Dash faults driving me mad!

[Ribble2020]

Hi all, I’ve got an annoying fault with my 2019 GTI plus. It’s an intermittent fault that the VW main dealer can’t get to the bottom of. I get the following amber lights on the dash. Adaptive cruise control, parking sensors, EPC, front driver assist, stability control.

My local VW main dealer have had it in under warranty, charged me £400 for a new battery (batteries are not covered under the warranty) but that hasn’t resolved the issue. They can’t find a fault and the warranty has now expired.

I was told that it might be an ABS sensor. ABS warning light hasn’t come on but I’ve bought new sensors as they are cheap and I will replace them myself.

The faults resets itself and will either come back when I first start up the car or sometimes under hard braking.

This has been going on for months, around about the time it started I had a tyre changed and also managed to spill a bit of water onto the electrics when filling the windscreen wash bottle which made the hazard warning lights go crazy for a while. Just wondering if any of this is related.

Anyway, any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers guys.

[SRGTD]

Welcome to the forum @Ribble2020.

I sympathise with your frustration. ABS sensors can trigger warnings that aren’t related to the anti lock braking system, so hopefully replacing the ABS sensors will fix your issues. Presumably your dealer scanned your car for fault codes - were any error codes logged? (IMHO they ought to have kept a record of any fault codes they might have found for the investigative work they carried out on your car). If the dealer’s unable to identify the cause of your erroneous error messages, it might be worth finding a good, reputable independent VAG specialist to try and find what’s causing the warning messages to be triggered and fix it.

Interesting that you’ve said the dealer told you your car’s battery wasn’t covered under warranty; I’m aware of Golf owners on other forums who’ve had defective batteries replaced under warranty. Additionally, VW’s New Car Factory Warranty T&C’s excludes key fob and alarm batteries but not the car’s main battery. Link to warranty T&C’s below;

https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/owners- ... terms.html

Good luck - I hope you get it sorted soon . Please provide an update once it has been sorted.

[Ribble2020]

Hi, I was told that there were no codes logged and when I took it in the 2nd time the faults cleared themselves a few days before my appointment at the dealer.

The car is 2019 and I’m the 2nd owner so not sure what situation the means where the warranty is concerned.

Thanks for your response and the warranty like. I’ll take a look.

Did find a picture of a Tiguan on FB that had pretty much the same warning lights flagging up and after 10 months of messing around the garage replaced ABS sensors and this resolved it. I’ll report back of this fixes it.

Thanks again

[SRGTD]

The car is 2019 and I’m the 2nd owner so not sure what situation the means where the warranty is concerned.

Thanks for your response and the warranty like. I’ll take a look.

Thanks again

In the UK, if a VW car is sold during the first three years / before expiry of the factory warranty, then the remainder of the warranty would have transferred to you as the new owner. So you would have had the benefit of the original factory warranty in the same way as the first owner did up until your car was three years old.

However, if you bought your car as an Approved Used car from a VW dealership, depending on how old your car was at the time you bought it, your warranty may have been a combination of the factory warranty and VW’s Approved Used warranty. E.g. with a 2 year old car bought under VW’s Approved Used scheme, cars are sold with a two year warranty. A two year old car still has 1 year remaining of the three year factory warranty, so the warranty would comprise 1 year factory warranty followed by 1 year’s Approved Used warranty cover. Under VW’s Approved Used warranty, cover is more restrictive than it is under the original factory warranty, and batteries are excluded (see page 13 of the Approved Used warranty booklet at the link below).

Hope that makes sense!

https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/idhub/cont ... ooklet.pdf

[Harrihealey02]

When you say that you spoilt the water over the electrics when filling up the washer fluid, I think that would be the ECU and the external fuse box that was doused with screen wash. I would think that it does sound a bit of a coincidence that the indicators states flashing when you did that so perhaps some screen wash got in the ECU harness and is causing minor short circuits which is interrupting the communication with your ABS and other sensors momentarily. I haven’t seen how easy it is to do but removing the ECU plug and checking all the terminals don’t have corrosion or crystals would be worth doing. Even the simple unplug and plugging back in of the connector could fix it. It also might be worth investing in a Carly scan tool, or a generic one so any time the fault pops up you can quickly scan the car and see what exact issue you are facing is.

[RUM4MO]

What is the mileage of this car?

One thing that can cause "functional" ABS sensors to hand out duff output signals is a failing wheel bearing - but I'd hope that that would only happen when there is significant free movement of a wheel/wheels or at least hubs.

Any/all VW Group products can suffer early wheel bearing failure without any driver abuse being required!

My wife's 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110 6MT started making "wheel bearing" noises when it was only just over 6 years old and 36,000 miles - after I replaced the front hub bearings on both sides, I came to the conclusion that it was water that had managed to get into the bearing assembly - the original bearings were SNR brand manufactured in France, so I avoided fitting that brand or "made in France" bearings when I replaced them! That bearing was sorted out quickly, so well before the performance/safety of these front hub bearings had degraded to the point where the ABS signals might have been compromised by hub "movement".