Technical CITY MODE no longer working.

[rmjbn1]

I will drive the car tomorrow myself to see if it is just a dash light or if the system has failed.

Hi Lifeforms I'll be interested to see what you find out. Like Jock (and seemingly a fair few others), I only tried the city mode once to see what it did.

The steering went much lighter at low speed.

Once up to speed, the steering felt normal again with decreased assistance, although the light stays on.

I switched it off at around 40mph and didn't notice any change in steering feel.

I can see how it would be useful to the elderly (on the 1.2 at least). Is your father able to drive the car with the power steering on its normal setting?

If the city light doesn't come on, but the steering becomes lighter then it's just a bulb.

If not then my first test would be to run a jump lead from battery negative terminal to engine block to test if the earth lead is the culprit. If still no change, I would then try a different battery. After this, a sparky could test the switch for you.

There's a list of MultiECUScan users here who might be able to help you diagnose the problem if the above steps don't help. Best of luck

 

[varesecrazy]

Waiting for an update from Lifeforms before adding further info

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Hi Lifeforms I'll be interested to see what you find out. Like Jock (and seemingly a fair few others), I only tried the city mode once to see what it did.

The steering went much lighter at low speed.

Once up to speed, the steering felt normal again with decreased assistance, although the light stays on.

My old Cordoba Estate, which I owned for about 18 years, had hydraulic power steering and when I bought my new Ibiza (2016 1.0 litre 95hp estate) with it's EPS, I initially found the steering far too light and lacking in feel. Now, almost 4 years on, I've become completely used to it and rather like it. It's very positive and quite "quick" ratio so makes catching the back end, if it steps out of line, much easier than it was with the old Cordoba. It does lack "feel" compared to a non powered system or even the old hydraulic systems but because it's "quick" it's been rather good on the one or two occasions when I've "lost" it slightly on wet/leafy/muddy/slimy country roads. I'd like to say that I'm no hooligan behind the wheel now a days but I do like to make brisk progress where safe to do so. There is one situation I don't particularly like to find myself in with these new EPS systems though - understeer. Because there is so little feel and it's so light anyway, it's quite difficult to feel the point at which the front tyres are starting to loose adhesion, or the point at which they start to grip again. This is considerably exacerbated by these Horrid Bridgestones which it came on.

This system switches automatically between "city mode" (SEAT don't call it that) and speed. As your speed increases it weights up. Again, when I first drove it I thought the heavy setting would have been about right at walking/parking speeds and heavier yet for at speed but I'm used to it now and I'm moderately happy with it. The relatively high ratio rack made it feel quite "twitchy" at speed on the motorway but again, now I'm used to it, I rather like it. The "secret" is to relax and avoid over correcting. I now find older cars in the "family fleet" all feel as they've got old, worn out, sloppy steering.

 

[DaveMcT]

Panda power steering (City or normal) has no effect above 30mph.