Skoda Fabia (2000 - 2007) - 00 1.4 Diagnosing aircon-pitfalls

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Thu 14 May 2009 22:57
00 1.4 Diagnosing aircon-pitfalls - sunbeamer
I thought I would relate a recent experience with the aircon on a Fabia I am preparing for a customer. The symptons were no chilled air, although the switch lit up when pressed. I took it to a mechanic friend who has commercial aircon experience and he thought the compressor was at fault as it didn't seem to want to take a recharge of refrigerant.
This could have been a costly exercise if I had gone down the route of changing the compressor.
I did a bit of research and on HJ's car by car he describes the compressor as being a clutchless type, I certainly heard no click when I turned the swich on. Also found on a Skoda web forum several incidents of similar symptoms where the cure turned out to be a recode of the engine ecu.
I then took it to a very bright sparky I know and he confirmed that fault code 18020 was held in the PCM (Powertrain control module) which in turn indicated it had an incorrect code stored. He was able to look up the correct code and bingo, the aircon worked.
So it does seem that Fabia's can have a habit of loosing or corrupting this code and it is simply a case of having the code reinstated.
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Thu 14 May 2009 23:46
00 1.4 Diagnosing aircon-pitfalls - dagenham car center
thanks for the excellent info.
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