Engine management light.....

[ethmanp]

Ok guys and girls - recently whilst driving, my engine management light came on:

008213 - Intake Manifold Flap Position Sensor (bank 1)
P2015 - 000 - Implausible Signal - Intermittent - MIL ON

Diagnose this as a sticky flap from what I have read/heard from the chap who plugged it in? Do you think it might be worth giving it a good clean and starting with that or is it likely to happen again and am I wasting my time - just get it replaced? I know it's not going to be cheap to replace it!

Car is at 60K miles and had a new engine 7K miles ago (timing chain tensioner fault).

Any thoughts and advice greatly appreciated.

[Rgdogg]

I had the same problem when I went stage one, new inlet manifold was required as the flap and sensor are one unit, luckily it was covered under warranty.

[RocketRossUK]

50% of the time you will need a new inlet manifold, but there a few things you can try first.

Sometimes it just gets slightly stuck due to dirt or carbon build up which can cause the light to come on. I dont know how you drive your car, but its good practice to drive aggressively a couple of times a week, like really give its the bean, redlining through the gears. This is it self can prevent a lot of carbon build up and blow out some of the existing build up.

In conjunction with the above you can also use SeaFoam to try clean out a lot of gunk, I use it once a year and a ton of crap comes out.

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmMvi7o6Ja4

Or you can also try cleaning the inlet manifold manually which is pretty easy:

Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6McP_FmZ9Lk

[ethmanp]

Thanks for the links Ross - i'll be sure to try the sea foam before i take the plunge.

I don't drive it every day so when I get in it, I do like to give it a good thrashing! After all that is why I decided to buy a GTI!

[joe6]

Had the same problem. Researched the various solutions that did not require dismantling but they seem generally to lead to disappointment.

First found the problem about a year ago when doing a routine VCDS scan but no engine management light (EML). Reset the error and only recently has the EML come on for the first time. Biting the bullet and getting a new intake manifold fitted - total cost £450.00 with 2 years parts and labour by a VW indie.

VW customer service put any goodwill onto the dealer who was initially going to charge £650.00 and only offered a small reduction on that. Seems to me that VW customer service want to drive us away from main dealers!! Certainly don't offer them much support.

Couple of useful videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvfVUkuPY0k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7c35MJq5e0

[golfhappy]

Dinnae want to burst anybody's bubble, but customer service is poor in any sector! Now thats not to say that there will be some good outcomes, but they'll be few and far between.