Brake Light Fail, Bring up EPC & Engine Diagnostic Lights?

[Dopsonj]

Alright guys,

Just been down to my local Frosts Seat garage, after having a problem with the car, after pulling away in second, it would maintain a constant rpm, and carry on driving without me touching anything, which i was then told it was an anti-stall mechanism. But today the same thing happened, and the dash displayed the EPC and Engine Management light.

I decided to take it to my local seat garage, (Bad idea!) And they looked at it, ran a diag check and found a problem with "Load Sensor", and "found" two rear brake lights not working, which they claimed would be the cause of the EPC light, and engine management light.. Is there any truth it in? Reason i ask is because ive just been charged 42.50 for their 30 mins of time, plus another 1.56 for the two brake light bulbs, which i thought were in perfect working order. Giving a total bill of £51.77! Which is shocking for what they did...

So, any comments welcome!
Jack

 

[DEAN0]

Alright guys,

Just been down to my local Frosts Seat garage, after having a problem with the car, after pulling away in second, it would maintain a constant rpm, and carry on driving without me touching anything, which i was then told it was an anti-stall mechanism. But today the same thing happened, and the dash displayed the EPC and Engine Management light.

I decided to take it to my local seat garage, (Bad idea!) And they looked at it, ran a diag check and found a problem with "Load Sensor", and "found" two rear brake lights not working, which they claimed would be the cause of the EPC light, and engine management light.. Is there any truth it in? Reason i ask is because ive just been charged 42.50 for their 30 mins of time, plus another 1.56 for the two brake light bulbs, which i thought were in perfect working order. Giving a total bill of £51.77! Which is shocking for what they did...

So, any comments welcome!
Jack

£40 is about the norm from a stealer to hook the car up to the computer. complete ripoff

Yes - brakelights out can throw up a fault.

Do a search on here about the load signal wire - when it breaks it can cause various issues - it's in the engine bay and is an easy diy fix.

 

[ss55eat]

The engine managment detects when you are on the brakes and cuts fuel. This is also a safety mechanism for when the electronic throttle pedal fails at full throttle (like in a Toyota!); hitting the brakes will cut the power. The ECU can also detect when the brake light switch is not working properly and flags this up with the EPC light as this means you have no safety mechanism any more. It seems reasonable that all the bulbs failing will give a similar result. The Seat service guy told me to always check the brake lights if EPC comes on.

The price is normal for the dealer diagnostics check. It's worth getting the cable/software yourself if you have a laptop as it will pay for itself the first time you need to use it.

A friend at work had a Rover which randomly cut out sometimes when driving - including on the motorway. He eventually traced it to a rear stop/tail light bulb which was working but occasionally the 2 filaments were touching each other. This caused the ECU to think he was braking and cut the fuel off.

 

[Veyron]

Buy an ebay cable like me , cost me a tenner and is able to connect directly to a laptop to bring up fault codes !

 

[lbr66cov]

unfortunatley thats the dealers for you,in a way you got of lightly they could of messed about for about an hour and doubled the cost,you get me,,,i bought a portable diagnostic vagcom reader for about £80 of ebay and is updatable via the net it does all seats,vw,audis as most of my family and friends have these cars and it can save you a small fortune brings up all the fault codes and resets them after you have fixed the problem ,resets airbags,service lights etc and also does more blocks etc

 

[RUM4MO]

I'd reckon that the dealers are just charging you for the use of the equipment and training that they have invested in. Onboard diagnosics only appears to be a pain in the neck for us when the fault turns out to be a very small low value item, but without it, the diagnosing time might be even higher than the standard diagnostic scan check they run on the car. Electronics, ie "brains" are appearing more and more through consumer items - so we can't walk away from getting repairs that include diagnostics work first - its not donkey carts that they are working on! If all of us could do without using dealers then charges would drop - but they are needed, indie specialists are just folk that have learned stuff at dealers then moved on!

 

[ibizacupra]

... indie specialists are just folk that have learned stuff at dealers then moved on!

very broad comment there

some of us are qualified engineers with a passion for cars

 

[MrNorma]

The EPC light when the brake lights fail is a true fault. I had this just before Christmas and vagcom showed there was a brake in the circuit. Both bulbs where gone.

 

[techie]

Load sensor is more than likely a faulty throttle body which would explain the sticking revs so i'd keep an eye on that.

As for the diagnostic time being a rip off, well I want to get paid and the buisness will have to charge for my time to recoup that money never mind turning the lights on, paying the front counter staff to take your booking etc.

Wouldnt expect a chap to come out and fix you washing machine for nothing, even if it was 'just' a belt.