Poll: Have you ever had an engine warning light come on?

[samg1988]

I'm doing some research at uni into the re-design of engine warning lights at the moment. Pistonheads users have been very helpful in the past, so with the mods' permission I'd like to make a quick poll.

Have you ever had an engine warning light come on? If so, what did you do about it?

I ignored it, the car seemed to run fine regardless.
I took out the bulb/put some tape over it.
I got a garage to fix it.
I couldn’t diagnose it myself so a garage did it for me.
I fixed it myself.
I didn’t know what it was.

If you have any other comments regarding engine warning lights feel free to post them.
Thanks!

[havoc]

Would help if you set it up as a poll on here - will get more responses. After you click 'start topic' you'll see 3 radio-buttons across the top of the text-box - click the "poll" one and a series of boxes appear for you to type the options into.

[Pannywagon]

Yes, Peugeot 406 HPi, it went out again almost immediately.

About a week later the car went into crawl home mode at 70ish mph and the light came on again. Turned out to be the high pressure fuel pump had gone wrong and sent shrapnel into the head/valves, pistons and also down the exhaust. I ended up with a totally useless 4 year old car in need of a new high pressure pump, engine and exhaust system.

ETA: not the whole exhaust, just the catalytic converter and another bit of it that did something or other involving a valve. (no idea what that did)

Edited by Pannywagon on Saturday 22 January 00:21

[hesnotthemessiah]

I fixed it myself.

[kambites]

yes. I spent 15 quid on a OBD dreader and fixed the problem myself.

[stewjohnst]

Had a mk3 Cav that had an engine light come on and go into limp home mode. Checked the basics, oil/water, plugs, etc nothing out of place so got it checked at garage. Faulty camshaft sensor £200 quid to fix but worked out turning engine on and off again quickly when starting up first time stopped limp home mode coming on at all so did that instead, wasn't worth paying to fix it. Car ran fine for three months and part ex-ed it to a dealer later on.

Only other warnings were occasional oil pressure lights under hard cornering or steep climbing, just lifted the lid and top it up.

[vit4]

I don't have an engine warning light. So no.

[Baryonyx]

I had this problem in my Focus, namely that the Engine Management light came on when I was driving home from work. I had planned to take it home and get a garage to have a look at it later in the week but then it went off again. I looked the problem up online and discovered that this type of Focus can develope corrosion on the wiring contacts behind the instrument cluster, leading to the Engine light going on and off intermittently.

Never happened again after that!

[sebhaque]

Mine in the VX is on all the time. It's got a bypass exhaust valve fitted to it which sends the lambda sensor into all kinds of disarray. I could clear it by closing the bypass valve, but that means less POWEEEERRR and less noise.

[Hackney]

Warning light on my Alfa came on, and within seconds the engine was making some very poorly sounds.

Lost compression in 2 of the 6 cylinders.

£4.5k later......

[samg1988]

havoc said:

Would help if you set it up as a poll on here - will get more responses. After you click 'start topic' you'll see 3 radio-buttons across the top of the text-box - click the "poll" one and a series of boxes appear for you to type the options into.

Thanks, just checked it out there. I only saw 'Discussion' or 'Wiki'. If a mod could change accordingly it I'd really appreciate it.

[kambites]

I think you need to have been on here a certain amount of time to do a poll, not quite sure why.

[GeraldSmith]

Yes, in a V8 Vantage. Light came on, lots of black smoke came out the back, a nice man in a Land Rover came and took it away, they gave me an S class for a week or so until it came back with a new engine.

[Shaw Tarse]

kambites said:

I think you need to have been on here a certain amount of time to do a poll, not quite sure why.

You do need to have been on PH for a certain length of time before you can start a poll, I think it's to prevent newbies starting stupid ones. Nothing to stop old timers starting silly polls, but mods may revoke the ability if one did so.
As a newbie you could ask the mods to switch on the facility, bribery / arse kissing may help

[carmonk]

If you have a French car, especially Peugeout or Renault, the light is on most of the time. I took mine in a few times but there was never anything wrong so now I don't bother. In the past two cars the warning lights have been on maybe 2 years out of 5 and have never meant anything. Some of the reasons the Renault the engine warning light has come on

- I left the window open and a spot of rain fell on the window controls
- The CD player rejected a CD
- I drove through a puddle
- It was frosty

[m444ttb]

It's lit up on our 106 GTi due to 'low cat efficiency'. But this is due to the motorsport cat and passes the MoT so we ignore it!

[tulloch]

Lit up on my Fiesta over a year ago. Garage said car was fine, must be a faulty sensor, one of two on the exhaust system. Changed one at a cost of around £100. Light came back on after a day. It's still on. Passes MOT no problem.

[stormrider2]

Yes on my old car, I got it looked at the first time and it turned out to be caused by the aftermarket exhaust, so i just left it when it came back on again.

[skip_1]

The light on one of our works Transit's was on for a few thousand miles (we ignored it) before it turned itself out.

[AnotherClarkey]

Had one come on in the Jeep - you can get the fault code to display in the odometer by switching the ignition on/off 5 times. Looked up the code on the net, saw that it was innocuous, ignored it and the light went out a few starts later. No need to buy a reader.