Flashing engine management light - intermitent

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parky1979

Member
Hello,

I'm sure theres already a thread on this somewhere, but can't find anything thats this specific. Tonight on the way home the engine management light started to flash but with no noticeable problems. eg no hesitation when hitting the accelerator. Also to make things more confusing the flashing engine management light kept going off during the journey.

I wondered whether its come on due to a low level fluid, coolant for example.

Doesnt really make sense to me, any help would be appreciated.

Cheers

Audi A2 1.6 FSI Sport 2005
 
Get a scan done!, Do not continue driving it with this problem. The flashing light as opposed to a constantly lit engine light is a warning to stop and seek attention immediately!

If I was to guess, My money would be the Coil packs on your car. You must get it seen too, in order to avoid further/other damage, i.e Catalytic converter ...!


Cheers
Sarge
 
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Cheers for the quick response. I've drove it into work this morning and the engine management light is now fully on most of the time, only flashing when the car is idling at the lights. I'll take your advise and get it booked in for a check up tomorrow.

Funny someone only mentioned to me last week that the coil packs can go on these........
 
Ok the cars been in for a diagnostic check and its a fault with one of the injectors, has anyone had this before? Also the garage have said its recommended to change all the injectors at the same time. I'm reluctant to do this as its nearly £150 per injector. Has anyone just changed the faulty injector before, and if so has the car returned to its normal self. Obviously dont want to bin 3 good injectors if I dont need to.

Cheers
 
Doesn't an 'injector fault' usually turn out to be due to the wiring loom? I seem to recall reading something like that on the forum.
 
Hi just to confirm I had two injectors fail on me fsi and to be honest the work involved in changing them it is not worth the savings. My ones had given odd error codes for about 6 months until one day it just would not run - coughing and banging back into air box! Once new ones were fitted all fine again. Strangely no error codes actually reported an injection fault usually misfire / lean running/etc.
There is a company on eBay that say they recondition detect injection injectors(high pressure) but not used them, I went with Audi ones with 2 year warranty.
Re mike the injection wiring issue is with a tdi loom. Cheers mike
 
Just a quick update on my A2. It went it yesterday to get the one injector replaced as didnt want to folk out for the recommended all 4. Too be fair to the garage they ran the diagnostics on the car just to ensure they were replacing the correct injector. The fault codes were now showing up misfires on 2 out of the 4 cyclinders. They swapped the coils around again but this didnt change anything. They then thought it was the MAS so they unplugged this without any joy, the final step was they ordered a new MAS and plugged this in and again no joy on fixing the problem. Finally the garage took the car for a good drive and experienced the same as myself, there are definitely no misfires (its running like a dream) and the fuel consumption has not been effected (I used to own an A3 and this had engine management problems and the mpg dropped like a stone). The garage suspects it might be an ECU problem and can send this off for £35 to be checked but before he does that hes going to have a ring round to see if anyone has ideas, he'll probably end up on here I expect.

While hes doing that I've got the car back and everything appears to be ok. When accelerating the engine management light is permanently on but if coasting or ticking over at around 2000rpm the engine management light is flashing.

All a bit strange, I'll keep people posted and let you know what the fix is as I'm sure someone will have a similar problem at some point.
 
It's good to see a garage that doesn't just chuck parts at a problem and tries to get to the root of the problem. Your tale of woe is word for word my problems I had. Even same cylinders 2/4 - it was the injectors. The guy I used changed exhaust sensors-low and high pressure fuel pumps-egr valve-air flow meter-throttle body- ecu changed-bore scoped the inlet tracts for carbon build up. Luckily I didn't have to pay for these and my parts were swapped back once injectors we're proved faulty.
My eml was on off for months until one day it just would not run!
Hope you get it sorted mike
 
This sounds like what mine did, I was told by Audi technician to disconnect the battery for a few hours gives the ECU time to loose its memory, reconnect and drive> I doubted what he said, but did it anyway, and hey presto the light was off, mine was also showing misfires.

Alan
 
Morning all,

Sorry I've been off this for a while but finally got Audi to look at the car yesterday to see what the problem is. After them having it for a day the only thing they can think is wrong with it is that the valves might be sticking because its been run on normal unleaded. Their suggestion is that I switch to super unleaded and run redex through the the first tank to see if that just clears the carbon from the valves. They can't explain why it has a full engine management light on when driving and it goes to flashing when coasting but hopefully the redex and running the car on super unleaded from now on will fix the problem. If this doesnt fix it they would take the cylinder head off and have a look at the valves, they'd want a grand to do this not including parts. Hopefully I dont need to go down this route and if so I wouldnt go back to Audi to get it done.

I'll update again in a couple of weeks to let you know if the redex and super unleaded does the trick. Hopefully this will be a useful guide if someone else in the future has the same problem

Cheers
 
I think the sticking valve theory may show up on a compression test. A 'before and after the redex treatment' compression test would be my next step

Cheers Spike
 
I'm having exactly the same problem, just over a week ago my EML kept flashing, I did a scan and it was coming up misfires in cylinders 2,3 and 4.

The car was due a service so I've replaced all 4 plugs and coil packs, fuel filter and the air filter. I've just put in some Fuel injector cleaner and will run this through over the next week or so and let you know how I get on. Stangely enough the EML only flashes at low RPM or IDLE but the car is running like a dream

cheers

David.
 
Hi David,

Did you have any joy fixing your A2. It sounds like you've got the same issue as me. Under 2000 rpm its a flashing EML and after that it just goes solid. I've now taken Audi's advise and been running the car on premium unleaded and added redex to 2 tanks of fuel and then stuck some wynns injector cleaner in the last tank of fuel. All with no luck in resolving the problem.

Would be keen to know if and how you managed to get it fixed.

Cheers

Chris
 
I also have flashing eml when I pull out fast on cold engine. After few seconds light goes off.
Rough idle and some detonations when starting up on cold and rpm are at 12k.
If rpm different from 12k than idles smoothly but still hesitates when pulling out.
Think its injectors but will have to wait and see whats next cause my bank says Im bankrupt :)
 
sticking valves?
hmm, 20 years ago i would have gone for that but todays fuels, supermarket and unleaded, are of such good quality that de-coking an engine is a non starter.
your issue certainly sounds like fuel and i would start with a new OE filter and a few tanks of fuel with millers or redex. this would be to clear the fuel system rather than the valves. switching to the super unleaded is a must though.

blue skies
tony
 
The saga continues.

The car has been back into the garage again to try to fix this engine management light as well as a coolant leak which was easily fixed. Basically its the same as it was, the EML is on constantly from the moment you kick over the engine. However if youre hovering around the 2000rpm it'll start flashing. The garage has run the diagnostics on it and its coming back with multiple misfires which is rubbish because the car is running fine, no lumpyness or anything. Its not the coil packs as theyve been checked and swapped, it could be an injector but the garage doubts this as its running ok. I've tried the redex and wynns injector cleaner but with no such luck.
I've had a bit of trawl through the forums and spotted someone who had an EML light on and the car was lumpy, after some expense they traced this to a dodgy earth from the coil pack to the body. I'm willing to give this a whirl but doesnt anyone have a picture of where the earth is as I havent got a glue.

I'm start to lose the will to live on this thing

Cheers
 
Mine done a similar thing, turned out to be injectors 2 and 4, so just had them two changed and car ran fine after. my mechanic also sorted an inlet manifold problem at the same time and the job cost me £580
 
Mine goes tomorrow at a VAG specialist (former head of workshop of a big VW dealer) for that problem. As I'm off for 10 days hollydays, he will have plenty of time to investigate, experiment and sort this... I hope :)
Genuime S-Line springs (with the correct colour dots) will be fitted at the same time :)
 
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