UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

I've been away travelling for a few months so my car has been on my drive and only started a few times and taken for a spin down the road. Now that i'm back its been fine for just under week and now its all gone wrong!

First i was driving along and the brake and airbag lights came on, but when i stopped and started again it seemed fine. Then i was coming home and the whole dash went out apart from airbag and brake lights, and the radio and climate stopped working. As soon as the car was turned off it wouldn't start again.

Now i put this down to the battery so went and got a new one, but driving home from getting it the exhaust emissions light came on! I went to a local vw specialist and he hooked up the vag-com and said there were 5 error codes but that it was to do with the battery, so he cleared them all.

This was yesterday, and now i was just driving home and the whole car died on me. First all the warning lights were going haywire, then the car started to lose power and eventually stalled for us to push it home.

Can anyone help me diagnose it? My next guess is the alternator?

alternator my bet

Did you buy a battery and stick it straight into the car?....

You really need to charge up new batteries for at least 12 hours before trying to use them!!!!

failing that, I would point my finger at the alternator not charging the battery properly!

try a volt-meter across the battery teminals with the engine running you should be getting Charging voltage around 13.5V - 14.5V then turn on your lights or another heavy load item and check what the drop is then turn them off again and see if the voltage climbs back.

I got the new battery fitted at a garage and they said the old was was on its way out.

Anyway tried the volt-meter test and it was was only coming up at around 12 volts so managed to get a refurbed alternator for £50 and got the local vw place to fit it the same day for £88. Lets hope nothing else goes wrong...

you done a volt check with the new alternator in?

Nope - the garage who fitted it said they'd checked it all and everything was working fine.

well i would have just checked it myself, just for piece of mind I really don't venture near garages unless it's warranty work, and small jobs like alternators is usally given to Mongo the apprentice, i know everyone has to learn and start somewhere.
Just having a issue with a main dealer at the mo cos i had to have the wifes car plugged in to find a electrical fault, but they forgot to replace the airfilter body which shagged up the airflowmeter which stopped the car dead in it's tracts on the way home, they also didn't connect up connectors and lost a bonnet rubber, so the bonnet was sitting on top of the headlight, if i had picked the car up i would have checked eveything over.