Epc light on engine misfire

[karlak]

If you guys can, try and get a VCDS (vagcom ) scan of the car before you take it in.  Then when the dealership simply "clears" the codes and tells you there was nothing wrong, you could produce the VCDS scan- assuming it shows a fault of course.

I would offer to do a scan for you, but a friend has my cable at the moment as his RS6 is poorly   .  I should have the cable back after this weekend though.

[JellyB]

Is that the MK dealership?  Got my car booked in there for Friday so will report back what they find (probably nothing!).

I will pop into Lancaster VW, was Wayside when I placed my order. Hope things go ok on Friday.

And Karlak, I am thinking of getting a VCDS cable actually. I'm with the car for a while and if it saves me one hour of workshop time it will easily pay for itself.

[Saha]

Hello
Has anybody had any joy when taking there car in for this fault.Thanks.

[Neil_MK]

My car was booked in to investigate this fault today.  The all too predictable outcome was that they couldn't replicate the issue so concluded NO FAULT FOUND on their report.  The diagnostics did confirm engine misfire on cylinders 1 and 2 so its a bit worrying that there clearly is an issue there that could reoccur but no root cause found.

[Rob916]

Mines been doing the same for a couple of months, the fault code just says a problem with no2 but main dealer can't even get it to happen even though I've told them how to replicate it ! Would love to know what the problem is ?

[JellyB]

Earliest I can make it into the dealership is next Tuesday, so I am expecting not a lot really.

Really does irritate me that I have to book time off work for them to even look at this issue.

Edit: Didn't get a call/email confirming the booking so I popped in there to ask why - and the reason was there was no booking..
So next time available (that I can take time off work) is March 12th. And dont get me started on the £12.50 courtesy car insurance fee..

Edit 2: Car went in for about an hour on Wednesday, fault code found cylinder #1 was mis-firing but was ok now. They advised me to pop back if it starts doing it again. I think it will happen more in the summer.

[kor0]

Ok, didn't want to resurrect this topic but I have a feeling this will start to happen to more people with the summer approaching.

First time I got the EPC light and misfiring engine was about a month ago, on a cool rainy day, at startup.
So, I started the engine (not really from cold but not hot either, I was coming after my lunch so at least 40 mins after previous run), the EPC light stayed on, the car was misfiring. I restarted the engine and all was fine.
Booked a visit to my local dealer, and they advised they found a misfire on cylinder 4 but everything was fine. Apparently they had no info in their system on the problem as the car is too new... so they sent me home with a pat on the back and told me to come again if it persists.

Well, today it happened again, following the exact same scenario. The car was parked while I was having lunch (in the sun this time), and soon as I started the engine I could feel the misfire and the EPC light stayed lit. Again it was fine after a restart.

Has anyone had any more luck with their dealership concerning this issue?
I'm not looking to waste any more time visiting mine this time round...
 

[EliteBajan]

I'm not sure why I'm not sleeping!!

I had this same problem happen to me several months ago. I booked it into the stealer and they told me the problem is that the engine runs at its least efficient at idle. So when the car is left to idle for a long period of time the engine management system is continually trying to optimise it and then this is when you get the EPC and rough running.

Since then I never leave the car idling for long periods of time and the problem has never reoccurred. Whether this is true or not I have no idea but it seems to have worked.

Unfortunately I now have a bigger issue around how the car is running......... 2 weeks ago the car went in for a service, 10k, and I told them that there was a slight smell of petrol especially when the heater fan was on. They checked it and said the high pressure fuel pump under the bonnet had a slight leak and needed changing. So it was booked in for the following week. They changed the pump and I collected the car and all seemed ok!

I did the school run, parked up and took my foot off the clutch and as it should the start/stop kicked in. As it was really hot that day I was running the AC so put my foot back on the clutch to start the car. The car then started to turn over but it was struggling to fire so I gave it a bit of gas and it started. Over the course of a couple of hours this happened 3 or 4 times. I spoke to the dealer who said that it might be a bit of air in the fuel line and it should clear itself if not bring it back in.

This was late Friday evening. So I'm in the car waiting at the station to pick up my daughter when I take my foot off the clutch (force of habit) then decide it's better to leave the car running. The car struggles again to start but it does. Then all of a sudden a warning message comes up, "error, auto handbrake not working" or words to that effect. Next thing I know the auto brake releases and the car starts rolling backwards. Thankfully nothing was behind me.

I call the dealer immediately but it's now nearing their closing time and there's no chance of me getting there in time for them to have a look at it. They suggest calling out VW Assist which I do Saturday morning. They turn up plug in the laptop and find that the car is misfiring on all cylinders but mainly cylinder 4. After about an hour he manages to clear the misfires but can't work out what the problem is. He tells me to book in with the dealer because it must be something to do with the work they have carried out.

Monday morning I take the car back to the dealer and it's now been there all week!! They have had a master technician working on it since Tuesday and he still can't work out what the problem is. The car is still misfiring and not running  right and they have said that the fuel pressure seems to be too high. Thus far they have tried swapping out several items on the fuelling side of things and now they are looking at the air intake side.

I've got a courtesy car but it doesn't make up for not having my car for a week and the updates haven't exactly been free flowing. I intend to go down to the dealer on Monday and camp out until they can explain to me what is the next step.

I have had the car approaching 9 months and I'm really disappointed that this has happened. I've had countless fast Fords without a single issue so find this really frustrating.

[JellyB]

Quick update: Since I had that issue in February, not had any repeat in the intervening 14k miles.

[Jackie Treehorn]

 I think someone mentioned on the first page that they let the car idle for an hour. I always understood this to be bad for the engine/camshafts, and also bad for the cats due to emissions at idle. Perhaps it doesn't matter on modern cars but still would avoid idle for anything more than 5mins if possible.