The Lambda warning light has just illuminated and remained on, on my Golf 5, vehicle has only done 3k called the h/desk and the lady says to bring it in to the stealership. What I wanted to know is how far (and fast) can I travel with this warning lamp on? I've got to work late tomorrow so cant really see me getting the car in before Wednesday, I suspect I'd have done nearly 200 miles by then. TIA
The engine fault lamp? Or a dedicated oxygen sensor lamp?
Have you checked the handbook? It's likely to say "bring it to the dealership immediately."
If you cover this sort of mileage between now and Wednesday, you should take it in as top priority. They may open at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, which might help matters.
Its not an FSI is it? *look of horror*
Tim..
"If only everything in life were as reliable as a Volkswagen."
Sure as hell glad I don't work for VW any more. Coil packs, lard-assed Golfs, FSIs dying. It was hard enough with leaky sunroofs and duff carb set ups. :)
The symbol looks like the side view of an engine ,inthe book it says 'A fault has developed during driving which has reduced the quality of exhaust gas(e.g lambda probe fault) Reduce speed and drive carefully to the nearest qualified deallership. Have engine checked.
I drove 14 miles last night, but this morning presto no light is on now..
It is an FSI , but the light has gone off now....
I heard about the coil paks on the Mk4s luckily mine has been fine (touch wood) , only prob I had on the MK4 was the window lifters breaking resulting in the windows jamming!
Had the same thing with the Missus's Fabia (VW Polo with Skoda badges and engine).
Came on, power steering took a while to kick in, stayed on, did about 25 miles of motorway, got to work. Phoned dealership, and they said, if it stays on, come infor diags.
Started it to come home, no light.
6 months later, did it again, went to dealership, got diags done. Couln't find fault currently but could see that the light had been lit twice.Next day, no power steering, hard to start, day after, took a push/jump leads to start.
Changed the battery, no more lambda light, no more powersteering light, and has started on the button since.
You might have the start of a dud battery there. Bad ones do sometimes come out of the factory.
This is the Check Engine Light / Malfunction Indicator Lamp. Basically this just means that something has gone wrong causing the exhaust emissions to be too high. That could be something relatively trivial, like a stuck canister purge valve or non-functional post-catalyst lambda sensor, in which case you could drive thousands of miles without causing any damage (except to the environment!) Or it could be something much more serious, like a misfire or excessively lean fuelling, which could cause serious engine damage if driven for a long time or at high speed. Without reading the fault codes, there's no way to tell.
The light does tend to have a habit of going on and off on occasions, since some component may be JUST on the borderline for failing - one test will say it's OK, the next will say it's faulty. If the light's still off but you want to know what the problem was, get to the dealer in the next couple of weeks or the code will erase itself.
Tony
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