Need help.. abs and power steering light flashing intermittently

[Kimmsy]

hey, i'm having some intermittent fault but no one seems to be able to pin point where the fault it. my ibiza is 1.2 award 55 plate and after 3 weeks, driving home from work 1 night the abs light was flashing and beeping at me but went off after few second, happened 3-4 times on a 6 mile journey home. Next morning same thing and the radio was cutting out when the light came on and just i got to seat garage power steering stopped working so was heavy and hard to steer into parking space. Seat garage they had it for a day and replaced an earth wire.No problems after that but 3 weeks after my warranty was up its the same kind of problem abs light flashing and beeping and the power steering light along with the handbrake light flashing at one point, but after taking key out and starting engine again all was fine and working.

Past 2 days I've been to 4 different garages none have said the same thing:-

Seat garage talked down to me thinking cause I'm a woman i don't know what I'm doing saying they went down a check list of things to look for to find out what it was. No mention of if they had dealt with this kind of thing before, just showing me a sheet of paper. like that will always be the way to diagnose this kind of car trouble, so I dismissed their power steering replacement at.. wait for it.. £740(inclu v.a.t & labour)!!

my local garage was honest n said he thought it was alternator as it was dropping in power from 13.8v to 12v every so often but wasn't 100% and was also honest when i asked if he could fit the power steering pump (said they had never fitted 1 before but would do it in 2 hours for £650 incl v.a.t & labour, slightly cheaper).

Went to a VW spare parts place to find reconditioned power steering pump and he said he had a Skoda Fabia in a few weeks ago with same kind of problem and they actually replaced the power steering pump but that didnt fix the problem, he suggest seeing a friend of his who dealt with this Skoda as it was the radio that was shorting everything out.

this guy wasnt convinced it was the power steering pump either and said would only replace that when tried everything else 1st as it was the most expensive to replace. when plugged up to the computer it read intermittent fault on 30 or something like that which was the power steering but he thought it was electrical maybe the main wire between battery and power steering. just waiting for fault to happen again so they can check the computer yet again!!!!

Has anyone come across this kind of problem before and if so have i done the right thing shopping around for opinions????

 

[RUM4MO]

As I said on the other thread, the alternator sense wire can break - its under the end of the gearbox if I remember - it and a lot of other wires have plug and sockets at that point. But having said that it is normally the TDI engine that suffers from this, I'd imagine its related to engine vibration and/or engine moving on its flexible mounting points. Maybe the battery is faulty or you are using the car only for short jouneys so the battery is not getting fully charged. One thing to remember, taking the power steering failure in isolation, this item nees a lot of amps from the electrical system and sometimes it needs it just after the car has already had to deliver a lot of amps - ie to start the engine, this can be, if anything is faulty or weak, why its the power steering that gets shut down first. There is a reconditioner of electric power steering pumps based in UK - I can't see why VAG have not started an exchange system for them yet.

 

[Kimmsy]

its only a 1.2 petrol. and its the abs light that always flashes 1st only after so many times(about 5-7 times) does the power steering light come on or stops working.

I'll see what this guy says as me seems to know what he is on about and will explain what you said and ask him check all connectors but im sure my local garage said he check all the wiring, maybe they missed something i don't know. thanks for the advise thought maybe get it sorted as this has been going on for a week now

 

[caddyrage]

Was this problem solved?

Have the same issue with my tdi
Fault code 01316 came up on vagcom

 

[Kimmsy]

yer loose earth wire

 

[caddyrage]

yer loose earth wire

Battery earth? Or is there another somewhere

 

[Kimmsy]

i think it was yer wen i ad guy hook up computer it was showing fault between alternator n battery so mayb there

 

[DAB 100]

Just had pretty much the same problem with our 56 plate 1.4 16v - Power steering light, ABS light, brake light and engine light all coming on at the same time, radio turning off, then heavy steering, engine cutting out, and the dial needles flicking around. Then we'd restart the car and it would be totally fine! It would happen every morning, usually when turning a corner or parking.

My wife uses the car for short journeys, and does 2 or 3 restarts of the engine within two miles, but the odd thing was, it always started up ok, so I dismissed the 3 year old bosch battery as being the problem.

I got a voltmeter that plugs into the cig lighter to monitor the battery alternator - it would vary from 14.2volts down to 13.0 sometimes, so I wondered if the alternator was starting to fail - but at over £200 it was a bit much to replace without being totally sure.
Using vagcom I found a few fault codes stored relating to power supply voltage intermittent/power steering low voltage/ abs voltage etc.

I checked the usual alternator feed cable/connector, battery mounted fuses, earthing points - all looked perfect, no corrosion etc.
Then I found a few other threads on here relating to just the power steering light coming on & heavy steering - a few mentioned that replacing the battery cured the problem, due to the large current draw from the electric steering pump.

The car's battery was 3 years old on a 4 year guarantee, but for the last 18 months it's had a hard life with short journeys and multiple restarts, so I measured the battery tray and bought a much larger battery - went from the standard 44Ah to a 63Ah Varta Silver 5 year guarantee, and at £76 delivered from Tayna, it was only £6 more than i'd paid for the smaller old battery!

Fitted it and 4 weeks on, the car has been perfect since!

Thanks again to this forum, it could of ended up an expensive headache if a garage had ended up replacing power steering pumps/alternators etc.