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

I'm fortunate enough not to have suffered from this problem yet, but I would have thought that the feed to the PAS pump would have been disabled when the engine was stopped - and the altenator was not charging. So, the general idea is to check that the pump is not being run continuously while there is no steering angle input being demanded - if so the steering angle sensor could be faulty, a newer type seems to be available - see other threads. Either way the battery needs charging, and while you are at it, does the alternator provide charging at low revs - if not check the alternator excitation wire under the car - see other threads - also is the charge or no-charge light on prior to starting the engine. Finally, is the replacement battery the correct size as any weakness in the electrical energy supply with cause problems with the electro-hydraulic steering pump.

I'm fortunate enough not to have suffered from this problem yet, but I would have thought that the feed to the PAS pump would have been disabled when the engine was stopped - and the altenator was not charging. So, the general idea is to check that the pump is not being run continuously while there is no steering angle input being demanded - if so the steering angle sensor could be faulty, a newer type seems to be available - see other threads. Either way the battery needs charging, and while you are at it, does the alternator provide charging at low revs - if not check the alternator excitation wire under the car - see other threads - also is the charge or no-charge light on prior to starting the engine. Finally, is the replacement battery the correct size as any weakness in the electrical energy supply with cause problems with the electro-hydraulic steering pump.

Funny you should mention battery size as the replacement was slightly smaller (physically) in size to the original and I did check with the motor factor and the one purchased was the correct one for this model. I did notice today that the original battery was a 70 amps/hour and the replacement is only 60 amps/hour.

The difficult bit is proving that this new one is not "equal" or "better" than your original one - progress in battery design and all that - or do I mean new "cheaper" ways of making inferior batteries sound good? Even a new battery will never recover fully after a "deep discharge" - but you should try to bring it back from the dead if only to try to solve your problems.

Battery seemed to recharge okay and whipped the engine over no problem, however the indicator light on the battery has not returned to green (still black).

I will check this 'blue wire' from the alternator to the gearbox over the weekend and I will also just check the PAS fluid level to eliminate that. Would any faults in this system be stored and extracted by VAG-COM? Fortunately I know someone with this who would be able to plug in.

Dan

This may be way off beam, but I seem to recall that you're not meant to change a battery in a 1.4 yourself (i.e. leave it to a garage who knows exactly what they're doing) (per the manual) and some peeps have said they've had problems simply from removing the battery.

Not being a car person, I couldn't say what problems it might cause, so not much help really.

Regards

Mo