So over the past two weeks, I've found a few quirks I can't for the life of me find answers for.

The first and very slight one is my indicator lamp (DSC Toggle Lamp) coming on and not able to be cleared until the next ignition cycle. I've noticed this generally happens if the car is NOT at normal temp and I slam on the pedal even a bit. Now its worth noting I've bad a belt chirping a bit when cold and I'm getting the parts in this week for it (idler pulley and tensioner) to try and rid myself of it. I read from one source that this could be caused by the expected and real boost being off because of the belt slippage, but that was the only occurrence I found.

The other issue (maybe slightly more severe) is the airbag lamp... So I did quite the research on it and every case I've seen the lamp would stay lit permanently until cleared by the dealer. HOWEVER, this seems to be intermittent. One day I'll go and start my car, no light and everythings good. The next day I'll go out and BAM red zit of death staring at me on my speedo. What gives?! It would make more sense if it was a permanent occurrence but why the heck would it be intermittent?!

I did at least get my OEM spark plugs in for their change today and put in a new coolant expansion tank to rid myself of the horrible leaking one before so there's some good news

Any insight would be appreciated guys and gals

 

Car year and model and mileage might give some more guidance. Any modifications, options like LSD etc...

 

Oh I apologize. I have an R53 JCW (Pre-Facelift). No mods done myself. No LSD either. I'm sitting right around 103k miles now.

 

I don't think the dsc would really react to a slipping belt...but weirder things have happened. Intermittent electrical issues in my experience on any car usually have to do with loose connections. Given the number of airbags diagnosing could be a bit tricky...I would start simple though. Check ground connections and make sure they are right...a loose ground can cause all kind of weird issues.

Unfortunately I don't have any other ideas..

Any other issues on your car up to this point or was this car purchased used.

Before you replace the tensioner and idler...have you inspected and or replaced the belt? How many holes can you see on the tensioner...should only be seeing one.

If you have a smaller pulley and didn't install a shorter belt..this would also be something to correct.

I personally like gates belts..napa is actually made by gates...so should be of good (maybe not the same as branded) quality.

 

Used to get that DSC light when I once had a bad tank of gas that caused random misfires. Since sticking w/ vPower, haven't gotten that back. It's commonly diagnosed as bad wheel speed sensor w/c is doubtful.

 

Yeah the DSC one just has me stumped. Especially since a quick ignition cycle will clear it.

It seems like a ground issue may be the cause, but interestingly when I drove this morning a bit my airbag light flipped on again while driving down the highway. I pulled on my seatbelt just to see if the gravity clutch would engage and BAM light goes out. What?! I guess I'm just thrown off since everything I've read states the light will be permanently on until a dealer sees your car.

I purchased the car used about 3 months ago, so I've been keeping an eye on the typical "problems". Went ahead and replaced my upper motor mount as that had started leaking in addition to the coolant expansion tank. Had a spark plug fail on me and replaced those as well. In addition, I do have the service records from the dealer to 75k miles. There's a gray spot in between that point and when I got the car (at ~ 90k) since her independent mechanic was taking care of it. She lives in the middle of nowhere so a dealer was kind of out of the question.

The belt stills seems fine (my father works for NAPA actually ha). However, the tensioner isn't showing any holes and I noticed that the other day... but the hydraulic damper hasn't seem to of made any of the noises that signal its failing. I was thinking maybe the previous owner's shop had put a belt too large on it since most independent shops don't exactly have the JCW option in their systems because of it being a dealer-installed kit.

My experience has also been with NAPA belts in general that they like to "harden" when cold and therefore are more prone to squealing until warm.

 

The dsc uses the same wheel speed sensors as the flat tire sensors (rotation not psi based on most every gen1, excluding some very very late r52 cabrios)....so if you are getting a light, and flat tire warning is not lit, the wheel speed sensors are ok....
That leaves the steering angle sensors and dsc computer/pump...
So till it becomes more bothersome, just live with it imo....it will get simpler to troubleshoot when more frequent.
Airbag light....just like odb2, ypu need to plug into it with a airbag tool, and get a code....you know it is not the most common mode of failure with a steady light.....but nothing else is known.

 

Yeah, all I run is vPower at a pretty busy station, so I don't think thats it. Interestingly though I have a story on the spark plugs.... So when I replaced mine this last time after one of them crapped out on me, I had to run a set of autolites temporarily (bleh) for a little bit. Never had a problem while those were in there. However, yesterday I got my NGK BKR7EQUP's put in for some piece of mind. Threw the DSC light taking off last night when the engine was a little above the quarter tick mark on the temperature gauge o.O. Could it be that if the car isn't "heated up" fully that it's missing because of the colder plugs if it gets put under moderate load? I know that seems pretty ridiculous but its just a thought. I didn't throw a service engine light so there's that and like I said, a quick ignition cycle rectified it.

 

Ah that's a very good point on the wheel speed sensors. I'll keep an eye out for the DSC light. It isn't of huge concern to me, but it is there. I was more wondering what causes it to trigger when its solitary like that (the engineering me is fascinated by failure modes. xD)

I'll talk to some of my local tuners and see if I can get them to help me out with the airbag thing then. Driving 150 miles to the dealer for a damn airbag light sure doesn't sound appealing to me...