I had to pop out at lunch and monitored the battery, charging circuit and generator, and all performed as expected. Stop start even working. No battery light or error, so maybe that was a hangover from removing battery and charging the other day, I guess I’ll see if it returns.
But something else dawned on me, there are four 'heater support pump' circuits, I never really understood it since the 'heater support pump' is the one at the back of the engine, but looking into it further when error is reported there is:
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 second circuit activation: 95%
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 primary circuit activation 0%
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 second circuit activation 95%
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 charge air cool circuit activation 10%
So I checked live data and there are again four options - I checked this before but it didn't make much sense to me, but digging further it appears like this:
IDE07798
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 secondary circuit activation: this I assume is for the actual 'heater support pump' the one that supports coolant circulation in the matrix when parked up or stop-start. This almost always appears to (rightly or wrongly) be at 95%. This is the one the garage replaced as suspected it was faulty, and I have re-wired but have the same error. It works, and output tests (when not refused) work.
IDE07799
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 primary circuit activation: this I have no idea, it is always zero, parked, ignition on or off, engine running etc. It's weird, as you would assume the primary circuit would be the pump, but who knows what this is. My van to my knowledge only has three of these electronic water pumps, so, at a guess it could mean 0% is correct and this is not used? Who knows.
IDE07800
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 charge air cool circuit activation: safe to assume this is the charge air cooler electric pump - identical part number I believe to the other one I replaced. Located low down, front of engine near the bumper. Interestingly, I had to unplug these pumps when I was fixing the alternator LIN wire, as it runs in the same conduit. These wires come out of that conduit unprotected and connect to the connectors. Values on this vary, low load the % seems to be low, perhaps 10-20%, rising to as high as 95%, but for some reason, the % seems to be very specific, as in to decimal places, like 29.16%, dropping to 10%, up to 35.96% etc.
IDE11870
Heater support pump 1 bank 1 exhaust gas recirc cool circuit activation: safe to assume this is the third pump low down, right side behind front bumper, not sure if it is the same part number or not as I haven't looked. This seems to be fairly stable like the first heater support pump, we are talking 70% occasionally 100%.
So now onto my next thought. If I disconnect the plug to other pumps, it clearly says whether it is EGR, or Charge Air Cooler pump open circuit. But, for error P16CB00 'Heater support pump supply voltage', if the ECU treats all of those pump circuits as labelled above on live data as 'Heater Support Pump' circuits, then maybe, just maybe, all along it never really was the pump at the back of the engine. Perhaps it is a plug / wire or pump down low at the front that is at fault. These errors came about very shortly after pulling all that wiring down and out of the conduit to 'fix' and replace the alternator wire, so perhaps it is no coincidence and one of the wires or plugs was also on its way out to those bottom two pumps...
I am clutching at straws here of course. But it seems maybe the next check would be to look at the voltage at the connectors on the pumps at the bottom to make sure those pumps, wiring and connectors can be ruled out.
And now on to what really pissed me off, you would expect if you give your vehicle to a 'specialist' that they would know how to troubleshoot these things and replace the correct parts, and not have me running around trying to learn the damn stuff, guess and troubleshoot myself!
I could be barking up the wrong tree again here, but given the pump was replaced at the back of the engine with a genuine VW one, I did try a new plug, new power, new ground and new ECU wire and still got the error coming back, maybe, just maybe, I and the garage have been looking in the wrong place all along...
Thoughts and opinions from people who know better than me, and ideas on where to go from here appreciated. But I am thinking bin off looking at the rear pump and wiring for now, and maybe jack the front end up, pull the connectors on the other two pumps and check the voltage at the connectors there?
Hmmm.