Temp Light Flashing!!!!!!

Decided to change my temp sensor last night, the one for the temp gauge mounted in the housing on the front of the head and wish I never touched it now!!!!!! :x  :x

Its the single pole sensor with the spade termnal to it.  When I undid the sensor it sheared off!!!!!  Great start.  After a while of messing around I managed to get the rest of the sensor out of the housing.  

At this point I could see that the new sensor from GSF was alot shorter than the now broken old unit.  The old unit was about an inch long and the new unit is only 4 - 5mm.  I had no choise but to fit the new sensor.  

The car started and idled fine but I noticed that the temp gauge climbed quickly and went higher than it normally does.  Normally the gauge stops just below half way, just below the red LED.  I switched the engine off and checked all my connections, I put a seperate feed to the fan and it ran so I was happy with that.  I took the chance and let the engine warm up again, this time until it reached the end of the gauge!!  After 30 secs or so of being at max temp the fan cut in and the temp dropped slightly, but the red LED was still flashing.

I drove the car home and the gauge never dropped below the max temp reading but the LED did stop flashing for a while and then started again.  It was the same again this morning on the way to work.  I phoned GSF and it is the only sensor they list.  I phoned VW and they only list one too and it has the same description too.  I have ordered another sensor from GSF incase it is a faulty unit but that won't be here until the morning now.  If this doesn't fix it then looks like it a genuine one for me!!!

Has anyone else had trouble with sensors from GSF/Euro Car Parts?  Is this a common problem?  Could this problem be anything else?

I did steam clean the engine bay about 2 hours previously!!!! ops:  ops:

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Sorry - that doesn't help much.
  Try Crazyquiff - he may be about to shed a little light.  You may have to canabalise a sensor from a discarded engine if you cannot get the correct replacement from VAG.

sounds like you've got the wrong sensor there, they all work on different resistances depending on the car and the gauge, but different sensors will fit different cars. They will all have the same description, as they all roughly look the same, but work on different resistances.  

I don't think you've got any problems with your cooling system as the fan seems to cut in correctly, so the water is circulating, and the car's not overheating.

You can apparently tell from the colour of the collar at the top of the sensor if it's the right one or not. Did the replacement have the same colour collar??

You are probably best off sourcing another replacement from VW directly, at least you're garunteed to get the right one.

Mike

I chucked the old unit in the bin before I tought to check the colour!!1 DOH

What colour are other peoples sensors on there Mk1 GTi's?

I mentioned this on another post but 6 months ago i had two GSF senders do exactly the same thing as yours. I'm back on the original VW one now and the reading is normal.

I got another sensor from Euro Car Parts on Saturday and now it works fine.