VW Polo with ABS light coming on intermittently

[SMOKEU]

A mate of mine works as an auto sparky and the number of late model Euros coming in with electrical problems is shocking. You don't see that with much of the Jap stuff.

[Brett]

Damp, damp you say?

My Passat is a twat when it rains, takes 2 or 3 goes to get it started. Done the leads, distributor, plugs the lot, still a twat.

I've yet to have the joys of owning a car with modern electrickery gubbins, still with windy down windows, tape deck & no cup holders.

Take the bulb out of the warning light... Oh, can't get into the dash? bugger.

mate, the fix on the passats is to remove the bung that sits underneath the battery. Over time the little drainage holes (stupid littles things) fill up with crap and the area with the rain shield over it becomes a little damn and when the water gets too full it spills over into the passenger compartment. Stupid design, thought the germans were smarter than that, but guess not. Pull out the bung, water all drains away as soon as it ends up in the battery compartment and water does not make it into the passenger compartment. The way to tell if this is your problem is if either the driver or passenger side footwells get damp or fill up with water. Be carefull if that is the problem as the ECU sits in the passenger footwell and is expensive to replace.

[trustme]

A mate of mine works as an auto sparky and the number of late model Euros coming in with electrical problems is shocking. You don't see that with much of the Jap stuff.

Correct. Fix that piece of euro trash & get rid of it asap. Once the electrics start giving problems it is all down hill
VW's were not called Hitlers revenge for nothing. The rest of the euro's including BMW are little if any better.

[SMOKEU]

It's always funny to see how people in NZ buy European cars and think that they are somehow getting a car which is better built than a cheap Japanese car. Once the warranty period is over is often when the honeymoon ends. Ditto that for resale time.

[ducatilover]

The joints in the module are soldered and are prone to cracking.
Good news, we can source these fairly cheap, the are Polo/Golf/Bora specific parts.
The wheel sensors are also problematic, but, if they have done a scan on it (I'll look up doing a self diagnostic on it in a sec) and ruled these out I will go hunt down a price for a new module.

[ducatilover]

It's always funny to see how people in NZ buy European cars and think that they are somehow getting a car which is better built than a cheap Japanese car. Once the warranty period is over is often when the honeymoon ends. Ditto that for resale time.

I buy Euro cars more often (I try too) because my taste in cars is just that way inclined. To this day the nicest and most fun car I have ever driven is an E36 BMW M3 There's just something about them.
Japanese cars aren't all that hopped up and brilliant, a Polo drives better than the Starlet back then and the GTi model is a laugh.

[cbfb]

Dielectric grease. Theres little one-shot packs at Repco but they're about $4 a pack iirc.
BNT used to stock it in decent sealant sized tubes.

I'm guessing the low melt point of vaseline would make it redundant in this situation as it'll just melt and run out of the connectors.

Had a go at it with contact cleaner and very fine sandpaper, still no go so guessing the unit itself is buggered. Apparently those Bosch units suffer from shitty internal cnxns.

My daughters Rover 216 (Honda Concerto in drag) had an ABS fault that was diagnosed to a bad ABS unit - light was off immediately after starting the engine but would come on after driving about 30 -40 meters. She was quoted around $1200 to replace the control unit. Research indicated the seals start leaking internally and the reservoir cannot hold pressure from the pump and the computer registers a fault. The brakes themselves were perfect
I was going to get another control unit fro Pick-a-part ($70) pull it apart and see how they work, instead she sold the car and got something else

Sounds like exactly the same problem. Trouble is she left it until the WOF runs out (Sat) so going to look a bit suss if we try and sell it now

[cbfb]

Dielectric grease. Theres little one-shot packs at Repco but they're about $4 a pack iirc.
BNT used to stock it in decent sealant sized tubes.

I'm guessing the low melt point of vaseline would make it redundant in this situation as it'll just melt and run out of the connectors.

Had a go at it with contact cleaner and very fine sandpaper, still no go so guessing the unit itself is buggered. Apparently those Bosch units suffer from shitty internal cnxns.

My daughters Rover 216 (Honda Concerto in drag) had an ABS fault that was diagnosed to a bad ABS unit - light was off immediately after starting the engine but would come on after driving about 30 -40 meters. She was quoted around $1200 to replace the control unit. Research indicated the seals start leaking internally and the reservoir cannot hold pressure from the pump and the computer registers a fault. The brakes themselves were perfect
I was going to get another control unit fro Pick-a-part ($70) pull it apart and see how they work, instead she sold the car and got something else

Sounds like exactly the same problem. Trouble is she left it until the WOF runs out (Sat) so going to look a bit suss if we try and sell it now

[SMOKEU]

I buy Euro cars more often (I try too) because my taste in cars is just that way inclined. To this day the nicest and most fun car I have ever driven is an E36 BMW M3 There's just something about them.
Japanese cars aren't all that hopped up and brilliant, a Polo drives better than the Starlet back then and the GTi model is a laugh.

A mate of mine let me take his manual e36 325i out for a drive one night. I didn't want to give back the keys at the end! Such smooth power, the car felt slow but when I looked at the speedo I was very deep into instant licence losing territory. You just don't get that feeling with Jap cars.

But he did have some very expensive things go wrong with that car. He had to replace the whole wiring loom, among other things.

[ducatilover]

A mate of mine let me take his manual e36 325i out for a drive one night. I didn't want to give back the keys at the end! Such smooth power, the car felt slow but when I looked at the speedo I was very deep into instant licence losing territory. You just don't get that feeling with Jap cars.

But he did have some very expensive things go wrong with that car. He had to replace the whole wiring loom, among other things.

A good E36 is a brilliant car to drive, so finely balanced and the M50/M52 motors are like silk soaked in double cream.
Never heard of a wiring loom failure on one though (and I am a crazy E36 nutter), what went wrong with it?
I know the E30's had problems with the loom pinching up in front of the doors and people not finding the problem So they were shorting fuses, heaps.

[ducatilover]

CBFB, they are also a common part with the Audi A3 of the same era.

[SMOKEU]

A good E36 is a brilliant car to drive, so finely balanced and the M50/M52 motors are like silk soaked in double cream.
Never heard of a wiring loom failure on one though (and I am a crazy E36 nutter), what went wrong with it?
I know the E30's had problems with the loom pinching up in front of the doors and people not finding the problem So they were shorting fuses, heaps.

I'm not really too sure what happened with the loom, it just fried itself.
I may get an e30 325i manual one day, I have a mate who's had 2 of them and they're such well balanced, nimble cars. With a set of decent lowering springs and some bigger rims they handle like a dream, outpacing many much newer petrol turbo Japanese cars in the twisties.

[ducatilover]

I'm not really too sure what happened with the loom, it just fried itself.
I may get an e30 325i manual one day, I have a mate who's had 2 of them and they're such well balanced, nimble cars. With a set of decent lowering springs and some bigger rims they handle like a dream, outpacing many much newer petrol turbo Japanese cars in the twisties.

Ah, you have to be very careful lowering an E30, on the road not many E30's have a better compromise than the factory M325i springs/shocks on good rubber and the 15 inch wheels. I've driven many lowered E30's that handle like shit and many that handle beautifully. I've been a passenger in a very carefully modified M325i and the speeds the driver was pedalling it through the bends was biblical, especially for the era.
Got to love the tail happy E30
One of the neatest ones I drove mad an M30B35 in it, I wouldn't really drive it hard enough to care about the small increase in front end weight, it had torque from here to breakfast, plenty of rubber melting abilities....

[SMOKEU]

Ah, you have to be very careful lowering an E30, on the road not many E30's have a better compromise than the factory M325i springs/shocks on good rubber and the 15 inch wheels. I've driven many lowered E30's that handle like shit and many that handle beautifully. I've been a passenger in a very carefully modified M325i and the speeds the driver was pedalling it through the bends was biblical, especially for the era.
Got to love the tail happy E30
One of the neatest ones I drove mad an M30B35 in it, I wouldn't really drive it hard enough to care about the small increase in front end weight, it had torque from here to breakfast, plenty of rubber melting abilities....

Too many muppets put the lowest springs in that they can, ruining the handling, but my mates one is only lowered slightly. Up tight, twisty mountain roads we've often raced turbo Skylines, WRXs, Cefiros etc and they can't keep up around the corners! By the time we get to the top of the hill, the guys in the other cars always make excuses saying "my turbo is boosting properly" or "my wastegate is leaking" etc etc because they're so embarrassed their modern Japanese performance car got shat on by a 27 year old car.

I've been in e30s when they're sideways and they seem to be much more controllable than most other RWD cars. They also don't appear to bite back as hard if you push them too far.

[cbfb]

CBFB, they are also a common part with the Audi A3 of the same era.

And a remarkably shit part by all accounts, read of heaps of these things failing.

She's getting it done at a garage now, couldn't find one for any sort of decent price and anyway it needs doing tomorrow (WOF runs out)...