Touran 1T34C4 questions (code 03375 "Steering motor - mechanical malfunction")
Hi guys, thank you for accepting my membership.
I have found myself in a bit of a pickle! The clock-spring on my recently purchased Touran 2011 1.4TSI Highline 125kw broke last week, so I got a lit airbag light and no steering-control, and a still plastic "flap flap flap" sound behind the steering-wheel. After getting shocked about how much VW charge for a new one I decided to have a look on whether or not I could repair it myself. Was probably just a wire or the ribbon-cable that had come lose, which is nothing strange to me as I have been working with fine electronics and soldering.
Thus I removed the steering-wheel and found that the markings on the steering-wheel and the steering-column didn't align (maybe why the clock-spring got torn), and removed the module with the clock-spring. Then I disassembled the clock-spring and found that the ribbon-cable was torn so 4 out of 6 cobber traces had no contact. Because the tear was very close to the connector (12mm) I decided that I would try to repair the ribbon-cable by shortening, resolder and glue the ribbon-cable. So I pulled out the connector which is partly soldered to the ribbon-cable and has 4 pins going into the PCB of the module itself, so I had the clock-spring assembly detached from the module itself. Afterwards I assembled the car to drive it from the garage to my home where I have my soldering equipment.
This is where my problems began! Without the connector shown in the picture above I could not plug-in the yellow connector (for the clock-spring to the steering-wheel) on the steering-column, so that hung lose when I went to drive home. Backing out and turning left I felt that the powersteering was "skipping" like on-off-on-off-on-off for like 2-3 seconds and remained off with the "steering-icon" lit red in the cluster. Then I tried with a tester and found that a had gotten Fault: "Steering motor mechanical malfunction" - Fault code: 03375 - Status: static + another code which I unfortunately didn't note, but I remember it was something like steering angle, wheel something (I can replicate the code if necessary)... I realized that the 4 pins from the connector with the ribbon-cable attached had to have something to do with my problem, so I snipped the ribbon-cable and plugged the connector with the 4 pins back in and plugged the yellow plugs to the connector. Now I was able to clear the fault code which I cannot remember, but the 03375 remained and no powersteering!
In my naive World I hoped that fixing the clock-spring would help with the 03375 code. So I resoldered, glued and fixed the clock-spring and mounted it to the module. Which fixed the airbag light, and got the steering-control back. But the 03375 remained!
I have had a very hard time believing that turning the wheel without the 4 pin in the PCB (probably steering angle sensor) would cause the powersteering to fail?! That is just beyond my imagination that losing a sensor would mechanically break the powersteering unit?? But I have checked all fuses including the 80A for the powersteering, and I have checked whether or not the powersteering gets 12V at the plug and it does. I feel like I have tried everything possible and I am leaning towards the powersteering might actually be broken somehow. But I am all ears for possible solutions as I would hate to replace the unit just to figure out that it was something else!
As I am currently not 100% confident that the unit is actually broken, and the sad fact that I might have broken a much more expensive unit because I wanted to save "a bit" of money by repairing the clockspring, I really want to replace the powersteering unit with a used one from a wrecker. I have spent the weekend trying to install ETKA in various versions and depending on which version I was using they all suggest using 3AB423061M or (F,FX,G,GX,H,HX on older versions of ETKA). 3AB423061M is a unit that is compatible with multiple cars from what I can gather from ETKA and Googling. Even the tie-rods and tie-rod ends share part no with Passats etc.... Which gives me lots of opportunities from different salvage units, but I have been told that unless I find a unit from the exact same car model, software version etc. the unit will require coding/updating before it will work with me car. Is that correct?
Hi guys, thank you for accepting my membership.
I have found myself in a bit of a pickle! The clock-spring on my recently purchased Touran 2011 1.4TSI Highline 125kw broke last week, so I got a lit airbag light and no steering-control, and a still plastic "flap flap flap" sound behind the steering-wheel. After getting shocked about how much VW charge for a new one I decided to have a look on whether or not I could repair it myself. Was probably just a wire or the ribbon-cable that had come lose, which is nothing strange to me as I have been working with fine electronics and soldering.
Thus I removed the steering-wheel and found that the markings on the steering-wheel and the steering-column didn't align (maybe why the clock-spring got torn), and removed the module with the clock-spring. Then I disassembled the clock-spring and found that the ribbon-cable was torn so 4 out of 6 cobber traces had no contact. Because the tear was very close to the connector (12mm) I decided that I would try to repair the ribbon-cable by shortening, resolder and glue the ribbon-cable. So I pulled out the connector which is partly soldered to the ribbon-cable and has 4 pins going into the PCB of the module itself, so I had the clock-spring assembly detached from the module itself. Afterwards I assembled the car to drive it from the garage to my home where I have my soldering equipment.
This is where my problems began! Without the connector shown in the picture above I could not plug-in the yellow connector (for the clock-spring to the steering-wheel) on the steering-column, so that hung lose when I went to drive home. Backing out and turning left I felt that the powersteering was "skipping" like on-off-on-off-on-off for like 2-3 seconds and remained off with the "steering-icon" lit red in the cluster. Then I tried with a tester and found that a had gotten Fault: "Steering motor mechanical malfunction" - Fault code: 03375 - Status: static + another code which I unfortunately didn't note, but I remember it was something like steering angle, wheel something (I can replicate the code if necessary)... I realized that the 4 pins from the connector with the ribbon-cable attached had to have something to do with my problem, so I snipped the ribbon-cable and plugged the connector with the 4 pins back in and plugged the yellow plugs to the connector. Now I was able to clear the fault code which I cannot remember, but the 03375 remained and no powersteering!
In my naive World I hoped that fixing the clock-spring would help with the 03375 code. So I resoldered, glued and fixed the clock-spring and mounted it to the module. Which fixed the airbag light, and got the steering-control back. But the 03375 remained!
I have had a very hard time believing that turning the wheel without the 4 pin in the PCB (probably steering angle sensor) would cause the powersteering to fail?! That is just beyond my imagination that losing a sensor would mechanically break the powersteering unit?? But I have checked all fuses including the 80A for the powersteering, and I have checked whether or not the powersteering gets 12V at the plug and it does. I feel like I have tried everything possible and I am leaning towards the powersteering might actually be broken somehow. But I am all ears for possible solutions as I would hate to replace the unit just to figure out that it was something else!
As I am currently not 100% confident that the unit is actually broken, and the sad fact that I might have broken a much more expensive unit because I wanted to save "a bit" of money by repairing the clockspring, I really want to replace the powersteering unit with a used one from a wrecker. I have spent the weekend trying to install ETKA in various versions and depending on which version I was using they all suggest using 3AB423061M or (F,FX,G,GX,H,HX on older versions of ETKA). 3AB423061M is a unit that is compatible with multiple cars from what I can gather from ETKA and Googling. Even the tie-rods and tie-rod ends share part no with Passats etc.... Which gives me lots of opportunities from different salvage units, but I have been told that unless I find a unit from the exact same car model, software version etc. the unit will require coding/updating before it will work with me car. Is that correct?