Hi all, just joined the forum today as part of trying to figure out why the rear washer on our new (to us) 2016 Fabia estate SE doesn't work. It's a manual with 1.2 TSI petrol engine. The rear wiper motor works, and both the washer and wipers at the front work fine. When pressing the stalk all the way back, there's no sound whatsoever from the pump. With the stalk in the normal on position, the wiper goes constantly instead of intermittently. Based on comments and experience elsewhere I am thinking the stalk may be corroded inside etc. Fuse 22 was blown but replacing that hasn't helped.

However as part of messing about with it I've noticed that if I push the stalk back to the washer position with the ignition turned off, the airbag lights on the dash light up, there's a warning beep and the MFD says 'Start system faulty! Workshop'. This goes away when I release the stalk. There's no issue at all with the starting system in normal use, and I've not come across any other electrical issues so far apart from a dead interior reading light. The car has a normal key turn start, not keyless or button start.

Has anyone else come across this? Is it likely to be a sign of a wider electrical issue, such as a faulty BCM?

Edited 30 November, 202530 Nov by whitedot

To clarify since some other searching suggests it may be a sign of an issue with the battery, this warning does not come up at any other time to my knowledge. Only when pushing the washer stalk back with ignition off. There's also some mechanical sound from the front of the car when it's happening, not sure where that's coming from (washer pump??). Otherwise, stop/start works fine when driving, and the car has been used for some decent 30min+ run outs since we got it. Mystifying.

The noise from the engine area might just be the throttle body "sweeping" as in having been prompted to perform a "self cal" to establish its end stop voltages for reference, if not that one maybe the turbo.

Normally that takes place after initially switching off the engine - so your car might be thinking that this fault is prompting a similar action.

Checking the battery voltage would be a good thing to do, initially and while pushing that stalk forward.

Many VW Group cars of this "size" and age have had stalk failure - by "many" I mean more than normally expected and experienced in earlier versions/marks of these cars.

39 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

The noise from the engine area might just be the throttle body "sweeping" as in having been prompted to perform a "self cal" to establish its end stop voltages for reference, if not that one maybe the turbo.

Normally that takes place after initially switching off the engine - so your car might be thinking that this fault is prompting a similar action.

Checking the battery voltage would be a good thing to do, initially and while pushing that stalk forward.

Many VW Group cars of this "size" and age have had stalk failure - by "many" I mean more than normally expected and experienced in earlier versions/marks of these cars.

Thanks for the reply, I'll stick my multimeter on the battery. Now you mention it, I've noticed the clocks and interior lights aren't a perfectly constant brightness. There's a very subtle fluctuation from time to time (Mrs hasn't noticed it) that I guess could be a sign of the battery being shot.

@rum4mo Not tested it yet but had a look this morning and it's the original battery from factory, with week 33 2016 embossed on it. So I guess it's well due for replacement anyway.

My wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS 6MT, still has its original factory fitted Exide EFB, current mileage 55,000miles, things still seem to be okay, but I'll probably swop it for the Bosch AGM one that I bought "some time ago", hopefully before things turn bad!

18 hours ago, whitedot said:

Based on comments and experience elsewhere I am thinking the stalk may be corroded inside etc. Fuse 22 was blown but replacing that hasn't helped.

With my wife's 2015 it wasn't corrosion but the VW grease either run or not done right on assembly, I'm not sure what number fuse it is on my wife's car but I put a photo up, if you have not already seen it here's the notes I made for the work (you can click on link directly below). -

If the battery is the original then someone has looked after it so it might be worth continuing to look after it to get even more reliable useful life out of it as these batteries aren't cheap and you enter the world (and debate) of 'coding' the new battery too.

As the car is new to you it might be a good idea to fully charge the battery to full (car's happy at about 80%) with an appropriate battery charger maintainer following the instructions in the car's 'Owners Manual' and for the charger. The £15 Lidl or Aldi ones are fine for the job but you can spend £70, £80, £120+ on more fancy and more fashionable ones if you prefer.

As you have a 2016 car, and a VW product at that, you will have a few things perhaps to do on the car, plus its a 9 year old car, so a good read of the 'Owner's Manual' can sometimes help to avoid some unnecessary visits to a garage, mechanic, auto-electrician. If you don't have the paper printed version of the 'Owner's Manual' then there's a VWŠkoda site for free pdf downloads. - https://www.skoda-auto.com/apps/manuals/Models

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

Edited 1 December, 20251 Dec by nta16
typo

42 minutes ago, nta16 said:

With my wife's 2015 it wasn't corrosion but the VW grease either run or not done right on assembly, I'm not sure what number fuse it is on my wife's car but I put a photo up, if you have not already seen it here's the note's I made for the work (you can click on link directly below). -

If the battery is the original then someone has looked after it so it might be worth continuing to look after it to get even more reliable useful life out of it as these batteries aren't cheap and you enter the world (and debate) of 'coding' the new battery too.

As the car is new to you it might be a good idea to fully charge the battery to full (car's happy at about 80%) with an appropriate battery charger maintainer following the instructions in the car's 'Owners Manual' and for the charger. The £15 Lidl or Aldi ones are fine for the job but you can spend £70, £80, £120+ on more fancy and more fashionable ones if you prefer.

As you have a 2016 car, and a VW product at that, you will have a few things perhaps to do on the car, plus its a 9 year old car, so a good read of the 'Owner's Manual' can sometimes help to avoid some unnecessary visits to a garage, mechanic, auto-electrician. If you don't have the paper printed version of the 'Owner's Manual' then there's a VWŠkoda site for free pdf downloads. - https://www.skoda-auto.com/apps/manuals/Models

Good luck, let us know how you get on.

Thanks, yeah I've done a fair few little maintenance jobs already and have a copy of the owner's manual PDF (and saved links to the workshop manuals etc). I came across that video when looking into how to get the stalks off to retrofit cruise control, this was before we noticed the rear washer issue and I saw your post when searching. So I may end up swapping the stalks for new (old) ones anyway. Cheers.

51 minutes ago, whitedot said:

this was before we noticed the rear washer issue

Yeah, Sod's Law usually applies.

2016 is a better year than my wife's 2015 I think so hopefully preventative maintenance and regular timely full whole car servicing should help prolong stuff and find sooner what might fail, plenty of threads and posts here on the usual stuff. In some bits the Skoda brand cars are better than the VW brand cars and visa-versa. German car marques generally dropped off end of last century or start of this century but I've never been a fan and favoured the Japanese if I wanted engineering high quality.

Good luck.

Edited 2 December, 20252 Dec by nta16
forgot the s for plural

Checked the battery with no ignition, reading was 12.5v. After running the lights for a few minutes then testing again it was 12.3v rising to about 12.4v. With the car running it was 13-14v. Not sure if this means it's fine or not, I'm reading conflicting info online about whether it needs charging or replacing. The fuse under the bonnet mentioned by @nta16 is intact. Still tempted to buy a new battery anyway given it's over nine years old, but I'm not convinced it's anything to do with the rear wiper or the error message with the ignition off.

I think it's the stalk which is a) not doing what it should, and b) doing what it shouldn't. So a new battery wouldn't make any difference to that anyway.

Have you tested the battery voltage while the engine is being cranked? - this is a reasonable, ad hoc, load test for condition.

9 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

Have you tested the battery voltage while the engine is being cranked? - this is a reasonable, ad hoc, load test for condition.

Yeah it dropped to about 11v I think (certainly not under 10v), only tried it once though. Stop/start is working fine too btw.

Edited 2 December, 20252 Dec by whitedot

All that sounds like the battery is fine, worth recharging with an appropriate battery charger maintainer. To full for any diagnosis of electrical (and starting) issues to help rather than hinder with diagnostics that can go on for a long time and drain the battery and also possibly upset the Gods that are the car's computer systems that will make you suffer.

If you take a (landscape) photo of your battery and post it we might be able to confirm if it is from factory or not if that would help with your deciding to replace it.

The fuse for your wipers may not be the same as on my wife's Fabia you would need a wiring diagram for your car to be sure which might mean by VIN number or at least part year of car build, 2016 can mean marketing model year, was registered in 2016 but made before or really was made sometime in 2016. I think my wife's 2015 is sometimes referred to as 2016 MY despite being registered September 2015 and possibly have some bits from from April 2015.

It's definitely the original battery. It's a Banner model that isn't in production any more, and is embossed in multiple places with a manufacture date of week 33 2016 which is two weeks before the car left the factory (I have the build data from VIN). After reading up a bit more on how stop/start systems maintain the battery charge level, I decided not to buy a new battery - for now at least. I'm convinced the issue is the stalk, which I intend to swap out to retrofit cruise anyway. So I'll pick it up as part of getting the replacement stalk coded, should the washer still not work. Thanks for your help, I'll update the thread if/when I get a resolution.

15 hours ago, whitedot said:

Yeah it dropped to about 11v I think (certainly not under 10v), only tried it once though. Stop/start is working fine too btw.

Given your test figures, very likely that your battery is still serviceable.

I dislike cruise control let alone this active(?) cruise control but I know there is a thread about the retro fitting, not as straightforward as some might think so if you've not already seen that thread it may well help you (or you might decide to just clean up your existing wiper stalk).

Up to you but not just for this but generally, if it was my car I would fully recharge the battery to 100% as the car is new to you and given the approach of winter. As the battery seems good it wont take as long as it could but could still take many hours and more than one session if you need to use the car in the meantime. Also if you know the battery is fully charged then you have a data point for it to judge from if and when it might need (or you want) changing, you might need the money for other issues on the car. Same reason I'd not doing any cosmetic or upgrade work on a car until I'd run it for a while and thought it might be reasonably reliable, I'd stick with preventative maintenance, servicing and repairs as required. starting with the important things like brakes, steering, suspension (all three include tyres of course) safety electrics and reflective number plates.

Good luck.

Well I've started to get to the bottom of almost certainly what's causing the weird error message and dodgy washer behaviour.

Changed and coded a new battery this morning, no difference. So I got in behind the wheel arch liner intending to replace the pump as my next step, only to find that the washer pump cable has been replaced by splicing a new bit of wiring into what I think is the A/C pressure sensor, and running it to the pump. The A/C incidentally is also throwing an OBD fault relating to pressure, which presumably could be be related. Absolutely baffled as to how this bodged setup 'works' for the front by happily operating the pump in one direction just fine. But clearly isn't how it's meant to be wired up!

Definitely not how it should be, but G65 fault may not be related, could just be refrigerant lack.

Will show you correct washer wiring shortly.

Turns out there are a few different circuit versions depending on PR codes.

Can you share which codes you have that start 4F, 4K, 4I and 6K, to help pick the right pages, please?

40 minutes ago, Breezy_Pete said:

Definitely not how it should be, but G65 fault may not be related, could just be refrigerant lack.

Will show you correct washer wiring shortly.

It's a low pressure fault, B10ABF0. As you say, could well be unrelated, but I'm dubious at this point. 🤣

I don't understand what problem this bodge could have been looking to resolve - surely not just the blown fuse 22?!?! But at this point I'm thinking of just putting it back how it should be and seeing what happens. The bit I'm not sure on is where the stock wiring for the pump is meant to be, before the connector. I got fed up battling the wheel arch liner (didn't take it off fully) so I didn't have a really close look at what has been done with it. Does it just appear from the same loom that carries the fluid hoses back up?

Yes, low pressure fault is probably just pointing to low refrigerant level.

See my last reply regarding PR codes, above please.

1 minute ago, Breezy_Pete said:

Turns out there are a few different circuit versions depending on PR codes.

Can you share which codes you have that start 4F, 4K, 4I and 6K, to help pick the right pages, please?

[nothing 4F*]

4K3 Central locking w/ radio remote control, interior controls and SAFELOCK

4KC Side and rear windows in heat-insulating glass

4L2 Breakaway interior rearview mirror, dimming

4LC Controls for radio and telephone

6K2 Forward collision warning incl. autonomous emergency braking, without adaptive cruise control

6KJ Radiator grille with chrome molding

Any 4I (India) codes?

Just now, Breezy_Pete said:

Any 4I (India) codes?

No, none.

Once you have the information kindly being given. -

On 30/11/2025 at 22:37, whitedot said:

Now you mention it, I've noticed the clocks and interior lights aren't a perfectly constant brightness. There's a very subtle fluctuation from time to time

This bit concerned me especially as your old battery just within what's in this thread seemed good and now you have evidence of previous wiring modification would rightly or wrongly put me on alert for other bits of different style and condition and care servicing, maintenance and repairs.

When you replaced the battery where the battery terminal clamps secure and clean (I'd clean the inside of the battery terminal clamps before fitting the new battery to be sure)?

I think I would be tempted to check for any voltage drops on positive and earth sides.

With the wiring diagram you should be able to tell how the pump works sounds like it might be a reverse polarity but I'm not an electrician or expert in anything at all, tho' I do have experience of s/h cars (often 20-50+ years old) and seeing a few bodges on them, particularly the wiring tho' of course those are much simpler electrics but the basics still apply, wires and connectors clean, secure and protected - and of course wired and installed correctly.