Hi All

Newbie on here, hope that you can help me! I own a 2001 Octavia 1.9TDI (90) Ambiente (which is excellent!) but my father-in-law has owned a 2000 Fabia 1.9TDI PD Elegance since last October, which appears to have an electrical problem.

Just before Christmas, we had to replace the battery, as the original had gone completely dead. Nothing strange I thought, usual wear and tear and was duly replaced with a quality maintainance free. Car appeared fine after battery swap.

Approx. three weeks ago, I took my in laws to the local airport in their Fabia in the early hours and whilst driving, I noticed that the lights appeared to be flickering slightly, along with the dashboard lights, but also the light on the dashboard with the steering wheel icon kept illuminating then going out. When the light was illuminated, the steering went slightly heavier and 'lumpier' and so I mentioned this to my father-in-law (who knows nothing about cars!) replied 'oh it has been doing that on and off for a couple of weeks!'. Anyhow, I returned the Fabia back to the in-laws and duly parked it in the garage ready for their return, with the intention of checking and topping up the PAS system fluid. Went over this week to check that the Fabia was okay and to my complete surprise I found that the battery was totally flat!!:confused: After reading a couple of threads on here, there appears to be a common problem with PAS system (part electronically controlled I understand) which can cause the battery to drain from a failed angle sensor??

Can anybody give me some advise on this and the best course of action to solve this problem on an otherwise excellent car!!

Thanks

Dan

Yup failed sensor more than likely.

Common and had it on mine not long after buying it.

Got the sensor replaced, never had a problem with that since.

VRStu's website has a full pictorial on it, here. Unfortunately, it's an up-in-the-air job, so if you don't have some axle stands, you'll have to get a garage to do it...

Hope this helps!

Thanks guys for your help and advise. Will get the part ordered and have a go myself!!!

Cheers

Dan

I'm just a bit curious, why did you start an identical thread and not just continue with the first one? It just helps to keep the forum tidy if we stick to one thread.

Sorry to hijack this thread, just today the Power Steering light came on, same as the other guy the steering feels a bit heavier and lumpier.

I know bugger all about the mechanics of cars, is this going to be pricey to fix?

Thanks in advance!

unkle, either shuffle back through all the previous threads looking for this sort of problem or use the search function to do the work for you - it does work quite well.

Itwas the Steering Angle Sensor for me too

The Fabia flicker, and the eventual Steering light activation are due to some problem with the Steering angle sensor.

I had this problem with our Fabia, flickering lights, dead battery, steering light et.c.

I also had the symptom that you could hear a motor whine whenever the lights flickered.

After replacing the battery and alternator (at the local garage fot £120 instead of at the Skoda deala for £480) still no joy. After the garage offered to replace the alternator under guarantee to no avail. But they then unplugged the alternator to find no flicker, but when they unplugged the Steering pump...

The bad news is that a Steering pump costs £500, the good news it isn't the pump that is at fault.

Following up on some web research, including this discussion, I took a punt on the Steering Angle sensor, which cost me another £125 (fitted) at the same garage. It worked a treat not a flicker since.

So thanks.

Skoda dealer 0 MOT City 10.