Cruise Control

[Tell]

To keep you a breast with the cruise control... I mentioned that I had an intermittent fault and one or two of you also said that you have had a problem with it. Intermittent turned to permanent and I booked it in.

Results of yesterday is that the guy took it for a spin and found no problem, put the test equipment on it and found no problem. Think he though it was operator error, "we can go out together" ... I said yes. We did three roundabouts it worked fined, but after that it stopped working .

Now it turns out that this garage has replaced "two others", so it seems that it's a common fault, they have ordered a new stork which contains the control unit.

 

[loadswine]

Thanks Tell, will have to use mine a bit more to see if it has a problem.
Isn't it infuriating when garages just think that we owners are just liars?!

 

[Tell]

What happens that after say 10 minutes of driving / first use the cruise control stops working, I'd say it is an electronic problem rather than mechanical. It amused my brothers who's into home car mechanics with about ten cars in assorted states of rust, that the garage engineer tried to error me onto saying that it was OK, but I insisted that I would take him up on his offer that we would both go up the road together with me driving - LOL and it turned out that they had changed two of them already so it is a known problem.

That top rocker if held down justs increase the car in speed... I'd never tried that before . So I did learn something about the undocumented features of the cruise control [when working].

Yeah so I did the customers always right routine on the way back.

 

[klawit]

Hi folks,

let me try to explain those 3 possible reasons for dropouts of the cruise control (CC):

(1) broken board (for electronic control) within the stork unit.
(2) clutch pedal encoder (?) ... which is delivering values of stepped clutch
(3) brake lamp switch ... which is evaluated for CC interference as well.

As the CC is reacting not only triggered by the switches on the stork, but as well by stepping the brake or clutch, it can as well be a malfunction in these parts.

If it's (1), which is most likely the case, there should be errors recorded in the ECU.
Both (2) & (3) have to be checked via VAS5051 and special measurement value blocks (?) have to be inspected.

Hope you could at least guess what I tried to adopt from the german forum once again.

Klaus

PS: Those "technical terms (?)" hopefully wil be precise enough not to be misunderstood ...

 

[Tell]

ah well one assumes that once the problem had re-appeared [?] then the ECU would have picked it up. The guy never plugged it back in and said, we're order a new stork.

Thanks Klawit, I'll post back on the thread the final outcome. Still they have changed two storks already for other people in this dealership.

 

[Anthony Webb]

ah well one assumes that once the problem had re-appeared [?] then the ECU would have picked it up. The guy never plugged it back in and said, we're order a new stork.

Thanks Klawit, I'll post back on the thread the final outcome. Still they have changed two storks already for other people in this dealership.

Hi all, sounds as if you have an intermittent fault with your cruise control system, on Altea we use steering coloumn electronics J527 you either will find you have a stalk malfuction or your steering coloumn ECU is faulty possible fault code missing message from J527 had one today new control unit im afraid.
Then carrying out basic settings and coding can be a pig. This fault is known and is problamatic.

 

[Tell]

The guy put his money on the column electronics since after it showed up after it didn't on the monitoring equipment once it became interminent again... I told them that, he never plugged the equipment back in, but passed the part number order onto services. We'll see.

Thanks.

 

[Tell]

OK this is now sorted, it was the stalk that has been replaced.

BTW MK Seat has now changed hands as of 1st Feb, and it's a lot more friendly under new management, I said I'd mention that on the Seat board I post on, to one of the owners I was introduced too, since I told him that I'd slagged off the previous dealership on a Seat site . They are a lot more friendly now than they once were. He said they had been "re-engineering the staff".... .

 

[Mickey690]

MK Seat

Not to bad mouth them but i ordered my altea through them and 30 mins later they told me that they had made an error in the price. They originally quoted £17300 and they now said it was £19200. I told them I had another quote of £16900 for the same car and they said they could not get near it. It then took them nearly 2 weeks to refund my £500 deposit.

Not saying they are rubbish but just a bit new. Probably good for servicing ect as they want to build up their client base, but cant yet offer the same deals as other companies.

Oh and another thing the girl who took me on the test drive kept telling me when to change gear. My response "how am i meant to see how the car will perform if you keep telling me to change gear at 3000 rpm"

 

[Tell]

Well under Stoneacre ownership they could not match the price I was getting of Drivethedeal or whatever tghe web site was called, but my local one in London could, but then it went out of business before it was delivered !. I did get it from another London dealer when the order was shifted via Seat head office. MK's handy for me since the parents live up there so I can get warranty and service work done and hopefully the hourly charge may be lower, better than a drive around the north circular.

Talking of getting the revs up to 3,000 miles, I only took the test car up the wrong way of a dual carriage way, those roads around the M11 can be so confusing - still we backed back .... it amused the partner in the back.

 

[loadswine]

My cruise control failed for the first time today. Went to use it on the first part of the journey and nothing happened at all. Stopped for a bit and when I set off in the car again ,it was fine! Just like others have experienced.
Have to keep a close eye on this now. I know if I take it in to the stealers, the first thing they will say is " Its fine now", and assume I'm an idiot.
How long did others find that this took to become a reproduceable fault?

 

[Rolyen]

Getting the same intermittent problem myself with the CC. Can't seem to reproduce it on demand though!

Roly

 

[Tell]

Just as well that I just got back from just over two weeks in the sun in Corsica and your cruise control has just gone Loadswine. Well mine turned from intermittent to perminant and then when the guy put his censor on it, it said it was OK. The plug / socket computer thingey. He took it out for a spin and came back and said no problem.... how do you use it.... etc [as if I was a twit], but offered to go out with me for a spin... but tried to retrack that. I said yes we will go out for a spin so as I said above for a few roundabout it was OK but then hey it went wrong [] the guy fumbled around but nope it didn't work for him with satisfaction from me.

So it's probabably best to wait till it moves from intermittent to all the time mostly and incist the the engineer goes out with you for a spin if he can't find it. After about ten mins I use to find it would give up.

All is well now. Ditto Rolyen take the engineer out as a passenger if he can't find the fault.

 

[loadswine]

Okay Tell, I'll bear that in mind. Need to use it a lot to make it a more permanent fault.

 

[Tell]

Well mine became "perminant" after about a month or so Loadswine.

I suspect the electronics just malfunction rather than a physical contact....

Talking of creaky Alteas ... 407SW creak badly from the sound system... the hire care.

 

[jerseyaltea]

Mine failed for the first time today, driving along quite happily at a steady speed indicated right to pass someone and the CC switched off and has refused to work since. Makes me think that the fault is in the stork as that was the only thing I touched. So I'll be off to the dealer later this week.

 

[Tell]

Yes but you only go small distances in Jersey ... the fault was in the stork of mine. As I reported elsewhere the dealer where I go have had a number going wrong and they are all in the stork.... they didn't tell me that until I demostrated that it wasn't working.

 

[jerseyaltea]

Yes but you only go small distances in Jersey ... the fault was in the stork of mine. As I reported elsewhere the dealer where I go have had a number going wrong and they are all in the stork.... they didn't tell me that until I demostrated that it wasn't working.

Yes very small, but France is only 50 minutes away by ferry so often nip over with the car for lunch and collect the wine and beer on the way back

 

[robint]

Why do some Altea owners get large white birds who build big nests as an option - I would have thought that they could be a bit unwieldy.....

 

[loadswine]

Took mine into the dealers today for them to look in to the cruise control malfunction. Firstly , in typical fashion, the thing worked on the way there, so I was concerned that they wouldn't pick up the fault. Well, their diagnostic picked up the faulty stalk wiring and noted that the fault was intermittent. Part on order now and will be fitted next month. Got them to have a look at my rear brake pad wear issue and they couldn't find anything wrong, no binding or anything like that, but it needs new rear discs (warranty) and will need front and rear pads when its serviced. Not wanting to stray off topic, but I wonder how brake pad wear is going on other DSGs?