Misfire on GTi TDi 150
Discussion
Hi
Bear with me on this, seems a bit long but its important if you drive a PD engine VW
Just to let you know of a predicament i am going through at the moment, with my wifes GTi TD 150 ('02, 74k miles on clock and full VW service history), we had a nasty intermittent misfire appear about 3 weeks ago on the motorway, stopped the car, called out the RAC, soon as he turned up said i had put petrol in it without even lifting the bonnet, as you can imagine i was absolutely stunned and amazed at his diagnosis. How anyone can determine that from looking at the car from the outside is beyond me. Anyway he sat in it and revved the nuts off of it and it seemed to clear the misfire, so off we set off on our journey home (Northampton to West Country) via the M1, M6, M42 then M5. Gets going for around 10 miles, we are about 120 miles from home, when the misfire/lack of power starts again.
Gets home, driving it gently, calls VW Main Dealer and books it in, takes the car in on said day and they diagnose, split turbo hose and broken hose clip, admittedly this had blown off the year previous however it had never given a symptom of a misfire, anyway they change the turbo hose and fit new clips and tells my wife that the misfire is now cured. I had asked them to keep the hose for me to see after my wife picked up the car, when she went to pay for the car (200 pound) she asked for the hose, Sorry, they said it was thrown out in the rubbish, but here is one we changed on a car last week, very similar to your problem, now i failed to see how a split in a turbo hose will give an intermittent misfire, surely the split is there permanant, would it not cause the misfire to be there permanent also. She drives from the Dealer only to find 3 miles down the road the bloody thing is misfiring again.
Booked the car back in and had to leave it there for 2 days, after elimination of fuel pressure, electronics (it was showing nothing on the engine management light) they called her yesterday to say the hydraulic lifters and camshaft are severly worn. I called the garage to ask what caused this and how confident are you that this has been the cause of the misfire. They couldnt explain the wear and could not guarantee that this would fix it, however it was going to cost 800 pounds to fix
So i then google the problem and find out that this appears to be something that VW have known of for some time as i have found that they have written a Workshop bulletin on it, no TPL2009814/3 explains the problem of the worn hydraulic buckets in the PD engines, this problem is only linked to these engines. There are one or two forums that are full of tales of woe on this very subject.
I formulated a swift email to the MD of the dealership and said i wasnt happy, blah, blah, full service history, blah, expensive fix and no guarantee, blah, blah. The upshot is, that he has contacted VW UK and they will go 50/50 with me as a good will gesture. Obviously no admission of guilt but almost as good as, anyway its probably something all you PD engined drivers out there should be very aware of.
I dont know if there would have been a 50/50 help if i did not have FSH with VW on the car.
The MD has assured me this will eradicate the misfire, he knew he said, because he was an Engineer, which made me smile, bless.
Anyway i shall keep you updated on this when the car is supposedly fixed on Tuesday.
Fingers crossed
Bear with me on this, seems a bit long but its important if you drive a PD engine VW
Just to let you know of a predicament i am going through at the moment, with my wifes GTi TD 150 ('02, 74k miles on clock and full VW service history), we had a nasty intermittent misfire appear about 3 weeks ago on the motorway, stopped the car, called out the RAC, soon as he turned up said i had put petrol in it without even lifting the bonnet, as you can imagine i was absolutely stunned and amazed at his diagnosis. How anyone can determine that from looking at the car from the outside is beyond me. Anyway he sat in it and revved the nuts off of it and it seemed to clear the misfire, so off we set off on our journey home (Northampton to West Country) via the M1, M6, M42 then M5. Gets going for around 10 miles, we are about 120 miles from home, when the misfire/lack of power starts again.
Gets home, driving it gently, calls VW Main Dealer and books it in, takes the car in on said day and they diagnose, split turbo hose and broken hose clip, admittedly this had blown off the year previous however it had never given a symptom of a misfire, anyway they change the turbo hose and fit new clips and tells my wife that the misfire is now cured. I had asked them to keep the hose for me to see after my wife picked up the car, when she went to pay for the car (200 pound) she asked for the hose, Sorry, they said it was thrown out in the rubbish, but here is one we changed on a car last week, very similar to your problem, now i failed to see how a split in a turbo hose will give an intermittent misfire, surely the split is there permanant, would it not cause the misfire to be there permanent also. She drives from the Dealer only to find 3 miles down the road the bloody thing is misfiring again.
Booked the car back in and had to leave it there for 2 days, after elimination of fuel pressure, electronics (it was showing nothing on the engine management light) they called her yesterday to say the hydraulic lifters and camshaft are severly worn. I called the garage to ask what caused this and how confident are you that this has been the cause of the misfire. They couldnt explain the wear and could not guarantee that this would fix it, however it was going to cost 800 pounds to fix
So i then google the problem and find out that this appears to be something that VW have known of for some time as i have found that they have written a Workshop bulletin on it, no TPL2009814/3 explains the problem of the worn hydraulic buckets in the PD engines, this problem is only linked to these engines. There are one or two forums that are full of tales of woe on this very subject.
I formulated a swift email to the MD of the dealership and said i wasnt happy, blah, blah, full service history, blah, expensive fix and no guarantee, blah, blah. The upshot is, that he has contacted VW UK and they will go 50/50 with me as a good will gesture. Obviously no admission of guilt but almost as good as, anyway its probably something all you PD engined drivers out there should be very aware of.
I dont know if there would have been a 50/50 help if i did not have FSH with VW on the car.
The MD has assured me this will eradicate the misfire, he knew he said, because he was an Engineer, which made me smile, bless.
Anyway i shall keep you updated on this when the car is supposedly fixed on Tuesday.
Fingers crossed
My Google didn't find your bulletin but did find a reference to wires to injectors failing - the ones under the engine cover. Recommended cure was to replace that part of the loom.
From my armchair mechanics position I think this sounds more likely to cause your symptoms than worn cams but let us know how you get on anyway. A link to that bulletin might be useful if you have it handy too...
AdrianR (02 PD130, 94K fault free miles and counting)
From my armchair mechanics position I think this sounds more likely to cause your symptoms than worn cams but let us know how you get on anyway. A link to that bulletin might be useful if you have it handy too...
AdrianR (02 PD130, 94K fault free miles and counting)
Edited by adrianr on Friday 30th March 16:11
adrianr
I found out about the Workshop Bulletin from the technician who is working on the car, i got him on the phone to speak about the problem, and he told me of this TPL (what ever that means) perhaps a VW person could enlighten us.
Thanks for the pointers on the electrics, my initial thoughts were pointing towrds injectors or elctronics for injectors as it has been intermittent. If the problem still stands after the "followers" fix then that will be my next place to look.
cheers
I found out about the Workshop Bulletin from the technician who is working on the car, i got him on the phone to speak about the problem, and he told me of this TPL (what ever that means) perhaps a VW person could enlighten us.
Thanks for the pointers on the electrics, my initial thoughts were pointing towrds injectors or elctronics for injectors as it has been intermittent. If the problem still stands after the "followers" fix then that will be my next place to look.
cheers
Apparently its the hydraulic lifter that fails, ulitmately leading to the cam lobes also failing due to heavy wear, not sure if its a material fault or the cam lobe angles are too steep causing too much wear. As the lifters wear they actually give way (the valve comes through the top of the lifter), hence the valve then does not open, hence the misfire.
drybeer said:
Certainly sounds more like injector trouble to me...
Technically you cannot get a "misfire" with a diesel as there in no spark to "not spark" however the symptom will manifest itself as more of a vibration, particularly at idle.
Technically you cannot get a "misfire" with a diesel as there in no spark to "not spark" however the symptom will manifest itself as more of a vibration, particularly at idle.
"Misfire = No fire"
For fire to happen you need all three of the following, Fuel + Heat + Oxygen = Fire. if you take any one of those away from the equation you will not have Fire. Therefor if a valve is not opening, hence no air (Oxygen) you will get a misfire.
Like wise you can get a misfire on a petrol engine with ignition in purfect condition, if the fuel injector is not working, so to say it only occurs when there is not a spark is not technically true.
Edited by phumy on Thursday 5th April 04:38
Got the car back on Thursday, after they fitted new camshaft, cam shells, followers and a shed load of seals and other bits that go with it. a bill for 630GBP, that equates to half the original bill as VW are standing 50%. Yes the nasty symptoms of the misfire have disappeared. I did ask for the parts to be given to me on completion so that i could get them analysed, but they did not materialise, apparently VW wanted them, but im still hopeful to get them for myself. I have posted the applicable links below so that you can see that its not just a one off problem, many others are having the same trouble. Mine was full VW main dealer serviced from new and always on time. Reading the threads sounds like some people think the cause is from using the wrong oil others seem to think material breakdown or even poor design. Just hope it last longer that 70k miles this time
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.
http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/thread/745
http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/1/827564/S
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.
http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/thread/745
http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/1/827564/S
Well, all I can say is you'll make a lot of TVR owners very happy with all the stick they get about reliability of the camshaft on the S6 lump.
To my mind that sort of wear should never happen. Mine's made 94K now, so as you can guess I'll be listening carefully to the engine and providing my own oil for services from now on.
On the + side most of my mileage is motorway so engine is usually only pulling 2K revs.
AdrianR, TDI 130 with fingers firmly crossed.
To my mind that sort of wear should never happen. Mine's made 94K now, so as you can guess I'll be listening carefully to the engine and providing my own oil for services from now on.
On the + side most of my mileage is motorway so engine is usually only pulling 2K revs.
AdrianR, TDI 130 with fingers firmly crossed.
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