Hi All

I'm new here and  Newby when it comes to mechanical aspect of the car but a quick learner.

What made me to come here for help is my wife's WV polo, got here this car 4 months back for school runs but si ce last weeks power stearing is gone on it. 

Orange symbol with a exclamation mark came up in dashboard, brought it up to mechanic and he claims the power stearing pump is working OK that the faults is down to ECU.

Spoken to electro mechanic who claims that this is total bullshit and the fault must be elsewhere but not ECU..

 

At this stage I am feed up being pushed away and decided to investigate this myself. 

 

I have done my research and noticed that the fuse on the battery that is responsible for power stearing often cracks but in my case this fuse is OK but there is no power going to the any of these fusese on battery. I believe this indicates to a where the fault could be sitting, could anyone please help.

That row of strip fuses is powered along the rear edge busbar by a cable going from the underside of the fusetray directly to battery positive. 

Check this.

 

Thank you for your answer , will have a look and let you know 

Checked reading with multimeter and I do get a bip but reads low, 002 -008  not sure if thats normal. 

Also connected to my OBD 2 and recieved an erroe code P0600 - does that i dodatek posaible issue with ECU ? 

 

Battery reading with engine off 12.5V

 

Car on 14.2V 

13 hours ago, mick93 said:

Checked reading with multimeter and I do get a bip but reads low, 002 -008  not sure if thats normal. 

There must be a solid 12.5V (or whatever the battery reads post-to post) all along the top of those fuses otherwise nothing in the car will work.

I don't understand what you're doing wrong with your meter, where is the negative probe when you're trying to check this?  Earth point nearest to battery suggested.

 

 

Thanks Pete, will double check again and let you know. Apologies I'm a Newby and clearly had my negative to close to positive. Will update you as soon as I can. 

 

Regarding error code P0600, could this be related to power stearig lost?

5 minutes ago, mick93 said:

Regarding error code P0600, could this be related to power stearig lost

I doubt it.

In order to read power steering faults, the code reader needs to connect to module 44 "steering assist" which is within the PAS pump. Not all generic code readers will do this, some just read engine/ABS and maybe one or two other modules.

 

Hi Pete 

Checked again, and all seems to be correct all along those fuses. Any idea what else could be checked 

Some odd looking rewiring has happened there. ABS strip fuse missing, full speed fan strip-fuse missing...

 

Check cabin fuse number 7, a 5 amp one

 

 

Hi Pete 

Cabin fuse number 7 is 7.5 Amp on mine l, checked the fuse which ok and port is reading 14.20 voltage.

Looking at the diagram online it was down as 7.5 as well

1 hour ago, mick93 said:

Hi Pete 

Cabin fuse number 7 is 7.5 Amp on mine l, checked the fuse which ok and port is reading 14.20 voltage.

Looking at the diagram online it was down as 7.5 as well

As long as it's OK, the fuse value isn't super-critical, my info suggests later cars, from 2006 on have 7.5 A, earlier 5A, but clearly not the problem here anyway.

Amongst other things, it's an ignition switched 12V to the PAS module. not a main power feed obviously, that's the strip fuse. 

 

If I were you, I'd undo the nut that holds that red/black wire down onto the strip fuse in position 3 and the one that holds it onto the main busbar (where your probe is shown above), and extract the fuse, just to see if the fuse then breaks in half or something.  Can be really hard to spot a hairline crack, and your photo isn't sharply focussed enough for me to zoom in without it blurring.

 

 

Thanks for all the advise, I will do that tomorrow and will provde some better pictures. Is it possible to move them cables on to next available slot on that strip as well just to test if that plater fuse is gone. 

It is possible as if im undersdaning correctly, the voltage should retained solid when testing and in my case it was jumping constatly between 8 -14 and this was with the engine on.

 

Also regarding 

There aren't any strip fuses in positions 4, 5 and 6 currently, so if you move the wire to one of those positions, you'd need to move the fuse there too.

Voltage flicking about might be a nearly-broken meter probe wire, or something like that.

 

Edited 13 January, 20242 yr by Pete1

Thanks just found that strange as it's new reader and it doesnt Flick anywhere just on that strip 

Hi Pete 

Checked all this morning and the fuse seems to be ok, I could not see any crack on it. I did clean the fuse and tested strip again and I do get solid 14v now on the reader with engine on and 4.68v with ignition on

 

 

I have oy move to different t slot for testing it is now sitting in its orginal location. Here is also picture of the fuse itself 

One more thing I've notice is I'm not getting any voltage readi g from this fuse Port where 30amp fuse is located, not sure it this is relevant 

And last thing I just noticed is when have ignition on battery icon is flashing on the dash. This battery did died on me couple of weeks ago (when the faults with stearing was already happening) since charged car is starting no problem 

Firstly, please swap the plugs at the meter so it reads positive, for positive voltages. Black should be in COM.

 

Where is the black meter probe when you read that 4.68V? It needs to be on either battery negative, or that earth point nearby on the suspension turret? Something very wrong if that's a true reading. Also black probe needs to be on battery negative, red on fuse socket (one or other side) for measuring the fuse port.  Only one contact of the two will have volts when fuse is out.

 

 

 

 

Hi, tested again and realised the 4.68 voltage was reading when i have move to next available slot when is back in its organial it is reading 12v,black was connected to batter negative. 

 

Also fuse is now reading 12v when swapped out Black to COM