UKC

Sorry to drop in with a question. Glow plug light flashing and engine light on in our skoda. Any ideas? All brake and reverse lights are working. Car driving normally, nothing different.

In reply to goldmember:

Plug a scanner in read the fault codes, you can buy one on ebay for a tenner.

In reply to goldmember:

"This light could be either a glow plug warning light (diesels only) or part of the engine management. The engine management warning light indicates there is a probable fault within the emissions / running of your vehicle. Diagnostics will be required. (Flashing lights indicate there is a major fault and immediate action is required.)"

My seat did this when the diesel became contaminated after of months of waiting for a body repair.

In reply to goldmember:

It may well be one of the exhaust temperature sensors, there are now four of these in the newer Skodas. It is worth getting this confirmed with a diagnostic scanner but if it is it shouldn't unduly effect your car in anyway. I drove my Fabia with the glow plug light flashing for 6 months due to this.

In reply to goldmember:

If I recall correctly that sequence of lights is a bit of a catch-all and can cover everything from an incredibly minor fault to a reasonably major one. When I had the same fault the dealership were convinced it was the turbocharger and wanted to charge me £1300 for a new one. It turned out to be a tiny split in a vacuum hose which took about £1.50 to repair and about £200 to find.

In reply to goldmember:

I haven't got the manual to hand, but it might be the particulate filter / emissions as mentioned before, particularly if you have been doing a lot of stop start driving. If it is a clear run at a steady speed should clear it out, and the warning should go out. If not the engine management system might kick in next time you start up. This will limit the acceleration and speed to protect the engine, and will require a trip to the garage.

Try getting hold of a manual online and checking. If it's a fabia I might be able to look tomorrow evening.

In reply to Mark Morris:


Hang on, it's essentially a VW isn't it? Of course there's a fault with the emissions.

In reply to goldmember:
The glowplug flashing on my 56Plate Audi A4 was clutch peddle sensor and the traction control light coming on was break peddle sensor. I put money on it being one of those two sensors really easy to change under the footwell by the peddle.

Note: I didnt have the engine light on as well just the glow plug light flashing.

Steve

In reply to goldmember:

dropping it into the garage to i'll post updates. Hopefully not to expensive

In reply to goldmember:
Came back with an intermittent crankshaft sensor after it was plugged in. £110 + Vat to have it repaired.

what do we think serious? Safe to Ignore?

In reply to goldmember:


Not really safe to ignore.

I've had crank sensors go intermittent on two cars, a Citroen and a VW. The Citroen would go into sulk mode and refuse to do anything more than idle the engine. As it only seemed to happen at idle the result ranged from embarrassing when it wouldn't get going at lights to fairly dangerous when I tried to pull across traffic. It would sulk a while then decide to go again.
The VW only seemed to fail at high speed and then only for a fraction of a second. It was as if I'd stabbed the brakes briefly which is no fun at all when you're doing 70 on a dual carriageway.

To be fair to the engine, if it doesn't know where the crank is in relation to the pistons it's probably not a good idea to carry on too hard.

In reply to goldmember:

You should get it fixed, I had a similar problem with the camshaft sensor being intermittent. That one was easy to replace myself (part was quite cheap too). When I got the old one out it was covered in tiny metal filings (it's a magnetic sensor), so I could probably have just wiped it clean and put it back in!

In reply to goldmember:

You'd manage without crank sensor, as you still have cam sensor, it helps the ecu with injector timing among other things, so in these situations the engine will either over or under fuel dependent on conditions, but it can still run. Better to get it fixed really.

In reply to John Simpson:
The garage switched of the light after plugging it in.
If it were a serious it issue would it have come back on after a few minutes?

In reply to goldmember:

That's standard procedure, switch it off and see if and when it comes back.

In reply to John Simpson:
OK, i'll take it a run on the motorway if it was just an error and doesn't come back on. no need to replace

In reply to goldmember:

Yeah you've got about a 50% chance of it having just dropped connectivity for some reason, you start to get strange electrical faults at this time of year with the drop in temperatures in the morning. Or it may be one of those faults that starts off as intermittent and becomes permanent over time.

With faults like this you don't need to take it to a garage to diagnose, just type fault code reader into ebay search and the one for £12 will work with pretty much most modern cars, which will give you a fault code and let you reset it like the garage did with yours.

In reply to John Simpson:

Thanks John, is there specific code for VAG's ?

In reply to goldmember:

This website is pretty comprehensive.

http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Fault_Codes