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EDC light questions while pushing it

zetapsi827

New member
Hi all.
I looked around this and other forums for answers on this and can’t seem to find any.

i have been tracking my mk7 PP GTI MT for 3 years now. I never had an issue the first couple years. This year I am much faster than when I first started and I am whipping that car around the track pretty good. My last 3 events the EDC light has come on and the car goes into limp mode. Can’t go above 4k RPM. But I por, turn the car off and back on. Light goes away and the car works as normal.

I am getting frustrated I can’t push it any harder for fear of the light and damage to the car.

Does anyone know why this is happening and how to prevent it from happening?

car is stock, no mods except brake fluid and pads.

Thanks
 

zetapsi827

New member
Where would I get one?

I called the dealer to see if they can run the diagnostic for me on it. They said they wouldn’t be able to find anything unless the light was on.

they claimed the error codes were not saved in its memory or history.
 

victorofhavoc

Autocross Champion
Location
Kansas City
Where would I get one?

I called the dealer to see if they can run the diagnostic for me on it. They said they wouldn’t be able to find anything unless the light was on.

they claimed the error codes were not saved in its memory or history.

You can also get an obdeleven from any of the big VAG retailers (shopdap, urotuning, ngp, ecs, map, bmp, etc). The dealer is full of it, the codes go back as far as needed until they're cleared. It even records the rpm at which the code was thrown, elevation, time, and some other data.

For me, the EDC light comes on regularly on hard right turns when the PCV floods, sometimes under very hard braking, and most often when making fast rights at the top of hills. The car usually gets a misfire and then hides a cylinder and the whole thing sounds even more like a tractor until I limp it to the pits. This only happens when the car is warm and I'm running my fastest laps.

You'll know what's happening once you scan the thing :).
 

zetapsi827

New member
Victor,
Is your car still doing that on the turns? Or did you find a way to solve it? This sounds similar to what is happening to me. I get a misfire. And cluncking sound. Someone behind me said he saw white smoke out my exhaust.

Has anyone just asked the dealer “I don’t believe you. Scan the cpu and tell me what you find?”
 

victorofhavoc

Autocross Champion
Location
Kansas City
Victor,
Is your car still doing that on the turns? Or did you find a way to solve it? This sounds similar to what is happening to me. I get a misfire. And cluncking sound. Someone behind me said he saw white smoke out my exhaust.

Has anyone just asked the dealer “I don’t believe you. Scan the cpu and tell me what you find?”

It was doing it pretty much all year, and I just topped off the oil between sessions. I haven't had any oil pooling in the cylinder, so it's getting burned off, and a restart fixes it so I was waiting until winter to tear it apart and fix it. I'm addressing it around February. Coincidentally, running a heavier oil helped with the blow by slightly, which i would believe is due to the greater viscosity at temp. It was still there, but it was two small tufts of blue smoke instead of two big blue/white plumes.

There are two methods to really address the symptoms.

Option one is to try a catch can. There are two kinds; the ones that replace the pcv and either leave the vent open or baffled. I believe the racingline one has slight baffling, while the others on the market have limited/no baffling. This means the catch can will collect any overflow and you'll be dumping frequently. If you go this route and you live in an area where temps reach freezing, you'll want to go back to stock during winter months or dump the can very, very frequently because any build up there can contain water, and if it freezes will cause issues. The catch cans that keep the pcv in tact just collect anything the pcv would have dumped into the intake into the can. These are also cheaper, but i've heard a few reports that people are seeing the gunk still creep out of the can and into the intake. Proper baffling and regular emptying of the can should hopefully help this.

Option two is to address the issue at the source by installing a baffled oil pan. iAbed is the only one i've seen so far with proper baffles in place, and from all the reports I've read and heard of, it has resolved the blow by issue. One report from a Golf R owner I see on track occasionally (he's not a regular social media/interwebs user) said he sometimes gets some blowby with the baffled pan, but he's running a lightened car on true R-comps and pulls racecar levels of Gs. He was supposed to fit a catch can that was going to plumb back down into the oil pan as extra insurance, but i haven't seen or heard from him in a while so I don't know how that ended.

I usually talk openly/honestly with the dealer and they don't give me the run around, but i also know the guy that owns the dealerships and I'm pretty technologically/mechanically inclined so they wouldn't outright lie to me.
 

zetapsi827

New member
Thanks for the input victor. Sounds similar to what I’m seeing. The oil level light came on my last track day and I had to replace almost a liter.

I'm in AZ so I don’t have to deal with the cold temps at all. Heat is a different issue.

I will still look to see if the dealer can check the codes and look into the OBDeleven.

its really annoying not being able to push the car harder for fear of this problem. It feels unsafe if I have someone behind me and I lose power suddenly.
 

jimlloyd40

Autocross Champion
Location
Phoenix
Car(s)
2018 SE DSG
Thanks for the input victor. Sounds similar to what I’m seeing. The oil level light came on my last track day and I had to replace almost a liter.

I'm in AZ so I don’t have to deal with the cold temps at all. Heat is a different issue.

I will still look to see if the dealer can check the codes and look into the OBDeleven.

its really annoying not being able to push the car harder for fear of this problem. It feels unsafe if I have someone behind me and I lose power suddenly.

You can get an OBD plug in device on Amazon for $15 and use the Torque app on your phone to read the codes. That's the least expensive way to do it. You'll be able to clear the codes and there's gauges and data logging also.
 

victorofhavoc

Autocross Champion
Location
Kansas City
Thanks for the input victor. Sounds similar to what I’m seeing. The oil level light came on my last track day and I had to replace almost a liter.

I'm in AZ so I don’t have to deal with the cold temps at all. Heat is a different issue.

I will still look to see if the dealer can check the codes and look into the OBDeleven.

its really annoying not being able to push the car harder for fear of this problem. It feels unsafe if I have someone behind me and I lose power suddenly.

It's actually a fairly common issue on a lot of cars. You have to be moving pretty fast and on stickier tires to get it to happen. Higher boost and higher temps tend to make it much more apparent.
 

xXDavidCXx

Autocross Champion
Location
AZ
Car(s)
2017 GTI SE DSG
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