair1 said:

It could also be the antenna thats failing. Not DAB radio but my octavia stopped receiving certain stations. It was the amplifier in roof ariel that had water ingress.

Alasdair

I'd did wonder about the aerial and amp, however when I selected the "hidden menu" and looked at the Radio settings and DAB the stats for the stations saved to memory suggest a decent signal strength on all the Ensambles. I've not run the firmware update yet.

12 hours ago, Grendel said:

Thanks - will read up. Also have a Fabia TSI Estate that is aproaching 5 years old.

In the 'Owner's Manual' they (used to) put to change the battery at 5 years which is potentially very wasteful as the batteries can last many more years than that depending on use, abuse and neglect. Later IIRC they went down to 4 years but some owner/drivers only get 3 years before, possibly premature, replacement. IIRC they also have to change the alarm battery at 5 years, the one on my wife's car is 10 years old and has yet to cause issue - famous last words jinxing it now as Sod's Law dictates. 😄