The Oft Mentioned Relay 109! Photos Included.

[kenreilly]

Hi there. I just wanted to come back here and share the info I had gleamed from here which helped me solve this issue with my Galaxy. I'll post photos also so I hope this helps you along the way - it cost me a tenner and I'll happily live with that!

 

 

Vehicle: Ford Galaxy TDi 2000

 

Problem: Would not start and Glow Plug light not coming on.

 

Troubleshooting: After scouring the web and this site in depth, an electrical relay (number 109) was touted as the likely culprit. Below I have illustrated finding and replacing this relay. I picked one up in a breakers yard which, luckily had a couple of Galaxys. It's probably the same for the Alhambra and the Sharan...check that to make sure.

 

Finding and replacing the Relay:

To the right under the dash, open the fusebox enclosure:

 

Over the bank of fuses is the assembly with the wiring harness plugged into it. This needs to be unscrewed (torc screws, 5 I think). You do not need to plug out the wiring harness connections:

 

When this is unscrewed, it can be prised from both sides and lifted out of its cradle hooks both sides and lowered down:

 

When you look into it, you will see Relay 109. This photo has my replacement part already in. You reach around the back and unplug it:

 

The bad part I took out. It has the same part number as the replacement part, even though the colours are different. (Part Number: 357906381A).

 

 

 

I sincerely hope this helps some poor sod from going down for about 300 quid at a garage.

 

Cheers,

 

Ken

[Martin Curtis]

Yes, thanks!

[Tim Galaxy Fan]

Had the same problem with the relay: engine completely cutting out whilst driving, but all lights still working. At breakdown point the starter motor would not function: after several completely unresponsive attempts to start the car (03 Ghia 75K miles) the starter would then work and the engine burst into life and would function normally, sometimes for days. I got a diagnostic from a local garage but this fault did not show on their fault code tester, they said that there was some ignition issue but told me it was probably due to the immobiliser and suggested this issue sometimes happened when the battery in the key was low. I changed the batteries but problem soon resurfaced.

 

Read several good posts on this site and decided to renew the relay, but the relay in my car was an Audi VW relay (relay 60) which is the same functionality as relay 109. When I examined the relay it was almost impossible to tell there was a problem, but under a magnifying glass it could be seen that the solder on two pins looked deformed and the pins moved ever so slightly in the solder. I cut the top off the relay and sure enough from the inside of the relay the movement and looseness of the pins was obvious. The smell of the relay was also that of overheating. Also explains the intermittent nature of the problem: the heat being generated was clear from the smell so a combination of temperature generated by the current flow through cracked solder and the thermal expansion was resoldering the connections.

 

The the reason why I'm replying to this posting is I believe this could be a safety issue, as I found and Audi VW part in my car it led me to believe that this problem could have occurred before in this car, I've had it for 5  years of its 13 year life.

 

Whilst you can get relays second hand I was pleasantly surprised that the local Ford dealer wanted to charge £23 and VW Audi dealer only £19 so I got the relay 60 and car has been fine ever since: my advice is  - buy this relay NEW could save you an electrical fire in the dash.

 

Hope this helps

Tim

[gregers]

if yours is a tdi?

then about 90% is vw,thats why in most threads on this forum,

it advises you to get prices from ford.vw and seat as these are all basically the same car.

[BrianH]

A lot of the relays in the petrol ones are VW badged as well - certainly the relay 30 in mine is.

[Tim Galaxy Fan]

Mine is a 2.3 petrol. So probably all fitted when the car was built.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

Regards, Tim

[Tim Galaxy Fan]

Just to clear up: Brian H rightly mentions relay 30 as the relay concerned, I mistakenly named relay 60 which is not correct:  Audi VW relay 30 is the equivalent to Ford relay 109.

 

Sorry for any confusion.

 

Rgds Tim