So.... I've had a DTUK CRD3+ tuning box on my 184 Fr for a while now, and as anyone that's had one will testify, they transform the car like no other mod BUT..... they are incredibly frustrating as they quite often throw a coil light and put the car into limp mode, which for me means 60 miles of struggling not to get hit by lorries on fast A roads and Motorways.... so its a love/hate relationship. I love it when it works, but I hate it with a passion any other time... ill often take it out completely, vowing never to ever put it back on, but then I give in...
Anyways, DTUK are pretty useless at giving anyone any actual advise on what to do to try and combat this well documented phenomenon (its common on all the 184 engines from VW/Audi/SEAT and Skoda), usually spouting some spurious nonsense about 'each engine is different' and 'well it never did it on our test mule' etc..
So I've had to do a bit of digging myself about why it happens, mainly after a very frustrating week where the car just cut out at a roundabout, coil light on, and wouldn't restart, cue trying to push it and steer with no power assistance etc (we've all been there in our youth when we drove sh1tboxes, but I don't expect to have to do it in a 3 year old car) and it is not only annoying, its downright dangerous. Its absolutely 100% the fault of the tuning box, which seems to have been mapped in such a way that the standard boost sensor reports an error which locks down the whole system. even removing the box doesn't clear the fault... the only way is to either let the car cycle through a number of ignition on/off's (and there is no way to try and do this yourself as it seems random how long it takes) or to plug in a laptop via VCDS and clear the DTC'.s Even using this last approach I cleared down the DTC's last week, started the car, pulled off the drive and the coil light went, leaving me stranded blocking the middle of the road outside my own house...
Its worth pointing out that I bought the unit second hand from here (it came with the receipt), and that I have tried running with a large combinations of all the different settings (1, 2, 3, +1, +2 etc)....
So I have now purchased a brand new boost sensor and have fitted that and put the box back on set on 1 + 1 and will see how long it lasts for....
Anyways, DTUK are pretty useless at giving anyone any actual advise on what to do to try and combat this well documented phenomenon (its common on all the 184 engines from VW/Audi/SEAT and Skoda), usually spouting some spurious nonsense about 'each engine is different' and 'well it never did it on our test mule' etc..
So I've had to do a bit of digging myself about why it happens, mainly after a very frustrating week where the car just cut out at a roundabout, coil light on, and wouldn't restart, cue trying to push it and steer with no power assistance etc (we've all been there in our youth when we drove sh1tboxes, but I don't expect to have to do it in a 3 year old car) and it is not only annoying, its downright dangerous. Its absolutely 100% the fault of the tuning box, which seems to have been mapped in such a way that the standard boost sensor reports an error which locks down the whole system. even removing the box doesn't clear the fault... the only way is to either let the car cycle through a number of ignition on/off's (and there is no way to try and do this yourself as it seems random how long it takes) or to plug in a laptop via VCDS and clear the DTC'.s Even using this last approach I cleared down the DTC's last week, started the car, pulled off the drive and the coil light went, leaving me stranded blocking the middle of the road outside my own house...
Its worth pointing out that I bought the unit second hand from here (it came with the receipt), and that I have tried running with a large combinations of all the different settings (1, 2, 3, +1, +2 etc)....
So I have now purchased a brand new boost sensor and have fitted that and put the box back on set on 1 + 1 and will see how long it lasts for....
