robin Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 I car pool with a friend and on the way home in his golf the dash showed "Workshop Alternator" and displayed a red battery symbol. The auto shifting also became harder and more noticeable. This occurred a couple of times before the Slip light, ABS light and Air bag lights all came on along with the accelerator failing to work and the engine stuck idling a bit high at 1.1k. Even flooring the throttle didn't change the revs from sitting at 1.1k It also sounded pretty rough. when at the side of the road the speedometer was frozen at 22mph even with the engine off and the car now fails to start. Seems to me like the ECU has completely lost the plot. Any thoughts on how this could be resolved or advice I can pass on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
absz Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 (edited) Alternator has stopped charging, As the battery voltage drops down it will flag up all sorts of faults and ecu's start doing wonderful things. P.S Is it a diesel? if so it will have a clutch type alternator pulley which do fail might get away with just a pulley. Edited August 15, 2012 by absz (see edit history) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robin Posted August 15, 2012 Author Share Posted August 15, 2012 Alternator has stopped charging, As the battery voltage drops down it will flag up all sorts of faults and ecu's start doing wonderful things. P.S Is it a diesel? if so it will have a clutch type alternator pulley which do fail might get away with just a pulley. That is a good point, didn't think the battery could start to drop off that quickly. (it all happened in the space of 15 mins) but who knows how bad the charging has to get before being flagged up? It is the V5 petrol engine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kokoro Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 No idea if this is relevant or not, but my old Fiat used to regularly throw up random error messages. Occasionally it would show 'alternator failure' on start up. When it did, nothing else on the car worked. Power steering failed, brakes failed, pretty much everything electronic. Turning it off and restarting it would solve the problems, but it was a definite case of car thinking the alternator was bust so everything was shut down by the ECU. Might explain the other errors your friend is getting? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjy Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 The car will try and conserve the battery power so will drop electronic consumers off, causing battery voltage low DTC's and making the car spaz out. Also, with these Golf's, it's not uncommon for the instrument panels to muck about. I have temporarily cured this by ragging the steering wheel about in different directions which reattaches the earth to the steering column. Temporarily. But maybe enough to get you home. ;-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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