'05 1.2 VW Polo engine light on and off.

aabarnes1

Hello, I hope somebody can help me out a bit. I bought the car 4 months ago, 93k on the clock, very clean, 1 previous owner FSH etc etc. Anyway last week the orange engine light came on after driving for 15 minutes or so and when I came to a stop at the lights, she cut out. Started her up agin ok but the same thing kept happening every time I stopped at lights. Got the service done, replaced the plugs, oil, filter etc mechanic said it could be the coils. The light is still coming on intermittently although she is not cutting out as much, but the idling revs are only 7000rpm and it 'feels' like it's gonna cut out any minute. I want to replace the fuel filter and clean the idling valve and throttle housing to eliminate them. Can anyone give me any pointers please, ie, where is the fuel filter located and would I be better squirting carb cleaner into the throttle rather than removing it? Also need to do the front brake pads - is it handy enough? Basically I can't afford to have all the work done in the garage, its already cost me 230 euro this week, so I've no choice really. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

randy hickey

Did your mechanic plug your car in to his diagnostics?

aabarnes1

He said he did and he charged me 32 euro for the privilege. Told me the error was the probably the plugs but couldn't be 100%. I am going back in to him on Monday cos as you can imagine I am very unhappy. Paid all that money and still got the original problem.

Muckie

My guess would be a pencil coil, common enough fault on VWs.

Changed one recently on the sisters Golf, cost €40 for the coil.

10 minute job to change. Hope you can get it sorted.

slickmcvic

aabarnes1 wrote: »

Hello, I hope somebody can help me out a bit. I bought the car 4 months ago, 93k on the clock, very clean, 1 previous owner FSH etc etc. Anyway last week the orange engine light came on after driving for 15 minutes or so and when I came to a stop at the lights, she cut out. Started her up agin ok but the same thing kept happening every time I stopped at lights. Got the service done, replaced the plugs, oil, filter etc mechanic said it could be the coils. The light is still coming on intermittently although she is not cutting out as much, but the idling revs are only 7000rpm and it 'feels' like it's gonna cut out any minute. I want to replace the fuel filter and clean the idling valve and throttle housing to eliminate them. Can anyone give me any pointers please, ie, where is the fuel filter located and would I be better squirting carb cleaner into the throttle rather than removing it? Also need to do the front brake pads - is it handy enough? Basically I can't afford to have all the work done in the garage, its already cost me 230 euro this week, so I've no choice really. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

The misses has an 04 polo with same problem (only intermittently),dealer reckons its could be a stuck valve,(common problem,big fix) light hasn't come on in a while and when it does a blast of the accelerator sometimes does the trick.

....btw 7000rpm's a fairly serious idle rpm!

aabarnes1

Muckie wrote: »

My guess would be a pencil coil, common enough fault on VWs.

Changed one recently on the sisters Golf, cost €40 for the coil.

10 minute job to change. Hope you can get it sorted.

Are the 'pencil coils' the 3 attachments to the spark plugs, or is it something different. Cheers

Muckie

The pencil coils are the "little square part" that contects to the top of

"old spark plug leap". Then clicked into place as its inserted down on top

of the spark plug.

The way i sorted the sister Golf was i had the card runiing, Engine Light

EPC was showing.

Diagnostic tool i had pointed towards fault the coil on cyclinder 4.

I then turned off the car, swapped 3 for 4, then retried.

This time showed fault on cyclinder no. 3.

So in my case, replaced faulty pencil coil then re-plugged in the scan tool, cleared the light and cars being going fine

Frisbee

Had the same problem with my 05 Polo a few years back. Same issue with it feeling like it was on the verge of cutting out when idling. Two of the coils needed to be replaced.

AzureAuto

I wonder whether your throttle body needs a clean/ Oily deposits can build up and cause idling issues such as what you are describing and is common on many flyby-wire systems. The throttle body would require resetting with a VCDS or similar diagnostic machine. I wonder if your mechanic has a generic scanner that will only read/erase faults and not provide a data measuring/adaptation function?
The EML would provide the biggest clue as to the problem however.

Nissan doctor

TBH it sounds like your mechanic hasn't a clue what he is looking at. If he checked it and ran a diagnostic scan then he should have been able to tell you exactly what was the fault and what would be required to fix it.

The coils, as mentioned above, are an extremely common(read: almost certain) failure on the VAG 3 cylinder engines. The bad news is that if you have been driving with a failed/failing coil for any length of time then your Catalytic converter is likely to be damaged too.

Also, if it is a coil then replace all 3 as if one has failed the others won'tbe far behind.