Hello, my first post sadly concerns an inherited problem.

Having fallen for a used (well used at 147k) 2008 2.0 TD sport I have now spent a month uncovering the extent of my naivety. One of the most worrying signs is that the engine warning and DPF lights do not light up on turning the key in the ignition. These have undoubtedly been snipped or disconnected by an unscrupulous so-and-so, rather than properly diagnosing and curing a blocked DPF issue (which I am in the process of trying to address).

Am I right in thinking this will fail an MOT next year if the warning lights are inoperative?
Where should I look to find where these have been disabled?

Many thanks for any help with this!

Richard

 

Well, I did eventually find some guidance to locate the culprit. There are three screws on the underside of the steering column, one of these (the lowest) is hard to get to but I managed it with a combination of stubby screwdriver (philips), swivel attachment on a regular box handle screwdriver and a prayer. Pry the top of the steering column casing away and out, there are a couple (I think two, one left one right?) of screws that keep the instrument cowling in place, these come out and you pull the cowling towards you.

The instrument panel itself has the clear plastic window clipped on, I took this off carefully releasing the clips around the edge of the whole instrument bezel.
Now, I wasn't sure how to get to the 'bulbs' but after a bit of poking around I realised that the face of the instrument panel is a thin plate, under which is the plastic try which is segmented to separate the illumination of different dash lights. I lifted this up very carefully (the rev needle moved, which worried me, but it went happily back to its original position when I gently moved it back afterwards) an discovered, you guessed it, 3 of those segments stuffed with bits of dark grey foam. I fished those out with tweezers and put everything back together.

Naughty.

And a lesson I will never forget when looking at a used car in future!

Now I have three yellow lights - but at least I know what is lit. The end goal is to make an honest car of her, so it's a step in the right direction.