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Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - PoloPolly

My 2019 Polo recently started intermittently showing a number of errors and warnings:

Tyre pressure sensor not available

ABS not available

Front assist not available

Parking sensors not available

The car would also momentarily feel underpowered and heavy to steer, before springing back again... But not necessarily at the same time as the errors showing.

I've taken it to a (very trusted) garage and they found a few issues. Firstly the battery voltage kept randomly dropping, but no problems found with the alternator. So I've got a new battery. They've also found a fault in one of the ABS sensors and a fault in the gearbox speed sensor. However, I've read that a faulty battery can present itself as electrical issues (ie the sensor warnings).

I don't want to have to take the car in more than once, but also don't want to spend a few hundred quid on jobs that might not need doing.

So my question is, what are the chances that the new battery alone would resolve the sensor issues, considering that fault codes have been found with the sensors? If it was a case of the battery causing the sensor issues, would fault codes still have been found? My family and I have used this garage for many years and find them to be very trustworthy, but I feel a bit unsure about this. It seems strange that the three issues would occur at the same time, especially in a car that's not even 5 years old yet. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - bathtub tom

Seems like it could have been the battery, but I'd check all the connections, particularly earths.

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - Andrew-T

Seems like it could have been the battery, but I'd check all the connections, particularly earths.

Surely any 'trustworthy' garage would have tried that ??

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - elekie&a/c doctor
It’s unlikely that the battery would cause all these issues. Is this an automatic/dsg gearbox? Are there any other fault codes logged in the diagnostic system?
Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - PoloPolly

No, just two fault codes elating to an ABS sensor and gearbox speed sensor. It's a manual transmission. Perhaps just unlucky with a combination of issues then. They've already replaced the battery, I will probably give the go ahead for the other two jobs while it's in.

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - elekie&a/c doctor
Don’t think a manual gearbox has a speed sensor. So not too sure what the garage is relating to. A fault with an abs sensor can certainly cause drive ability issues.
Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - PoloPolly

My car shows on the dashboard when I should shift up or down a gear. That's also stopped working intermittently. Perhaps to do with that? Is it worrying that all these things have happened at the same time?

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - elekie&a/c doctor
That makes sense . It’s a shift indicator. But a lot of these functions take information from the abs system, so a fault here can cause other things to not work properly. Get the abs fault fixed first and move forward from there.
Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - PoloPolly

Thank you. The mechanic did say that the ABS sensor was the priority, and that the other one shouldn't actually cause driveability issues if I wanted to leave it for a while. So that's what I will do! I was kind of hoping that the ABS issue might resolve itself with the new battery, but perhaps I was being a bit optimistic.

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - elekie&a/c doctor
Battery life is about 3-5 years on modern cars , so changing it now is probably not a bad idea.
Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - PoloPolly

Thanks so much for your input, I feel a lot happier about getting the work done now.

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - sajid

Any chance of getting the faults cleared by dusconnecting the battery for

15 mins or so to reset the ecu if the abs fault comes on it be the sensor get the garage guy to scan the fault codes

Volkswagen Polo - Battery issue + ABS sensor + gearbox speed sensor? - galileo
Battery life is about 3-5 years on modern cars , so changing it now is probably not a bad idea.

The 2009 i30 I had showed random speed/rpm one morning after 13 years: a new battery cleared all the problems.