buzzard
Guest
This is a real saga this one...
The engine management light came on my Ibiza 20VT last year sometime - can't remember exactly when but it didn't seem to have any effect on the behaviour of the car. So I left it a little while as its service was coming due a few weeks down the line. The Seat dealer couldn't find anything wrong with it and reset the light. The light stayed off a while, until I was unable to get any Optimax for it, which it had been running on at every fill-up for two years. Then the light came back on within a few miles of sticking 95RON in it.
So, another journey back to Seat for a light reset. That lasted about 70 miles, and the brake vacuum hose was replaced on the recall from Seat. And the light was reset again. That lasted about another 70 miles - again.
Fed-up at this point, I took it back to Seat AGAIN and their most experienced technician did a full diagostic check on it. Two hours later, he showed me the reports. They looked like double Dutch to me, which was a real shame, because he didn't have an explanation for them either. So he sent me away with some things to log.
To cut a very long story short, there are no apparent problems with the car except for noticing fuel consumption and relative performance. As follows, after running it round on several consecutive tankfuls of each type of fuel:-
Optimax - average 34mpg (typical from new, regardless of fuel type), car goes like snot-off-a-stick
Super Unleaded (97RON Sainsbury's variety) - average 32mpg, car goes ok but lacks real sparkle and edge
95RON - average 29mpg, car runs like an asthmatic old pit pony
Back to Seat with the findings. They reported that the car is running lean but none of the sensors are reporting a problem - just a whole catalogue of errors that no-one seems to be able to make any sense of.
Over the winter, it's now started (on mornings where the external temperature is reported by the car as being 5C or less) beeping and flashes the red warning light on the temperature gauge for a minute. So I checked the handbook and the suggestions made in there for the cause of the error weren't present, so I'm at a loss with this one!
Any suggestions anyone please? Selling it isn't an option either, due to lack of cash and the fact that I do like the car! I thought about taking it to a specialist like VAGTech, the Seat dealer wanted to start swapping parts like the Lambda sensor at my expense and following that path until the problem was found. That's not going to happen! I want to go to someone who can say "This is what's wrong with it" and walk away with it fixed.
Cheers!
The engine management light came on my Ibiza 20VT last year sometime - can't remember exactly when but it didn't seem to have any effect on the behaviour of the car. So I left it a little while as its service was coming due a few weeks down the line. The Seat dealer couldn't find anything wrong with it and reset the light. The light stayed off a while, until I was unable to get any Optimax for it, which it had been running on at every fill-up for two years. Then the light came back on within a few miles of sticking 95RON in it.
So, another journey back to Seat for a light reset. That lasted about 70 miles, and the brake vacuum hose was replaced on the recall from Seat. And the light was reset again. That lasted about another 70 miles - again.
Fed-up at this point, I took it back to Seat AGAIN and their most experienced technician did a full diagostic check on it. Two hours later, he showed me the reports. They looked like double Dutch to me, which was a real shame, because he didn't have an explanation for them either. So he sent me away with some things to log.
To cut a very long story short, there are no apparent problems with the car except for noticing fuel consumption and relative performance. As follows, after running it round on several consecutive tankfuls of each type of fuel:-
Optimax - average 34mpg (typical from new, regardless of fuel type), car goes like snot-off-a-stick
Super Unleaded (97RON Sainsbury's variety) - average 32mpg, car goes ok but lacks real sparkle and edge
95RON - average 29mpg, car runs like an asthmatic old pit pony
Back to Seat with the findings. They reported that the car is running lean but none of the sensors are reporting a problem - just a whole catalogue of errors that no-one seems to be able to make any sense of.
Over the winter, it's now started (on mornings where the external temperature is reported by the car as being 5C or less) beeping and flashes the red warning light on the temperature gauge for a minute. So I checked the handbook and the suggestions made in there for the cause of the error weren't present, so I'm at a loss with this one!
Any suggestions anyone please? Selling it isn't an option either, due to lack of cash and the fact that I do like the car! I thought about taking it to a specialist like VAGTech, the Seat dealer wanted to start swapping parts like the Lambda sensor at my expense and following that path until the problem was found. That's not going to happen! I want to go to someone who can say "This is what's wrong with it" and walk away with it fixed.
Cheers!
