Another engine management light issue!

[Theironmill]

Hello everyone, i have had my 1.4 sport a2 for just about 6 months now and love it for the savings i have made on insurance and petrol but as of late it has started giving me some problems.

1. Starter packed in less than two days after purchasing (dealer said that it had done less than 2000miles the previous year and that this was to blame) anyway got it replaced and all was fine.

2. The car starts first time every time when it's cold but sometimes when you park in town which is about 15 mins away and come back to the car it will just turn over and over and not catch. Normally on the 20th attempt it would catch like nothing was ever a problem. Engine managed light stayed on for the rest of the trip home.

3. I was driving through my local village one day when it just randomly cut out but i managed to free wheel into a parking space and it finally started after the tenth go at turning over. engine management light stayed on for the rest of the days driving

4. Yesterday I was coming home from the town, nothing had went wrong in over a week and I was just thinking how great a motor it was when the engine management light came on flashing this time and the car started shuddering. It sound like a Subaru as its now off a cylinder so I parked it up at home and went back into town in my brother in laws car and bought four new spark plugs.

5. This morning I changed all spark plugs and I also had a new temperature sensor which I replaced and it's still the same. I'm going to see if the garage up the road can plug it in tomorrow morning.

I just pulled out all the paper work of previous history and the lambda sensor has been replaced and the ecu had to be plugged in for an update in 2006 because of the engine management light coming on.

It always seems to be the car that you love most causes you the most headache, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[jonbad]

Hi,
The temp sensor might well have solved the issue you mention in number 2 - as that's exactly what symptom I had (though I could start mine on 2nd/4rd attempt). Basically my coolant temperature sensor was telling the ecu the engine was hot, when it wasn't... or something like that anyway!

Have you looked at the cam sensor? I think it's the one on the top of the manifold. Also I have read on these forums the common sensor that goes wrong is the crank sensor, which is down the back of the engine somewhere and suffers from excessive heat and gives up quite commonly. If you read back on non-starting threads on this forum, it will throw up all the things I'm mentioning now.

Hope you're able to get a scan and go from there, otherwise I'd have a look at the above mentioned sensors.

Good luck!