electro-mechanical steering failure

[olski1]

hey guys,

I was driving my 2008 Skoda Octavia elegance around town yesterday and made a 90 degree right hand turn at an intersection. Once I had finished my turn and released the steering wheel to straighten the car up, I noticed that the car kept turning, I quickly jerked the steering wheel to the left to avoid heading into oncoming traffic, and with a bit of force I managed it. After this I had the electro mechanical and traction control yellow warning lights come on, however there was no obvious change in steering performance. I proceeded to pull over to check everything out, and it all seemed fine (fluid levels, clear of debris etc.) when I started the car again and started to drive home the warning lights stayed on for about 2 mins then disappeared. still no sign of any problems after a 30 min drive since then. Did my car just fix itself?


Has anyone experienced anything like this before? any Ideas what It could be?

btw I don’t know if this is related but once I started the car again, after checking it a horrible smell of death came through the cabin from the aircon which I have never smelt before. could just be coincidental as it was about 5 mins after the initial failure.
cheers,

[gldgti]

The interesting thing you have mentioned is that the TCS light came on. To me, it sounds a bit like the TCS engaged the front right (or both right side) brakes for some reason which cause the car to keep going right.... perhaps the smell you smelled afterwards was the smell of burning brakes. Further to this theory - perhaps there is some mechanical issue with the ABS sensors on either of the front wheels which makes the car think its skidding at full steering lock. might be worth jacking it up and taking off one front wheel at a time and checking out the ABS sensors.

[Greg Roles]

Get to a dealer or someone with Vag Com pronto and check the error log!!!

[olski1]

Thanks guys,

Biggest problem is that I am holiday and located 1 hour drive away from nearest vag com and 2.5 hours from a skoda dealer. Car is still under warranty so I will try and caress the car to a skoda dealer at some point this week. In the mean time I will take gldgti's advice and jack the car up.

Went for a quick 15 min drive today with no problems but dont know about a 2.5 hour drive.

Thanks for the help and advice, let you know how I progress

[wai]

Biggest problem is that I am holiday and located 1 hour drive away from nearest vag com and 2.5 hours from a skoda dealer. Car is still under warranty so I will try and caress the car to a skoda dealer at some point this week.

If it is under warranty, do Skodas come with the equivalent of VW Assist? Just that if you feel it is dangerous, and there is a facility under the warranty, it might be better to get it to a dealer for repair safely rather than risk something going wrong.

[dodgey]

Yes it does, and the phone number is on a sticker on the windscreen