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VSA & engine management light

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skinnyman

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Location
United Kingdom
Car
2006 2.4 Type S
Car - 2006 2.4 Type S

So, driving down the M1 earlier and the VSA and engine management light comes on, and the car starts to stutter when lifting off the throttle, then went into limp mode, no power when accelerating. So I pulled over when I could and turned the engine off. After turning it back on the VSA light went out, but the engine management light remains on. It's now out of limp mode too. It's now driving fine again, with the VSA light gone, but the management light is still there.

I've had a search and anything VSA related seems to involve the light remaining on, so hoping this is a different issue.

So, any ideas?

Edit - Can this be ***ociated with battery issues in any way? I've just checked and there's what can only be described as white gunk on both battery terminals, fresh wet gunk too. I've read that this doesn't necessarily means it's dying, but I've never seen it on previous cars.

Edit no.2 - Just took it for a drive around the block to see if the VSA light would come back on with some speed. The brakes felt a little soft, so I took it down the main road and did some hard accelerating and braking. Accelerates just fine, and then after a few harsh braking attempts the engine management light disappeared, and the brakes are back to normal. So now the car is driving fine again.

What the hell is going on?!?
 
If the battery was able to start (and still starts) the car, then it should be ok, plus, the alternator should also be supplying all the power while the engine is running. But, are the clamps tight on the battery terminals ? If they are tight and you've not had problems starting the car then I can't see how the battery (or alternator) could be the cause.
 
Car starts fine, no issues when running radio & aircon etc, so I think it's unlikely to be the battery.

With the issues now going away, especially after braking hard, I'm leaning towards a faulty brake sensor maybe? I guess it won't show any error codes now that the EML has gone out though?
 
It should still have any codes stored, if you can get a reader, the codes might indicate what the problem was, but yeah you might be right about it being an issue with a wheel sensor
 
So I've finally gotten around to using my bluetooth code reader and it's come up with P2138 - Which is pedal position sensor. Bit confused though as it all went AWOL whilst on cruise control.

The car has behaved itself and I haven't had a repeat incident in the past month, and I did a 250 mile round trip to London last weekend, 90% on cruise control.

Should I just put this down to a random fault that has since gone away? Or is there anything I should be looking into?
 
You will need to replace the accelerator pedal position sensor. This is quite a common problem
 
The guys in US have the same problem. P2138 error, limp mode, check engine and vsa light on. Issue solved with app sensor replacement.
 
After doing some research on mine I'm going to give the connections a clean first, it hasn't done it for 5 weeks now so I don't think the senor has shot it just yet
 
Worth a try but it could be due to wear on the sensor. Mine did it twice in 4 weeks but I decided that was enough. Or you could go on for a while as you are and just clear the code when it happens.
 
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