2004 Bora 'Emissions Workshop'

[ajbaker]

Hello all.

Two months ago I purchased a 2004 VW Bora 1.9 TDI 150 Sport from a small car dealership. The car came with a 3 month warranty provided by a national warranty provider, and not from the garage itself.

Last week as I started the engine from cold the 'Emissions Workshop' warning was displayed, along with the engine warning light in amber. These warnings were displayed constantly for two days, until half a mile into my journey the warning disappeared. After the weekend, the warning reappeared but has since gone out again.

I understand this warning suggests I should have the problem identified soon but am ok to continue driving. Obviously I do not wish to spendd £80 with VW to identify the problem - where else can I look to have a diagnostic check? Secondly, does it matter that the warning has since disappeared? Is there a 'log' of previous warnings or is the data only available when the warning is on?


Also, I understand from reading other threads the warning could be displayed for any number of reasons. However could it be related to glow plugs? The reason I ask is when I start the engine, usually the glow light disappears after several seconds. On four of five (only) occassions since purchase (2 months) the light has not gone out at all, and I have turned the ignition off and then on again. On these occassions the light has then gone out after a few seconds are per normal.


Your thoughts appreciated. If it helps at all, I live near Newbury and work on the south side of Oxford.

Andrew

[steverob1983]

Hi
i had exactly the same thing as you wierldy enought mine also came on 2 month after i bought the car.

i bought a vag com cable which was deliverd this morning and iv just come in from playing with it.

When i looked at the faults list mine was displaying cylinder 3 glow plug circuit intermittant fault


prob not much help to you but thought id let you know

[Crasher]

You need to have it read for fault codes and for this you do not have to take it to a VW dealer, any garage with fault code reading equipment will be able to do this for you. The most likely cause of the problem will be a coolant temperature sender fault which is quick and easy to replace.

[ajbaker]

Many thanks to you all for your responses. It seems the most sensible thing to do, as always, is to do it yourself! Shall invest in cable/reader myself. Steverob1983, might I ask where yo got yours from and if you would recommend?

Out of interest, can I only read the fault if the warning is currently 'on'? Reason I ask is it alternates every couple of days...

[steverob1983]

I got mine from ebay for about £25 you can get a trail/shareware version of vag com from ross-tech.com. the trial/shareware version lets you read the fault codes and such but doesn`t let you change or tweak anything.

[Crasher]

Out of interest, can I only read the fault if the warning is currently 'on'? Reason I ask is it alternates every couple of days...

The memory is non volatile and codes generated stay in memory for at least 80 cycles without the issue re-occurring, in theory!

I have known codes to vanish though.

[A4 Lad]

Don’t you feel that what you are advising there is wrong or is it just me?

If the company is stupid enough to play the game......
I personally sick of trade companies that I spend £3000 a month, sometimes more, to get full trade discount and then Joe DIY Blogs rings and gets it a pound cheaper ! AGHHHH.
Rant over !

[DanMot101]

Hi there, brand new to this site as I've just bought a 53 plate bora 1.9 pd 100. I've only driven it to work and back over the last week and on 2 occasions my car has lost pretty much all it's power in 1st and 2nd, the trader I bought it from said it would most likely be the esp system detecting possible loss of grip or the wheels spinning so automatically cuts down the power? I had no warning lights from the esp at the time and after leaving it over night the problem had solved it's self by the time I set off to work the following morning. Today I drove it a short distance down the motorway and all of a sudden I lost power once again but this time the engine management system light came on and said "Emissions wprkshop" on the dash. After switching it off and back on the power came back but the warning light and msg is still on? Can anyone tell me what I should look for first before ripping out sensors and possibly causing more issues, the car was a cheap purchase and as I'm sure most of you are the same with Xmas around the corner I don't have the spare funds for replacing turbo's or intercooler's is I've read in some of the comments. Any advice is appreciated as this car has grown on me in such a short space of time and would like to get it right on a budget and hopefully make the car last me. Thank you for reading and will look forward to any feed back

[sps]

you will need to check the fault codes to get an idea of what the fault is