98 TDI beetle CHECK ENGINE light

[bratt]

im looking at this vw beetle and he owner said the check engine light is on because the seats are not the origional heated seats.

so basically the heated seat plug is turning on the check engine light?

How do i do a scan on this beetle to find out the real problem. is the seats really a check engine trigger?

[hako]

Sounds a bit dodgy to me!. If you do a scan with a Vag-Com it should show any logged faults but if you're starting off with a car that has been fiddled with you may get a lot of logged faults that are not there and vice-versa.

[bratt]

I did some research on this Vag-Com reader.
is the Vag-Com the same as a OBD2 connector

the owner said that the 98 beetle TDI can not be read with an OBD2 scanner

[thomdan]

The 98 beetle TDI can be read with the Vag-Com and should be readable with the cheaper OBD tools (though I haven't tried one of these tools). If the car has an aftermarket radio, the owner is probably right. VW radios are diagnostic radios connected to the data bus - most aftermarket radios emit power over the K (diagnostic) wire in the radio wiring harness which will then not let the Vag-Com or OBD tools read the computer. You can fix the problem by removing one pin from the radio wiring harness connector.

Read this page:
http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/aftermarket-radio.html

The check engine light could be due to many possible problems - many are cheap and easy to fix. I just replaced an coolant temperature sensor that cost about $6 from Autozone and I replaced myself in about 10 minutes. I wouldn't buy the car with the check engine light on (unless you have the diagnostic read-out on fault codes) unless you can get it at one heck of a good price and are willing to take a gamble.

[hako]

There is a scanner on Ebay for under $50 Australian which is supposed to read VWs. Do a GOOGLE on code scanner.

[bratt]

honestly i dont think a heated seat that is unpluged would trigger the CHECK ENGINE Light

I t might trigger the airbag light and thats all.

I will see if autozone will let me use a scanner thanks for posting