Light came on when my wife reved pretty high in first gear. I dont know if thats a way to prevent damage or what. Its like it went into limp mode, but she turned the car off and back on again and it would run fine again. The light went off after about 20 minutes of driving. I can replicate the issue by just say taking off at a stoplight fast and then going into 2nd gear. I havent had it scanned because it goes off pretty quickly. I am nowhere near the rev limiter. Does anyone have a clue what may be causing this? Its an 04 JCW with no mods.

 

Have it scanned so you know what the cause is -- the code will still be there even though the light is out.

 

but you won't know what till you scan the car. There are lots of things that can throw a code. Limp mode isn't good, even if it goes away on a restart.

All modern car owners should own a scanner of some sort. For cases like this, or to know what to expect when you go to a service station (or to check to see if they're honest), or to use as a diagnostic for doing the work your self!

I'd really like if you bought an Innova scanner from me here or Bavarian Technics software from me here, but even if you don't buy from me, get a scanner of some sort.

While you might get lucky and have someone say "That happened to me and it was caused by this" it's also possible that the root cause of your problem is different. This could waste money by fixing what isn't broken, and you'll only know after you do the fix and the problem doesn't go away. Anyway, everyone should have a code scanner. The first time that it helps you fix a problem it will more than pay for itself.

Matt