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VW beetle

14 years ago

Hi,

I have a 2000 VW 2.0 Turbo Beetle. A couple of months ago my check engine light came on and the dealership said my computer needs to be replaced. I did not replace it bc it would be $1300 and the dealership said I would not have any problems if I did not replace it.

I have had no problems with my car, until yesterday. When I am driving the car, randomly the light alarm will come on and continue for a minute or so. My car will also sometimes not lock when I try to lock it with the remote.

What is going on?!

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Comment (1)

john_g
14 years ago
Issues like this cannot always be accurately explained in a "silver bullet" answer. The alarm lamp, and the issues with the door locks do suggest that a common failure with the drivers door wiring harness "might" be occurring but starting the diagnostics expecting to find that is a tactical mistake that I call "Tainted Intuition". You need a properly trained technician with the correct tool a VAG-COM, or preferably VAG5052 which would give the technician the ability to communicate with the body, immobilizer and door modules.

BTW, I don't agree with the assumption that the check engine light being on won't hurt anything. Your number one warning should another failure begin to occur would the the Check Engine light getting turned on. With the lamp already on, and obviously a hard code set you lose that warning because of course the light is already on. When the lamp is on, it means the car is suspected of polluting the air at least 1.5 times the FTP testing limit that the vehicle is certified to. The tendency for owners to ignore the lamp is the primary cause for active emissions testing in many states. Finally once the car noticeably runs bad and you finally decide to have it fixed, exactly where would you expect a technician to accurately start and stop the repair? You could have any number of active failures by then, and who knows how many blocked tests have failed to run because of the active failures. Replacing the PCM would not cost $1300 all by itself, what else did they say the car needed?
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