Warning lamp on VW Touran - help!

goldspanners

TiTheRev wrote: »

Have worked at a VW dealer for 5years now, not a 'common fault' to my knowledge. And if it's under warrenty why, oh why, would you not consider taking it to an 'expensive dealer'?! You dont have to pay a bean and you'll get a courtesy vehicle to match your current cars spec while your car's being worked on...? PLUS you will get a VW trained tehcnician using a VW specific diagnostics machine and VW parts with a 2year nationwide guarantee, even if your warrent runs out before those 2years are up. Surely a better diagnosis than the posts above "It may be the ABS module...2nd hand ones can be got for about £100."??? Recommending a 2nd hand unit be used on a warrentied vehicle?! And a brake ABS unit, not exactly not a safety item :rolleyes: what if the 2nd hand unit were to fail outside of the 3month warrenty?! And the Lord forbid it caused an accident...

I dont understand the animosity aimed at dealers?

the advise about the ABS module was offered before the OP mentioned the warranty.
folk dont like dealers because they charge far to much for poorly trained teenagers to work on our expensive hard earned cars,thats why.
it sounds as if you work in a very rare dealership if as you say all the emloyees (i wont use the term mechanics) are " all VW trained tehcnician using a VW specific diagnostics machine"
if the abs unit failed it would show up a warning light and the OP being so observant that they have seen the ESP light im sure they would see an ABS light warning them in red that there is a fault. and if the ABS failed it would probably fail safe so the vehicle couldnt be used if the situation was so critical,but im sure you knew this.:rolleyes:

harveybobbles

TiTheRev wrote: »

Have worked at a VW dealer for 5years now, not a 'common fault' to my knowledge. And if it's under warrenty why, oh why, would you not consider taking it to an 'expensive dealer'?! You dont have to pay a bean and you'll get a courtesy vehicle to match your current cars spec while your car's being worked on...? PLUS you will get a VW trained tehcnician using a VW specific diagnostics machine and VW parts with a 2year nationwide guarantee, even if your warrent runs out before those 2years are up. Surely a better diagnosis than the posts above "It may be the ABS module...2nd hand ones can be got for about £100."??? Recommending a 2nd hand unit be used on a warrentied vehicle?! And a brake ABS unit, not exactly not a safety item :rolleyes: what if the 2nd hand unit were to fail outside of the 3month warrenty?! And the Lord forbid it caused an accident...

I dont understand the animosity aimed at dealers?

Well if you read - no one knew the car was under warranty.

In our garage we have fitted about ten 2nd hand ones over the last 6 months. I don't see a problem in fitting 2nd hand parts that have been tested. Plus it's a lot cheaper:

ie money saving. Hence my comment...

TiTheRev

goldspanners wrote: »

the advise about the ABS module was offered before the OP mentioned the warranty.
folk dont like dealers because they charge far to much for poorly trained teenagers to work on our expensive hard earned cars,thats why.
it sounds as if you work in a very rare dealership if as you say all the emloyees (i wont use the term mechanics) are " all VW trained tehcnician using a VW specific diagnostics machine"

Maybe we are a 'rare dealership', but it's not any different at any other dealership ive worked at we have 11 trained technicians at the dealership I work at, ONE is a teenager who is training with VW once a week and doing the other 4days a week on the spanners, and ALL of the others go on update courses every few months to teach them new information about models etc. We have one Master technician (and two just shy of the qualification) who have all been trained and tested over the last few years at the VW learning centre in Milton Keynes. I don't know which dealers you've been to? Sure it's not a Kwik-fit and got mixed up?!?

I agree that people dont want to pay too much for maintenance of their 'hard earned cars', but surely that's why you'd take it to a dealer?! Why get someone who sees a Morris Minor one minute, a Chrysler Voyager the next, Ford Capri next and then a £20,000 Golf to work on your car when there are guys at the dealership who work on these cars day-in day-out and have been trained to VW standards and have almost £100,000 worth of special tools and equipment specific to VW for repair and diagnosis??? A corner garage may have a cheaper labour rate but its a false economy...he may take 3hours at £30 p/hour to work out what is wrong with a car running rough, have replaced 2/3 parts attempting to fix the issue, total bill £120ish. VW dealer diagnosis takes 30mins and replaces faulty part, £60 labour and £20 for the part? Still saves money even if the labour rate is higher!

vikingaero

TiTheRev wrote: »

I agree that people dont want to pay too much for maintenance of their 'hard earned cars', but surely that's why you'd take it to a dealer?! Why get someone who sees a Morris Minor one minute, a Chrysler Voyager the next, Ford Capri next and then a £20,000 Golf to work on your car when there are guys at the dealership who work on these cars day-in day-out and have been trained to VW standards and have almost £100,000 worth of special tools and equipment specific to VW for repair and diagnosis??? A corner garage may have a cheaper labour rate but its a false economy...he may take 3hours at £30 p/hour to work out what is wrong with a car running rough, have replaced 2/3 parts attempting to fix the issue, total bill £120ish. VW dealer diagnosis takes 30mins and replaces faulty part, £60 labour and £20 for the part? Still saves money even if the labour rate is higher!

I'm quite happy to spend whatever it takes to fix my cars and make them safe for my kids to travel in. But it's all the more galling when you spend hundreds on diagnosis and the dealer still can't fix it.

TiTheRev

vikingaero wrote: »

I'm quite happy to spend whatever it takes to fix my cars and make them safe for my kids to travel in. But it's all the more galling when you spend hundreds on diagnosis and the dealer still can't fix it.

From personal experience, or just speculating? At our dealership we have a £60 diagnostic charge which covers the 'normal' routes of fault finding, but if we can't sort it within that pre-determined time then we offer the customer a reduced rate 2nd diagnostics or the vehicle to take elsewhere at a cheaper rate, can't say fairer than that surely?! Any fitting of parts is included in that £60 so they could even get their car diagnosed and fixed for £60 plus parts. Even a fred-in-the-shed would do well to beat that!

goldspanners

TiTheRev wrote: »

Maybe we are a 'rare dealership', but it's not any different at any other dealership ive worked at we have 11 trained technicians at the dealership I work at, ONE is a teenager who is training with VW once a week and doing the other 4days a week on the spanners, and ALL of the others go on update courses every few months to teach them new information about models etc. We have one Master technician (and two just shy of the qualification) who have all been trained and tested over the last few years at the VW learning centre in Milton Keynes. I don't know which dealers you've been to? Sure it's not a Kwik-fit and got mixed up?!?

I agree that people dont want to pay too much for maintenance of their 'hard earned cars', but surely that's why you'd take it to a dealer?! Why get someone who sees a Morris Minor one minute, a Chrysler Voyager the next, Ford Capri next and then a £20,000 Golf to work on your car when there are guys at the dealership who work on these cars day-in day-out and have been trained to VW standards and have almost £100,000 worth of special tools and equipment specific to VW for repair and diagnosis??? A corner garage may have a cheaper labour rate but its a false economy...he may take 3hours at £30 p/hour to work out what is wrong with a car running rough, have replaced 2/3 parts attempting to fix the issue, total bill £120ish. VW dealer diagnosis takes 30mins and replaces faulty part, £60 labour and £20 for the part? Still saves money even if the labour rate is higher!

its all fair and well throwing vw training courses at the employees,but getting them to take it all in and use it is another matter.
most of the time all they want to do is plug in the diagnostics machine and replace whatever the machine says,if it doesnt work they are stumped,they are not mechanics or engineers who can work a fault through in thier heads and determine what is causing it,they just do what the computer says.
monkeys can do this.
dealers do have a slight upper hand when it comes to fresh information,but then if the car is in warranty then it will go back to the dealers to be repaired under warranty,but when the 3 years is up the car gets done by myself,or a good trusted independant,and lets face it by this time the sacred information is all over the net and you can buy it on ebay for a few quid.

TiTheRev

goldspanners wrote: »

its all fair and well throwing vw training courses at the employees,but getting them to take it all in and use it is another matter.
most of the time all they want to do is plug in the diagnostics machine and replace whatever the machine says,if it doesnt work they are stumped,they are not mechanics or engineers who can work a fault through in thier heads and determine what is causing it,they just do what the computer says.
monkeys can do this.
dealers do have a slight upper hand when it comes to fresh information,but then if the car is in warranty then it will go back to the dealers to be repaired under warranty,but when the 3 years is up the car gets done by myself,or a good trusted independant,and lets face it by this time the sacred information is all over the net and you can buy it on ebay for a few quid.

I would beg to differ. Granted the tech's use the diagnostic machine and replace whatever the machine says...but that's VW procedure so that VW pay the dealer back for warrenty jobs and/or to show the customer how they came to their diagnosis. Out of the 11 tech's we have at the dealership, I would happily say that 8 of them are more than compatent with other makes/models/ages and definately with more quality than a monkey or your average Hi-Q tyres/kwik-fit or fred-in-a-shed would manage. 3 of them have worked in/owned their own garage and come to a dealer after not making enough money from 'normal' jobs! One is only a youth being trained, one is more a service and brakes kind-of fitter and one must be blackmailing the service manager (but is leaving soon)!!

Andy_Hamilton

I bought the plug in computer for my VW bora.
I'm happy to work on things myself and will do everything except clutches and timing belts (just can't be bothered)
My little computer cost less than £30 and found my airbag problem, VW would have charged £60 so it paid for it's self in one go.
It's also found atleast 10 faults on 4 cars.

TiTheRev

Andy_Hamilton wrote: »

I bought the plug in computer for my VW bora.
I'm happy to work on things myself and will do everything except clutches and timing belts (just can't be bothered)
My little computer cost less than £30 and found my airbag problem, VW would have charged £60 so it paid for it's self in one go.
It's also found atleast 10 faults on 4 cars.

Fair enough. It may have found the fault but did it tell you which exact switch/sensor/wiring loom was at fault or just 'there's an airbag fault'?! I cant presume that your £30 machine can be anywhere near as specific and accurate as a £15,000 diagnostics machine...no offence :rotfl:

Polly

I'm sure the VW guys are extremely competent but I'm still waiting for a call back from them after a week. I've made 3 callbacks in the meantime. I still maintain this is low priority for them - or so it appears.