Help with my car - engine light on Golf

Obi167

Hello,!

I hope someone can give me some advice on this - I'm really pulling my hair out!

My Golf - 2001 gti 2.0 was booked in for it's service and mot, 2 days before it was in the engine management light went on so I kept the appointment to have it all looked at in one go.!

The status codes came back as some of the sensors (front lambda sensor / O2 sensors / emmisions etc). The mechanic said that if we put it through the service and mot, that might be enough to sort it... So that got done with a number of replaced sensors (at a total cost of just under £600).

Then a few days later the light came back on - back on the machine, a few different sensor needed replacing (just under £200).!

That was 2 days ago and it back on again. Had a word with the garage, could be more sensors or almost anything else!!

My concern is - in another few hundred quids time am I going to find out its something more serious that's making all these sensors fail!!

It's almost bankrupted me a it is!?!

Can anyone offer any advice or ideas? - anything would be greatly appreciated.!

Obi167

The annoying exclamation marks were put on by the computer by the way (well mostly)

s_b

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vl2588

Try a golf or VW GTI forum, you will get more specialist advice that way. Do you trust the garage 100%? Could get a 2nd opinion? Are there any other symptoms? Same mpg as usual for example?

Rich66666

I would recommend buying something like this. Then join uk-mkivs. Good luck

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/047-VW-VAG-Diagnostic-Code-Reader-Tool-Golf-Bora-Passat-/320896843279?pt=UK_Diagnostic_Tools_Equipment&hash=item4ab6f13e0f#ht_4263wt_932

Obi167

Both front and rear lambda sensors have been replaced - my main concern is could it be the engine management computer that has packed in?

I know very little about cars but I do know that there expensive!

I'm going to try a different forum when I get home from work - was just hoping for a bit of quick advice of worst case scenarios!

Thanks for the help so far.

Rich66666

Do you know the fault code(s)?

Tucker

Quite possibly nothing wrong with the sensors and they are correctly reading a fault.

If so, changing them 10 times won't help.

If the car is running lean or rich it will throw the emission light on, which seems to be what's happening.

I suspect you've paid for various sensors you didn't need and the car itself isn't running right which could be down to an injection fault or ignition fault etc...

Obi167

Someone has suggested just running it with the light on (I.e. the black tape fix) as I could keep hunting a fault and not find it - would anyone strongly advise against this?

cb1979

Could be the Cat on its way out
The front O2 sensor controls the fuel mixture and the rear O2sensor measures the performance of the Cat and front 02sensor

If the car has been run for any length of time with the old O2 sensors faulty or with a misfire it can kill the Cat

Will pay you to get a code reader and then you can read and reset the codes yourself

Might give you a clue to what is causing the problem

I would not advise covering the light with tape,it will not fix the problem

Tucker

Yes, it's on for a reason. So without really knowing why it could cost you your engine.

It will also fail the next mot, so that's only good if it lasts till then.