Hi! I believe my car idles weirdly. It stays stable around 900rpm but it sounds uneven. And once I rev it up to 2000rpm it drops back a bit under the idle rpm. I don’t know anything about these engines but it just seems weird. I thought it might be the air mass sensor but those engines doesn’t have it lol. Now I don’t know what to think so I am asking you guys. I will upload the video if idle/rev later. Also my fuel consumption is around 10l/100km (23mpg) however I drive it. I have been doing the test, driving to and back from work until fuel gauge is on red. It is mixture of city stop/go traffic and 70kmh open road. I got almost the same mpg in lower gears as I did in higher gears.
first step scan it for codes ideally, and check the ecu measuring blocks to make sure all sensors are reading correctly real time. disconnect the big round plug and pull the wiring loom from the engine, they're almost always cooked and split around the back of the inlet. here in the UK the breather heater isnt fitted, if its the same as yours you can strip that out entirely while you're there, its the 2 pin plgu with black and brown wires on the plastic breather pipe. the brown goes straight to head so thats easy, the black is tapped into the ignition live to the ISV. On that note, have a look at fuse 15 which is what feeds the ISV. if the loom is damaged as above this will usually be blown the idle switch is also worth a look, I've detailed the vagcom checks for this here and you may as well grab the label files while youre there makes life much easier when using vagcom/vcds: https://www.clubgti.com/forums/index.php?threads/vag-com-abf-digifant-label-files.199583/
I have a vag-com lite on my Mac (windows 10) and some blue obd2 cable from eBay. Can I check the sensors with that or I need some better program / cable. And how am I supposed to do that? I am not familiar with the vag-com Tacks for helping
vagcom or vcds-lite will both do the trick for this, you can scan and clear codes plus check ecu measuring blocks with the freeware version which is all you need for the label files you download the file from that link above and extract the .lbl files into the vagcom\labels directory, then it should pick them up automatically to make the measurign blocks easier to understand. so get into them you need to click the top left button to get into the control unit selection, and pick 01-engine for the ecu. once its connected you can then check and clear fault codes, and go to meas. blocks - 08 to see all your sensor inputs. click the up and down buttons to cycle through, you can read up to 3 blocks at a time but it can get quite slow doing that so I would just go one at a time for now
Ok, i extracted the .lbl files to labels directory. I am not sure that I understand what that would do, but you said it would help me to understand something better. I am a real newbie, so I dont even know what I am looking for? Temperature, engine speed, etc? Should car be running when I start the VCDS or just the ignition on? How would I know if some sensors are not working as they should?
All they do is give more descriptive names to all the ECU measuring blocks, so rather than 'temp' it'll say 'coolant temp' for example You can check some.blocks.with just ignition on, for example throttle angle, idle switch, coolant and inlet temps. And some that need engine running such as idle rpm, isv, lambda voltage etc Then it's a.case of compare the values to what is expected, so inlet temp would need to be close.to ambient temperature, throttle angle should match to how far open throttle is (it maxes out around 70 degrees fyi) lambda.voltage needs to fluctuate while running, coolant temp needs to match what you expect temp is comparing to dash coolant and oil temp values etc
Hi It works only with the engine off, as soon I start the car it says “no response from controller” I tried to close and re open the software and try again many times. As soon I click on 01-engine it starts reading as usual and then it says “no response” Am I doing something wrong?
hmm thats a bit odd. if its a later car maybe the immobiliser box is playing up, once the engine has started you can unplug the little 6 pin from it and loop a wire between the 2 grey wires in the plug to bypass it, try that and see if you get ecu comms
Yes it might be. Mine is an anniversary edition mk3 1997. Last year of mk3 I believe. I found some abs fault code, but the abs lamp does not indicate anything. It turns on for a second when the car starts and then turns off as it should do… although I performed the panic braking at 60mph, the wheels lock, so abs is not working lol. Bit off topic but you might know where i should start looking?
Which one is the 6pin? so I should start the engine, unplug that 6pin and bridge 2 gray wires, then start the VCDS and try to read the sensors? I never did anything like that before so I am clarifying for myself what I am supposed to do
