engine management light?????

[iasha]

first posted this in deisel tuning, so had to move, sorry all, i just followed the google link and it took me there.

story so far,
a week ago driving down the motorway 'car with spanner' light came on, went out, came on, then went out all within 30 mins. thought car needed a service but was informed from this forum that it was problem with engine.
came on again, today, a week later and stayed on. Did some more reading on forum and discovered that some servicing may help, so:

changed deisel filter, oil (used 5 40 fully synthetic), oil filter, air filter.

changed air and deisel ones first, started car after turning ignition on-off a couple of times to fill deisel filter chamber, car started fine,'car with spanner light was still on. Then changed oil and filter, started car and light was gone, so i guess that old oil was the problem?? can this be so?? am i right in that the car can tell what the oil is like??

Thought all was fine until went to go home and noticed that the engine management light wouldn't go out ( light in the shape of an engine), stop started engine, went for a drive, no joy.

any ideas, car is booked in garage on fri mot being done then anyhow, i suppose that they will have to fix this first.

could i have caused this?

cheers. vectra C 1.9 cdti deisel estate elite 150 bhp. 04 plate

[BlueRob]

You need to get the codes read mate....its the only way certain to know what the problem is....or was...

HTH

[gromit]

The engine light is telling you that there is a fault code stored in the ecu. if the light stays on the fault is still present. If it goes off a couple of seconds after starting engine then fault isn't present but the fault code will still be stored. I think this is correct but Im sure I will be corrected if it isn't.

You will have to get a garage to plug in a fault code reader and this will tell you which item on you car is faulty.