help,

maoqin

i have a 00 polo hatch 1.o car, i just saw there is a check light on in the front of clock. what is that meaning
thanks

Pete4779

Possibly it means open the manual and check the light??????????

maoqin

it looks like a engine shape, and there is a word under it said check,
is this meaning i need give my car a full service

stratos

It means the emmision controls may not be functioning properly. It may just need to be reset. A garage will connect a reader to the obd 2 socket in the car and read out whats wrong. Be carefull though garages like changing sensors for no good reason. It could be something as simple as bad petrol caused a misfire or some other passing event. Or more usually a Lambda or oxygen sensor, possibly manifold pressure sensor.

Basicly many sensors around the engine feed into the computer and the computer adjusts various things from these readings to keep the car running efficiently. If a sensor stops reporting or reports a problem, the computer goes into open loop mode and ignores the sensor and uses values it has in a little black book (programmed into its memory) to work the adjustments.

The car will probably seem to be running fine to you, but not running at its best and it may be using more fuel. One thing that tends to happen is garages change good o2 sensors these live in a harsh enviroment and last many miles they don't fail too often. Sometimes a bad spaerk plug or some other fueling issue will cause the readings to be out. Then the o2 sensor gets the blame and gets changed for no good reason and they are expensive.

When this happened on my own car I did some research and bought a code reader for about 80 Euros, in this case it was the O2 sensor which I then changed my self, and I reckon recovered the price of the code reader. One thing I didn't realise though was the amber engine shaped symbol relates only to the engine efficiency sensors and only comes up for emmision harming faults.

maoqin

thanks, i l go to garage tomorrow