Motor Control System Failure - GT Diesel

[phil1979]

An odd one this week...

Sitting at traffic lights, I hear a warning beep, and a message appears on the dash reading 'Motor Control System Failure'. Great! The engine warning light is now on, too.

The car, however, is pulling just the same as before, and fuel consumption has not been altered.

It has remained like this for a few days, and I was due to take it in today to have it looked at.

However, on starting up this morning, the fault has vanished. And the car drives the same as normal.

Any ideas, and should I bother paying to get it checked out?

[Ej74]

What year is your GT diesel - as mine has a variety of electrical gremlins but doesn't effect the car.
Do you have a fault code reader as that will give you the answer to what caused the error

[phil1979]

Ej74 said:

What year is your GT diesel - as mine has a variety of electrical gremlins but doesn't effect the car.
Do you have a fault code reader as that will give you the answer to what caused the error

Mine's a 2005. I have no fault reader though.

[trashbat]

MCSF is a general warning and you will get nowhere with that info alone - you need a fault reader (£10 on eBay if you have an Android phone to connect to it).

Alfas of that age will clear the warning (a) for some faults, as soon as the fault condition goes away or (b) for other faults, after so many happy engine restarts. It's probably still logged in the ECU at the moment.

I sometimes get non-MCSF errors like ABS/EBD failure; I just restart the car at the next safe opportunity, and they go away. In that case it's probably just decided two sensors are providing conflicting data. Yours may be similar. If not you'll probably see it again before long.