Ok mates VRS other night has managed to smoke from under the bonnet. Turned engine off and lifted bonnet and smoke from left hand side of engine. AA couldnt work it out, its at a skoda dealer now, but they cant get VAG com to talk to it and have guesssed a ECU gone f****ed and started smoking maybe.

Any ideas? Anything common on these?

Cheers

Sheldon

nowt like that been posted previously that i have seen.

It may not be the ECU, could be wiring fault , which is the most likely. i would have thought they would checked that given they cant get to ECU.

From my experience with computers, Processors will just die & everything that it controls stops working, & you said that you switched the car off.

A popped ecu would have stopped feeding fuel & the car would have died.

You didnt say whether there was a smell or what type of smell in the smoke.

Good luck finding out the fault, I noticed from your sig that you have an SDi, which is supposed to be a stonkingly economical car for its age.

I did, I just sold it to my uncle and got my lupo GTI back as my daily. I was getting 62mpg average, however she did a fair few motorway miles and that is poo for them. At 70mph they only doing 58-59mpg whilst the 10 miles a road to work I could get computer upto 86mpg average for trip! They are better round town then motorway. The gap between a 500+bhp TT and a 67bhp SDI was too great. lol

Mate never said anything about smell. Will tell him more likley wiring. Just sent him a email.

I belive he cant just change ECU as you have to take clocks and barrels etc... all from same vechile, true?

When you turn ignition on now. Battery light is on, however all electric windows work etc..... smell was probally a plasticy one he says. Im guessing its prob not ECU then?

Take the cover off the battery and check the fuses on top of battery

These are prone to welding themselves together

Take the cover off the battery and check the fuses on top of battery

These are prone to welding themselves together

+1

Happened to me a while back. Car was running fine then just stopped!

Turned out to be the fuse on top of the battery that runs to the alternator was naff and had melted threw the plastic covers. Cost £2ish for a fuse and a new terminal connector and it's been fine ever since

He must change the terminal end on the wire or it could repeat itself......Skoda tech told me when mine happened.

Turned out to be the fuse on top of the battery that runs to the alternator was naff and had melted threw the plastic covers. Cost £2ish for a fuse and a new terminal connector and it's been fine ever since

He must change the terminal end on the wire or it could repeat itself......Skoda tech told me when mine happened.

iirc that is caused by high resistance in the alternator cable (quite often the crimp ends), or sometimes the nuts in that fuse box become loose.

I've heard of a coilpack catching fire before, and the fusebox on the battery smoldering.

Smoke from left hand side of engine? That's where the fuel hoses are that run to fuel rail, so could get serious if the fire spread.

So the car went to Skoda for them to inspect after a fire in the engine bay, and they tried looking for error codes! Pretty funny! Surely they should trace it very easily.

The ECU isn't in the engine bay anyway, it's in the scuttle panel, which is sealed from the engine bay when the bonnet is closed.

If it was just smoke, and no fire, or trace of fire, it could have been oil on the exhaust manifold/turbo/downpipe.

Don't let Skoda sell your mate a new ECU without diagnosing it properly!! A second hand ECU will work, but you will have to have the immobiliser feature written out of it (tuners like Shark can do that, and probably have a spare ECU to try).

Like others have said, check the fuses on the battery, and the coilpacks first.

LHS when sitting in the driver's seat or when standing in front of engine?

Take the cover off the battery and check the fuses on top of battery

These are prone to welding themselves together

iirc that is caused by high resistance in the alternator cable (quite often the crimp ends), or sometimes the nuts in that fuse box become loose.

Agree with these , try the Fuse box first, It is common to have a loose connection or poor alternator connection. As the first fuse in the box is rated at 110Amps to control alternator any slight connection problem and the fuse will melt the plastic housing which could be what you have smelt. :yes:

The other fuses control radiator fans and ABS

I regulary check mine just in case. I can start to see a crack in plastic where someone has over tighten nuts and started to pull through the bolt out of the plastic so is my next job to replace.

You can see it is slightly lifted on first fuse (black cable)

Don't change ECU yet without full diagnosis

another vote for fuse box here it happened to me

Same here fuse box but I just got random lights on the dash and switched off straight away as i knew what it was

Coil pack melted and melted some of teh wiring, auto elec sorting it today!

Coil pack melted and melted some of teh wiring, auto elec sorting it today!

Bingo! (Do I get a medal for mentioning coilpacks?!)

Has your mate has his coilpacks replaced for free under the recent coilpack recall?

He also might want to replace the coilpack loom now, to stop it happening again. Awesome sell that section of the loom http://www.awesome-gti.co.uk/product.php?xProd=33405&xSec=294