VW Golf - engine light trouble

Shades

Hey all !!

I have a 00 vw golf , a few months ago the engine light came on and one day the car just cut out , it spend over a week in a garage due to electrial faults. (lots of other problems - lots of $$ spent ) The other day the engine light came on again so i brought it straight into a VW garage to get it looked at because i didnt want it cutting out in the middle of the road again. They told me it needed a new lambda sensor replaced and possibly a new catalyst. They replaced the lambda sensor, another 300e , engine light went off and all was fine for about 2 days.

Now the engine light is back on , this time i really cant afford to get anything else done with the car , i was told the catalyst would cost 900e ! Until today i never knew what these parts where and i never realised i just spent 300e for this thing to tell me i need to go spend 900e on another part!

The car seems to drive fine , for the little amount of driving i do with it. I just have a fear of been broken down in the middle of a round about or main road.

Will i cause damage to the car by driving it if it needs a new catalyst confertor ? Should i bring it back to the garage just to get looked at anyways as it may just be something small or save the 50e , tape over the engine light and keep driving ?

Thanks

Plug

Your car wont cut out with a damaged catalytic converter. just drive it until you have the nct due and then get it replaced;)
Save 50 bucks for yourself.

DiarmaidGNR

Shades wrote: »

Hey all !!

I have a 00 vw golf , a few months ago the engine light came on and one day the car just cut out , it spend over a week in a garage due to electrial faults. (lots of other problems - lots of $$ spent ) The other day the engine light came on again so i brought it straight into a VW garage to get it looked at because i didnt want it cutting out in the middle of the road again. They told me it needed a new lambda sensor replaced and possibly a new catalyst. They replaced the lambda sensor, another 300e , engine light went off and all was fine for about 2 days.

Now the engine light is back on , this time i really cant afford to get anything else done with the car , i was told the catalyst would cost 900e ! Until today i never knew what these parts where and i never realised i just spent 300e for this thing to tell me i need to go spend 900e on another part!

The car seems to drive fine , for the little amount of driving i do with it. I just have a fear of been broken down in the middle of a round about or main road.

Will i cause damage to the car by driving it if it needs a new catalyst confertor ? Should i bring it back to the garage just to get looked at anyways as it may just be something small or save the 50e , tape over the engine light and keep driving ?

Thanks

Check out the Volkswagen golf forums (not on this site) to try and isolate the problem.
To the best of my knowledge you will not damage the car, it will just hinder performance. And €900 sounds like extortion for a new cat.

BlackWizard

As others have said you can drive safely with the cat not working.

It's a 00 car so I wouldn't bother bringing it to a main stealership just to keep a VW service history. Just ask an independent garage about it and get them to write the work done into the log book. There are some performance garages about that would be well equipped to work on MAFs/Catalytic. They should have emission testing equipment etc