Hi.

The Emission Control System warning lamp has come on in my wife's TTR.

It looks a very expensive warning light and the book says take it to a dealer.

What does it actually refer to and will it be very expensive.

Thanks,

Dave

What it means is that the engine management system has detected a potential problem that has remained across a specified number of start-stop cycles or for a specified period of time. The warning is just that. If the car seems to be running fine then its probably not too serious but of course there is no gaurantee. There are several 100 possible faults that could cause the light to come on so it is not possible to diagnose it here.

You could disconnect the battery for 10min which will reset the Engine Control Unit (ECU) and should clear the light. If the fault is still in place it will come back on after you have driven it a bit.

If it is still under warranty then take to the dealer.

If not, there should be someone in your vicinity with a copy of VAGCOM who could tell you what the fault code is, or you might pop into your local back-street independent and see if he'll do a scan for you for free and tell you the fault codes. Then we'll be able to advise better (as will the garage of course). You might be lucky and get the dealer to scan for you for free but normally they'll want to book it in and charge you an hours labour for 5min effort.

Thanks for that.

I found a local specialist who plugged his computer in a and the fault showed up as a cooling system fault.

He cleared it and so far all is well.

If it recurs I'll take it back and he'll look deeper.

You're right about the time it took to sort it though.