california 6.1 electrical issues?

[PoP]

( 6.1 Ocean - left side drive/EU - 9 months old)

Hi All

After returning from a 7000km trip in europe arriving and starting to unload the car a weird sound under the cupboard started to appear ( I later learned it was the water pump)
The roof display showed a warning icon on the water tank and grey water tank. The fridge icon has a warning sign too. In the fridge setting part of the interface is greyed out.Water does not work. Fridge does not work. Everything else seems fine. Battery almost full. All I did was driving...

Next day after driving 20 km the water and greaywater sensors seems to work properly again. The water pump continues to make noises all the time non-stop wasting battery.
Doing the fuse 5-8 plug/unplug trick seems to have fixed the water pump issue. But the fridge still does not turn on and the warning icon/greyed out interface persists.

With so many things suddenly failing at once (and all in the kitchen side) it seems to me that is must be something electrical. But not sure. Will bring the car to a local VW dealer here in Portugal for them to check it out. But if anybody has tried/lived through something similar I am all ears

UPDATE - the water pump is still running constantly. Apparently the only way to temporary stop it is to disconnect the cable to the water tank sensor...what a mess. Will report back what the dealer finds. (all fuses seems to be ok)

 

[flying banana]

Reset the panel by pulling those 5678 fuses you mentioned. Check the kitchen tap microswitch under the sink. It may be shorted out causing the pump to run. Do you have a shower connection at the rear? There is a switch there too that runs the pump constantly. Check that
Don't let the pump run forever like that. It will burn out

 

[PoP]

Thanks for the inputs -
I haven’t looked at the kitchen tap switch yet.

For now the only thing that ‘works’ is disconnecting the water tank sensor cable. That makes the pump stop.
I tried connecting the shower and turning it on and off. That helps a few seconds only.
In any case the fridge still doesn’t work.
Monday the VW service center will take a look at the mess. And hopefully I learn what has happened. The curios thing is that all the electric elementa in the kitchen area are/was affected somehow.

 

[kurienp]

Hello @PoP and welcome.

Most probably points to a fault with the alternator or the alternator fuse.

My logic/reasoning - it was working fine all the while and the problems seem to have appeared together. When different sensors start misbehaving, it is difficult to alienate the issue. However, because all of them started together and the control panel shows the battery as depleted, I would assign all malfunction to the depleted leisure batteries.

How can leisure batteries be depleted when you have been using the van regularly? - that IMO points to either an issue with the alternator (very rare), or a blown fuse that is stopping the alternator from recharging the leisure batteries.

if you have the time, test it out and it should give you some clues.

 

[PoP]

Hello @PoP and welcome.

Most probably points to a fault with the alternator or the alternator fuse.

My logic/reasoning - it was working fine all the while and the problems seem to have appeared together. When different sensors start misbehaving, it is difficult to alienate the issue. However, because all of them started together and the control panel shows the battery as depleted, I would assign all malfunction to the depleted leisure batteries.

How can leisure batteries be depleted when you have been using the van regularly? - that IMO points to either an issue with the alternator (very rare), or a blown fuse that is stopping the alternator from recharging the leisure batteries.

if you have the time, test it out and it should give you some clues.

Thanks for the tips - very much appreciated. I will take another look at the fuses. I guess there are no other options than looking through all one-by-one.
Monday the cali will be visiting a local VW service center in Portugal. Let's see what they report back.

So that is a whole different scenario. When being weeks abroad and something starts to fail. What are your experience with VW warranty service?
( luckily since our cali is still is under warranty VW is handling all service billing and coordination internally)

 

[Holidaymaker]

Hello PoP

I am reading your interesting situation.
I am also have this " camping control panel " but is for me little different situation, I explain later.

I am think this " panel " is have software issues. Is a number of peoples have little troubles with this system and 1 owner I am reading had software update and the situation was resolve.

For you I think is could be same - software problem? Especially since many functions all control from this " panel " is having troubles.

The pump *may* be also control from panel - however more is possible switch in water tap or switch in shower connection activates your pump.
Must check tap is firm and correct to the Off position. Is very easy to not intention move tap to ON position and so pump begins to run - each time be sure checking tap position is really OFF.
Also checking shower connection switch - this can be switch pump on.
I am believe camping control panel is not switching on pump but is tap or shower switching.

For other peoples and mine, is control panel gives crazy information of charging leisure battery and wrong show battery level.
Not is many show blue lines, but is show 14.1V
Volt is good way know battery level, but 3 blue line make believe battery soon be empty - is information conflict.
Some peoples drive many hours and arrive is empty leisure battery.
So I thinking is problems this camping control panel and hope is coming soon software update fixing such problems.

 

[PoP]

I definitely will need to check the tap switch. But it still doesn't explain the sudden fridge and sensors failure. And that it all happened in the same instant.
Like I wrote in the first post i did the camping display reset (fuse 5-8) but finally with no effect.
So I will let the VW service figure out what is going on (and take notes repoing back here)

 

[Holidaymaker]

I definitely will need to check the tap switch. But it still doesn't explain the sudden fridge and sensors failure. And that it all happened in the same instant.
Like I wrote in the first post i did the camping display reset (fuse 5-8) but finally with no effect.
So I will let the VW service figure out what is going on (and take notes repoing back here)

Yes you doing correct procedure - is new and vw must take care to making panel functions all correct. Is good if you can posting here when is all satisfactory functions once more

 

[andyinluton]

With our roof problems, we ended up disconnecting the starter battery rather than pulling the fuses.
The error messages you have are exactly the same as we got whilst the starter battery was disconnected. This would lead me to guess that the central control is not getting 12v from the starter battery.
Are you 100% sure that the fuses 5-8 are ok? and also that you put them back in slots 5-8 not 6-9

 

[PoP]

With our roof problems, we ended up disconnecting the starter battery rather than pulling the fuses.
The error messages you have are exactly the same as we got whilst the starter battery was disconnected. This would lead me to guess that the central control is not getting 12v from the starter battery.
Are you 100% sure that the fuses 5-8 are ok? and also that you put them back in slots 5-8 not 6-9

yes 100% sure -
This is Interesting. thanks for reporting back

Yes you doing correct procedure - is new and vw must take care to making panel functions all correct. Is good if you can posting here when is all satisfactory functions once more

Sure I will pos the findings here

 

[PoP]

so, I got the car back from the VW dealer here in Portugal (this particular place have little to none experience with the california)
They first told us it was electrical. But then changed the opinion only being the fridge that is faulty and had to be changed.
We chose no to do anything and will let our local VW workshop inBcn handle the diagnostics and reapir since they are very used to deal with this particular car.

The water pump still activates by its own will and the fridge only work at maximum settings (weird)

So in late september I will report back again.

 

[PoP]

Dear all

After the car has been in the workshop for 5 days here en bcn I finally got it back.
The workshop is an official VW dealership and is one of the biggest in the area and has a lot of experience with Californias.

My list for the workshop was the following:

- sensor issues with grey water, water tank and fridge (explaining the issues described in the fort post)
- fridge only works at max power or no at all. A lot of times not at all.
- horrible noise frequently coming from the lower left side of the car (where the last leisure battery is, it normally goes a way turning the water on/off. However the noise alway returns opening/clsing a door!! - In order to stop it I have to disconnect the cable going down to the water tank )
- issues with electric side door (every few times it cannot close and has to be forced manually!)
- car stereo. Iphones disconnects often when using cable. Having more than one configured for wireless CarPlay it works poorly.
- If one phone is connected to bluetooth and another CarPlay the sound routing is f*cked. If the bluetooth phone receives a call audio cannot be sent through CarPlay anymore but only through that one phone. One has to 'restart' the car to regain control over the audio again....


However they didn't solve anything. At all.
But not only that. If you arrive with your car and show an error/fault/issue - if they cannot reproduce it when actually working on the car (not only when checking it into the workshop) the problem then 'does not exist'. Standard VW procedure it seems.

When being in the workshop they could not produce any of the errors. Thus no way to fix it.
Even with various videos and photos as documentation.

Their take on my problems regarding the 'camping/leisure' part is that I have had an 'isolated current/power drop issue' that must have triggered the events (that has lasted for weeks...) .
However they didn't recognise the icons from the display and somehow they does not appear in their service manuals!

All they could detect was that when the car is turned off there is a constant -1A strain on the leisure batteries.
I haven't got anything connected. Not even a phone charger. However it was not enough for them to keep digging.

So where does that leave me?
It is quite frustrating that I can show photos and videos of the issues but they can wave it off with minimum effort in the workshop.
Something is messed up with my car and I have to live with that. Even when it only is 10+ moths old...
Only if it happens again and I can get the car to the workshop in the same moment - and at the same time they have a timeslot available to actually inspect the car in the very same moment - only then I can get the issues recognised by the warranty.

 

[Maxi-Mizer-T6]

Wow, those control panels look beautiful... makes my T6 look so sad. That said, I'm glad I don't have these "new car" issues on mine. I've recently decided to start fixing leisure part issues myself and have replaced the 12v socket on the T6's kitchen cabinet with some USB ports and a couple of weeks ago replaced the water pump as I was having issues with the water tap. It is very frustrating when the official service doesn't help. I can't imagine what it's like with a brand new T6.1! We bought ours second-hand and I still get frustrated when I do take into the shop with a question or something I don't think works quite right (like the boot drawer/shelf thing, which is so hard to open we barely use it) and to them everything is perfect.