Bank Holiday limp mode fun.

[Harrythecat]

Flo, our 2012 Cali. 140 SE has just under 50k miles on and has been largely problem free with the exception of the roof corrosion issue. She decided this morning to have a bit of fun with us.

Heading north from Le Mans to Calais after a 3 week jaunt around the Basque country and the west of France she decided to throw in the flashing engine management warning and go into limp mode. Bank holiday Monday in Northern France , no great chance of any technical assistance.

Limped to the nearest aire, stop/started her and off we go again, for another half hour or so, problem free until the morning coffee stop. Thinking it might be either a DPF issue or a sticking turbo thingy I try to vary the revs and gears a bit given she’s done a lot of mileage in high gear at comparatively low revs of late.

Start up again at the services and the EMS warning comes on again but after a stop/start again it goes off and instead it’s now showing the solid catalytic converter light instead. It’s running fine though and has got us to our overnight staging post for a morning ferry crossing.

Any thoughts on cause welcomed. The current plan is to continue home to the Peak District and hopefully then discuss with our local garage or the VW dealer in Sheffield, who in fairness have been very good.

Is it a real issue or the engine management fairy’s conspiring with Flo on a bank holiday prank?

 

[Azteccamper]

Flo, our 2012 Cali. 140 SE has just under 50k miles on and has been largely problem free with the exception of the roof corrosion issue. She decided this morning to have a bit of fun with us.

Heading north from Le Mans to Calais after a 3 week jaunt around the Basque country and the west of France she decided to throw in the flashing engine management warning and go into limp mode. Bank holiday Monday in Northern France , no great chance of any technical assistance.

Limped to the nearest aire, stop/started her and off we go again, for another half hour or so, problem free until the morning coffee stop. Thinking it might be either a DPF issue or a sticking turbo thingy I try to vary the revs and gears a bit given she’s done a lot of mileage in high gear at comparatively low revs of late.

Start up again at the services and the EMS warning comes on again but after a stop/start again it goes off and instead it’s now showing the solid catalytic converter light instead. It’s running fine though and has got us to our overnight staging post for a morning ferry crossing.

Any thoughts on cause welcomed. The current plan is to continue home to the Peak District and hopefully then discuss with our local garage or the VW dealer in Sheffield, who in fairness have been very good.

Is it a real issue or the engine management fairy’s conspiring with Flo on a bank holiday prank?

I had this last year on my 2012 Cali. Turned out to be a temp sensor on exhaust. It was cheaper to get it done in Portugal. Get a local garage to do a quick plug in when you get off the ferry to offer advice maybe?

 

[Harrythecat]

Thanks for that. Sound advice and I may well take it, but I may also just run for home if there are no further developments by the time I leave Dover to avoid the inevitable delay while the dealer finds a window to plug us in.

 

[Harrythecat]

So then when we started Flo this morning she was sulking and threw in another engine management flashing warning and limp mode. A few kilometers and a stop/start lost all the warnings but retained an ‘unofficial’ limp mode.

Shuffling around Calais port she suddenly woke up and operated normally. From Dover onwards she ran like a dream. Obviously homesick.

I’m non the wiser now so I’ll seek out someone who can download the data over the next few days to see if we can make some sense of it. My next trip involves towing a motorbike on a trailer so I’d rather not have a repeat.

 

[WelshGas]

So then when we started Flo this morning she was sulking and threw in another engine management flashing warning and limp mode. A few kilometers and a stop/start lost all the warnings but retained an ‘unofficial’ limp mode.

Shuffling around Calais port she suddenly woke up and operated normally. From Dover onwards she ran like a dream. Obviously homesick.

I’m non the wiser now so I’ll seek out someone who can download the data over the next few days to see if we can make some sense of it. My next trip involves towing a motorbike on a trailer so I’d rather not have a repeat.

Please let us know the outcome. I’m glad you made it home safely.

 

[Harrythecat]

Thanks Welshgas. I’ll update the thread so hopefully it may give others a bit of info. in the future.

 

[Harrythecat]

Download day at my local garage which revealed a number of fault codes but not a perfect picture. Problem seems to be that one fault can have a pinball effect triggering other codes and muddying the waters. Having said that suspicion tends towards the EGR valve or perhaps an allied sensor?

Plan is to wait for a fault code to kick in again and go from there.

 

[california.will-g]

Hopefully you'll get her sorted soon

 

[powysjune]

We had a very similar problem with our 2005 SE, and after lots of different diagnoses it turned out to be split pipes feeding the inter cooler. No idea why that caused the problem but after they were replaced it’s been fine.

 

[Harrythecat]

Thanks. Another potential cause!