Hello

I am new to this forum, from what I have seen it looks very good.

I have a S Reg 1.9TDi that on cold mornings started giving an audible tone and flashing the temperature warning light for about 1 minute. I assumed it was a low temperature warning .

I was installing a new car radio and had put the ignition on (engine cold, outside temperature about 12C) to carry out tests and got the same warning.

I have been through the manual a few times but cannot find any mention of an audible/flashing temperature alarm other than water level low/over temperature...

any ideas

Cheers

Frank

Check the coolant level in the expansion bottle,on a cold morning the coolant contracts,so if your level is borderline this is enough to bring up the warning.After coolant has warmed up and expanded a bit the warning clears.

There is a common fault in the vRS which gives the same symptoms you have. I think the general opinion is that the metal prongs inside the expansion tank get dirty over time and eventually start to play up. It does seem to be more of a problem in cold weather but certainly in my case the level was still correct.

I would imagine the TDi uses the same expansion tank so it's likely to suffer from the same fault.

A replacement tank is c£12 from Skoda IIRC, or I suppose you might be able to try cleaning the contacts.

I had the same issue on my Mk1 vRS, it didn't happen all the time, mainly during the cooler winter months. I ignored it for nearly 3 years .

Hi i have just bought mk1 octavia vrs and had this problem on cold mornings. On this site i followed the suggestion of gently cleaning the metal prongs inside the header tank with a flat screwdriver and fingers crossed it seems to have done the trick.

I would have thought a 'thumbs up' smiley would have been better suited there! Random!

I would have thought a 'thumbs up' smiley would have been better suited there! Random!

Nothing wrong with random.....:buttrfly:

I had the same thing at the first cold snap this year - the probes in the expansion tank are the problem.

Luckily it's a very easy fix:

Open the cap on the coolant expansion tank, you'll see 2 metal prongs going down to the base of the tank. Get a small flat blade screwdriver and gently scrape the prongs as much as possible to clear the oxidation from the prongs.

Since doing this a couple of months ago I've had no problems since.

Of course, check the fluid levels at the same time