VDC/ABS error on 147 Selespeed

[warsch]

My wife's Alfa being Alfa just broke down in a quite inconvenient place. According to the frantic phone call that I got, the car showed two errors about ABS and VDC and wouldn't drive. I had to rush to the rescue. The car indeed had two errors and wouldn't engage gears. After half a minute of staring under the hood I figured that steering wheel sensor might be the culprit. Thus I adjusted the steering wheel a bit and voila - the error's gone, the car can drive.

Now I have two questions. First, how do I prevent the issue? Can I try cleaning all the contacts there? Do I need to replace it with a brand new one? It's expensive, as far as I recall, so can I get away with a second hand one? On the other hand it may not be any better.

And the second one is, why the hell the car can't drive without steering sensor? I can possibly get the ABS sensor is needed for selespeed, but steering? Why can't they at least let the car limp in 1/2 gear?

[Citroënbender]

It may be a CAN network error, the message being just a symptom. Have you invested in MultiECUScan?

Personal experience has shown I can sometimes generate this type of fault by coasting and steering with the ignition off.

It might sound odd, but check the grounding wires in your engine bay, especially those to the block/transmission and your throttle housing.

[warsch]

I do have the software but was rushing to the rescue so forgot to grab my laptop. The diagnostic cable was (and is) conveniently plugged in and its end is sticking out from under the dash.

I'll read the codes tonight but I think it revolves around the steering wheel as fiddling with it fixed the problem right away.

[bazzbazz]

Have answered and given solution to this on the other forum, check here -

http://www.ausalfa.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=30176