I have a Fabia 1.9tdi, first registered in early 2001. Always main dealer (VW) serviced with 100.000KM on the clock.

I am currently suffering from electrical problems, the most annoying of which is loss of power steering! When this happens, several symptons may occur. If at night, with headlights on, they dim for a moment and the PAS fails. At other times the PAS just fails, only accompanied by the warning light and alert buzzer. Immediate cure is to stop & re-start the engine, when all is OK until the next time. This next time could be from three hours to three weeks via three days!

Other symptoms are the ABS and ASR lights illuminating momentarliy, central locking not working properly - not always with PAS failure!

In early May this year my VW dealer diagnosed the PAS problem as a faulty steering angle sensor which was duly replaced. 5 kilometers down the road, the PAS failed again. Driving back to the dealer with no PAS I expostulated (!) leaving the engine running as I knew the problem would go away if I stopped it.

After head scratching they decided that the fault lay in a damaged electrical lead from the battery to somewhere?, replaced it and all seemed well.

We drove to the UK & back, 6000 km inc. running around there and happily tootled around locally here for a total of about 10,000km since the "fix" until the problem re-surfaced a week or so ago.

Fault codes do not seem to help as they only record the event, not its basic cause (as far as I can make out)

Any ideas?

How is the battery? What is the voltage loaded and unloaded and have you done a load test?

The battery is about a two or three years old, having been replaced, with a genuine VW one, just outside the three year extended warranty period. It just failed one day and the idiot recovery driver tried to jump start the car, with the result that quite a few of the power leades melted! Cost a bit to put right, too, I can tell you! VW batteries are expensive!

I have absolutely no idea of the current state of the replacement battery, but the car is booked into the VW/Skoda/Audi dealer in Marbella on the 2nd October, this being the earliest date available.

I would like to be ble to offer suggestions to them, (sensible!), as the very first time this happened, more than a year ago, the fault codes indicated a duff PAS pump, which I declined to have fitted due to cost. Subsequnt fault codes have indicated a faulty steering angle sensor, which as I said in my post ,was replaced in early May this year.

I don't have much faith in fault codes now!

Hello ! any update on this, as we have the same problem with our 1.4 fabia, flickering headlights in time with the buzzing power steering pump, problem goes away ( temporarily ) if you switch off and re-start.

Im LOATH to take it back to skoda, as they've made such a mess of things in the past.

Our Fabia has just been into our VW/Audi/Skoda main dealer in Marbella. They kept the car for three days! The fault code kept indicating a faulty steering angle sensor. They refused to believe this as this part had been replaced, AGAIN, in May this year. After much head scratching they seemed to believe that the computer was being affected by a widely fluctuating power supply and replaced the main power cable.

We shall see what transpires - so far so good.

I shall keep you posted!

Guys,

I think you'll find this is a fault with the wiring to the alternator. It is a commen fault with VW's apparently and is caused by the way the wiring moves as the car moves/vibrates. Over time the copper wiring conductors work harden and become brittle, eventually breaking resulting in hit and miss electrics and battery discharging. The wiring is hidden away under the car and hence is often missed but a good VW dealer should know about it and a repair kit is available.

I only know because my wife was stranded because of it recently but fortunately the service manager at the dealer is ex VW and cottoned on pretty quick.

Guys,

I think you'll find this is a fault with the wiring to the alternator. It is a commen fault with VW's apparently and is caused by the way the wiring moves as the car moves/vibrates. Over time the copper wiring conductors work harden and become brittle, eventually breaking resulting in hit and miss electrics and battery discharging. The wiring is hidden away under the car and hence is often missed but a good VW dealer should know about it and a repair kit is available.

I only know because my wife was stranded because of it recently but fortunately the service manager at the dealer is ex VW and cottoned on pretty quick.

Now that IS interesting skomaz, as our fabia has had an alternator replacement about 1000 miles ago.

Skoda wanted