Emissions service/Check Engine light ON

Hey,

We drive a 2001 XC purchased last October, and now with about 16K miles on it. Great Car! Last week my wife called, distressed that the Emissions System Error message and Check engine light have come on. Car runs okay so I called the dealer and was told: "If the gas cap is not tightened to where it clicks you'll get this warning light. No problem to continue to driving. Fault must be reset by dealer on the computer." We figured we'd do it at the 15K service (which we're late on).

At the next fill up however, the light cleared and life is good. Keep it in mind when you're filling up.

Deet

[Hiro's XC]

A couple of points to add. NEVER leave the car running during a fill up. Other than a safety issue, you will screw up the emmisions system and trigger the check engine light. Also when the auto shut off happens, STOP! You can a dd a couple of cents to round it off but nothing more. You will damage the charcoal canister that is part of the emmisions vapor recovery system. You basically fill it up and it is not designed for that. They work better when you don't flood them. I cringe when I see people doing both at the service station.

Jason

[wiz]

This is very useful info, Hiro's XC. I knew about shutting the engine off while gassing, but not the charcoal canister.

Do they recover if you overfill?

[giralda]

Man, living in NJ where all the gas stations are full service almost guarantees that I will get these problems!  The gas dudes/dudettes are always trying to round it to the nearest 50 cents.  I have no idea if they will turn my cap until it clicks.  My only hope is the observation that almost every 10th car in my neighborhood is a Cross Country, and the gas dudes/dudettes know what to do.

[Hiro's XC]

Wiz,

Yes they do if they aren't to saturated. Gererally if the car has a week or so before the next fill up they are fine. Just don't do it to often. Also The .50c worth shouldn't make too big of a deal. There is about a 1.5 gal expansion area in the tank for the fuel to expand in hot weather. The return is located near the top of that chamber.

An interesting side note. On my TDI you can "VENT" the fuel tank. (there is a switch in the filler neck on diesels) By doing this you can add 2.5 more gallons to VW diesels. They have the same gas tank as the gas cars but don't need the expansion area and they don't have the vapor recovery system. By "venting" and filling to the top of the filler neck you can extend the range to 700 miles in day to day driving and over 800 on the highway. That's about 48mpg! If you keep the speed 65-68 you can get in the 52-55mpg range. But that makes for a LONG trip. I recently drove from Aurora,IL to Disney world, drove around for a week, came back via the carolinas to IL. Get this. 4 tanks of fuel. 3200 miles! The trip was for my company and the offered $750 for driving expense. I used $85 worth of Diesel! The last generation TDI Passat Wagons had a MUCH larger tank and can go 1100+ miles on a tank of Diesel!

Jason

[wiz]

Amazing. And of course Volvo are not going to sell their new diesel XC here. http://xc70.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

Is the information about the charcoal canister in the manual? Did I miss it? I mean, how are ignorant people like me supposed to know about this?

[Hiro's XC]

I believe that it just mentions that this should not be done for "enviromental" reasons. I rebuild old BMW's for a hobby and do all my own service work. So, by buying the manuals and tech books mostly Bently, you can find all the info you need. The 1999-2002 VW golf/jetta book is about 1500 pages!

The part is the dealers know important stuff like this. wThey should be telling every customer. Truely this is the one thing that the average joe can control about the service of their car other than checking the oil.

Jason

[wiz]

My wife picked the car up from the dealership. She got a 2 hour class on the car's features (she said I really should have been there) and I do not believe this was mentioned.

We have not had an exhaustive conversation about her class, but she did tell me about shutting the engine off while gassing (also in the manual) so it seems our dealer missed this particular one.

However I give the dealer credit for spending the time, even though they may have missed one or two things. I think many dealerships just give you the keys.

[Hiro's XC]

That's great. Not all dealers do this. We were just invited to the class from our dealer as well. I'm going to go to see how informative they are. Better to have an informed consumer that an ignorant one!

[wiz]

Absolutely. Now I see there is a piece in the manual about the vapor venting system.

However there is no stricture in bold type about topping the gas tank.

There should be an orange flyer (or something) that comes with the manual that provides the top 6 "do's & don'ts" for car care - READ THIS BEFORE YOU DRIVE YOUR CAR! - kind of thing.

Like what you get when you buy a computer - hey! stick the plug in the wall first!! http://xc70.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif