Temperature Light Time of Year
Hi all,
I’m in the Northeast and now that it’s winter my temperature light goes off every morning. ( Red light with nice beep) As many of us know simply restarting the car solves the problem and life is good. Black tape on the dashboard and earplugs would also solve this.
I got my Certified Pre-Owned 10 months ago, shortly after purchasing I took it in for service with the same problem. (2002 Jetta GLS 1.8T, Auto, curently 50,000M)
According to service they just needed to “”Reconnect Wire to Auxiliary Water Pmp”". Well that is very nice and I have full Confidence that this missed connection must have been inspection number 113 and therefore was overlooked in the 112 Point Inspection by a Volkswagen Technician, VW CPO.
I read somewhere that this cold weather light was really a sensor problem. (Or perhaps it is a new feature to tell me that it is cold outside?) Anybody else experiencing this phenomenom or know of the vailidity of the so callled “”silent recall”"
Post edited 12/10/05 1:05 PM by peterd1965
Post edited 12/10/05 1:06 PM by peterd1965
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DDW12Phaeton Said,
December 10, 2005 @ 2:30 am
Temperature Light Time of Year – Hey there.
I have a 1.8T GLI and live in Michigan, where it also gets very cold. I am pretty sure I know what you are talking about. Do you have a display on your car to tell you what the temperature is? I can’t remember if the GLS had this.
Anyway, on my Jetta when I think it drops below 32 or 28 Fahrenheit, something like that, the temperature flashes and there is a beep. Are you talking about your engine temperature? Volkswagen does have this feature to tell you it’s freezing balls outside.
peterd1965 Said,
December 10, 2005 @ 2:39 am
Re: Temperature Light Time of Year – Hi,
No sorry I was actually being a little sarcastic.
I am talking about the temperature sensor, perhaps it is the coolant flag? It looks like red thermometer. It does not actually tell the temeraprture in degrees ( like some luxury cars or outdoor thermometers).
Point is that soon as the season changes to cooler temps it goes off. I bought my car last February and brought back for service in March (temps were getting milder and alarm was not going off so much) So I am not positive that VW reconnecting the wire solved the problem or if it just happened to be gettitng warmer. Anyway a quick re-start and the alarm stops going off.
297 Said,
December 12, 2005 @ 6:52 am
Temperature Light Time of Year – One quick check: open the engine and take off the engine cover (that fancy piece of plastic that says 20VTurbo or 1.8Turbo or whatever). Off to the driver’s side of the engine is the coolant temparature sensor. If you are able to spot it quickly, as in, there’s a green-colored cap easily spotted amidst the black, gray, and silver of the engine, then the sensor probably isn’t a problem. If you don’t see anything with a green cap, then it may be the coolant temp sensor (the green capped one is the newer one). You can buy it at the dealership for under $10 and replace it yourself.
How to guide
peterd1965 Said,
December 14, 2005 @ 11:34 am
Temperature Light Time of Year – Hey thanks,
Soon as its warm enough to hold a screw driver I’ll check it out & report. Great tip.
Thanks
peterd1965 Said,
December 17, 2005 @ 10:49 am
Temperature Light Time of Year – Thanks again, seems to be a consensus:get the green one
peterd1965 Said,
December 21, 2005 @ 8:29 am
Re Re: Temperature Light Time of Year – Ok here is the latest for anyone interested:
My car is CPO so I opted to take to a VW dealer to have them check out the issue with my temperature sensor. I have owned this one for 9 months and 8,000 miles, it is a showroom conditon as the day I picked it up.
VW still has my car (02, jetta 1.8t, auto, 50K) Actually this time I took to a differernt dealer because the one I bought it from has looked twice, (3 times fi you cout the CPO test) and said nothing is wrong.
I dropped car off at 7:30 am.
I called service at 2:00 to check status – tehy had not diagosed yet.
Service called me at 3:30 to say sorry but haven’t looked yet.
Service alled back at 5:30 to say that they put in new temp sensor but that wasn’t it. Turns out it needs a new coolant tank. ( I forget details but will post later). Rep also said that further diagnosis showed that my catalyctic converter had gone bad but luckily that is covered for 8 years or 80, 000, otherwise it would be $2,000. Rep told me new coolant tank will be here by Friday and it would be $130 for part. I said hold on I am CPO? He said he would look to see if that was covered. As of writing I have not heard back.
My two cents… I am pretty easy going but I can see why this company could never, ever, ever build a $75,000 car. Also the service dept is really nice but again if I had a $75k car I would expect more from service. Also the VW CPO is just that – text. I have no doubt that it is marketing and that there is no test. Sure check the tires, change the oil, and put 2/24 warranty and patch the holes when the car comes back. Too bad. I like the car but once this warranty is over – or if this is not covered by the warranty it is being sold. ( I just gotta stop reading about the TwinCharger potentially coming to the US!) glutton for punishment
peterd1965 Said,
December 22, 2005 @ 8:14 am
Temperature Light Time of Year – 1) Yeah well my tool kit is minimal and I heard that I would be spilling coolant and my landlord is kind of picky about his driveway. Plus it’s under wanrranty and this VW dealer is walking distance from my office. Also I really wanted a second opinion ( the dealer I bought it from being the first) the first dealer looked at it twice (three if you count the CPO test) and said they could find nothing. Plus had I changed the temp sensor I would have never found out about the cat, and if the sensor did not work VW may have blamed me and covered anything else. VW doesn’t exactly have the best rep when it comes to forgiveness or coming forward about their own msitakes.
2)Supposedly I pick it up tomorrow and I will detail the service – they informed tme today that everyhting is under warranty.
In truth I cannot blame this service center. I am not feeling good about the first dealer’s competence.
297 Said,
December 22, 2005 @ 10:13 am
Temperature Light Time of Year – 1. Why didn’t you try swapping the sensor in yourself first?
2. A cat is not $2,000. Even the stock cat is less than $400 and it takes all of 1 hour to swap out.
I’m not liking this service center.
peterd1965 Said,
December 24, 2005 @ 11:12 am
Coolant and Catalytic Repair Summary – Happy Holidays all. Got the car back last night. It is running better than ever. For the last 8 months what seemed to be a transmission problem, jerky acceleraion, I now attribute to the clogged cat and with new cat that problem seems to have disappeared. Regrettably I had the car looked at twice at the previous dealer, I complained about these jerky quirky shifts and they too must have looked at the transmission and declared nothing wrong. Would have been nice if that dealer went the extra mile and checked the exhaust flow.
I looked under the hood and I see the new coolant tank – however if doed not look like they change the sensor. The below parts list seems to indicate that they did not gve me the new green sensor, just a a new coolant tank. Unfortunately it is quite warm today and I my temp sensor light did not go off. So I will have to wait for it to get cold again to see what happens. Repair bill was $0.00
As promised here is my holiday shoppping (repair) list:
CUSTOMER STATES THE TEMP LIGHT IS ON.
19401900 REMOVE AND INSTALL EXPANSION TANK
01320022 TECHNICAL DIAGNOSIS
1 1J0 121 403 B TANK
DURING DIAG NOTED HAD DTC FOR CAT, DIAGNOSIS AND
REPAIR AS REQUIRED
26731913 REMOVE AND INSTALL CATALYTIC CONVERTER
01290023 VAS 5051/5052 FAULT FINDING DIGNOSIS
01310062 SET READINESS CODE
01210004 ROAD TEST
1 1J0 254 501 CX CATALYST
1 357 253 141 A CLAMP
1 1J0 253 115 R GASKET
4 N 102 090 05 NUT
Post edited 12/24/05 11:13 AM by peterd1965
YupOldBull Said,
December 27, 2005 @ 3:24 am
Another design flaw…….(?) – Coolant mystery……Coolant (in some cases) leaking from rear tail lights!
http://www.myvwlemon.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/001887.html
V-dubber Said,
December 27, 2005 @ 12:30 pm
Temperature Light Time of Year – Wooo hoo! Congrats’
cathy Said,
December 28, 2005 @ 8:52 am
don’t ignore temperature light problem – I have a 2002 vws jetta 1.8T. I am in nj, and I have seen the temperature light on often since I owned the car. (for about 4 years of suffering) I did send it to dealer to repair and it was fixed for a while then came back on. So this winter when I saw it, I just ignored it because I assume it was false alarm again. I did try to add some coolants but the light still stayed on.
Yesterday, when I was driving, the check engine light went on with the temperature light and the car broke down. White smoke came out of the engine. I tolled the car to the dealer, and was told the water pump is gone and auxillary water pump is broken and both need to be replaced. My car just run out of warranty period, so basically I have to pay for it myself. The total charge came out to be $1100. What a very nice Christmas gift from VW!!
I asked the service guy how come my water pump worn out. He basically said well, the quality of water pump is random, and manufacture warranty on it is just 12,000 miles, so after that, it is basically luck.
So don’t ignore the tempearture light, even it came up often. Send your car to check for water pump problem before your warranty is out.