I recently had my ESP light come on and as I had a student coming up for his driving test, I thought I'd better get it looked at straight away!

 

I took it to Trans-City Skoda as my usual dealer has disappeared, (Preston) 

 

They were very quick to discover the fault was in the brake light switch, along with a couple of brake light bulbs. I had suspected bulb failure a few days prior to the problem but on parking next to a van, I noticed they were indeed, working so didn't even re-think of that.

 

Any Hoo-Ha, diagnostics and replacement of offending part came to a total of £137, which is better then finding a major fault in the system, but quite a chunk more then the sum of the parts that were less then £20 of that bill!

 

I am mentioning this as, a check to see if bulbs are working is easy and if they are, its not that.

Thats quite some price.

I did the same job on a Polo. Took 5 mins and the part was £17.

VW when asked wanted £70 to diagnose before they did anything... Even though i told them im 90% sure its the switch.

Took an educated gamble and it payed off

Edited 2 September, 201510 yr by fabiamk2SE

I would have done and in hindsight, had the tech guy mention the possibility, I would have checked first but due to impending test candidate, any warning light and/or no rear brake lights would have meant no test!iiiii  This is why I mentioned the dilemma as others may benefit from my experience! Hopefully, someone will save a chunk of dough by reading and remembering this if their ESP light stays on.

 

First check the bulbs and then the  switch,

as a massive bill will be a bitch!