Hi All,

I've recently bought a W Reg Fabia 1.4 Elegance and I'm experiencing a couple of problems.

The first is to do with when the car is idling. The rev's jump up and down quite erratically between 500 - 1000rpm or so. It doesn't always happen, but it's becoming more and more frequent when I drive and the longer it's idling, the more erratic the idling gets.

The second problem I have is that the red oil pressure light (with it's accompanying beep!) has come on 3 times over the past month whilst driving. If I turn the car off and on again, the light goes away. When the light comes on, the car doesn't drive any differently at all. I've had the RAC out who checked the oil and said it was fine and they also did a computer diagnostic check on the car which came out with a fault code for the EGR (can't remember exact wording as I've left the paperwork at home).

The car was serviced and MoT'd about a month ago if that helps.

Unfortunately I'm not very mechanically minded, so I'm hoping to be able to pass any answers on to my dad who is competent and (armed with his haynes manual!) will be able to do what's necessary - unless it needs to go to a garage :(

Does anyone have any ideas?

McMx

mass airflow related at a guess bud.

EGR Fault is probably caused by the pipe that runs into the bottom of the EGR being blocked with crap, not the actual EGR - a cheap fix.

Red light is oil pressure warning not an oil level warning, which could mean a blocked oil pipe or an oil pump dying.

I'd be very worried about that myself and not be guessing. Oil starvation is a dead engine.

EGR Fault is probably caused by the pipe that runs into the bottom of the EGR being blocked with crap, not the actual EGR - a cheap fix.

Not always but its usually that.

Wont be an air mass meter issue, doesnt have one.

There is plenty on here about the erratic idle of the 1.4 16v engine, just look up some of my recent posts for instance. If you are having all of these problems with a relatively newly bought car, I'd take it back and demand all is fixed under the sales of goods act. Good luck and I would seriously get the oil light checked out at a main dealer/VW specialist as it could be the sign of something major.

I'd go along with the usual EGR pipe blockage fault/dirty throttle body and also say that the spurious oil pressure warning is due to a faulty oil pressure sensor. Did you buy the car privately or from a dealer?

Hi all,

Thanks for your responses.

On the way home from work, the red oil pressure light came on and then went and then came on again a few minutes later so I pulled up where I could and called out breakdown recovery.

The man checked the car out and said that it had enough oil, wasn't leaking, wasn't smoking, didn't smell of burning or anything and said he thought it was the fuel pressure switch that was faulty. The light didn't come on during the time he was there and the car was running fine. I drove it home without a problem.

I asked him about the erratic idling and he said that it could be blocked idle control valve that just needs cleaning and that I should book it in to a garage to get it all checked out.

I bought the car privately so unfortunately I don't have any warranty.

As suggested by Tag1_uk, I'll go and do a search of this forum for similar problems and see what I can find.

I guess I'll start with getting the fuel pressure switch replaced and getting the egr pipe and idle control valve cleaned and hope that sorts it...if it doesn't it'll be a process of elimination from all the suggestions I find on this site!

Thanks,

McMx