NHTSA Update on CR HPFP failure investigation

STEye said:

Has there been any 2013 Jettas that have failed in decent quantities? I am on the edge about trading in my 2012 Impreza for a 2013 Jetta TDI (I have a thread in the Jetta section). Seeing all these failures makes me nervous. The design for the 2013 is the same, so I would assume that the failure would continue to exist? Looks like the general consensus is to stay away from the Jetta TDI!

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There is so much absolute BS about the HPFP on this forum to border on insane. Do they happen? Sure they do.

But keep in mind that in almost every test of a TDI against any other model of VW the TDI wins hands down. I've yet to find a single magazine tester raise the issue of HPFP failures both here and overseas. Remember you have a very closed audience here. The NHTSA is investigating the HPFP issue. Been going on for well over a year while almost every other investigation has come and gone. They still have not issued a ruling and the longer it goes I believe the whole mess will be set aside and the world will move on.

Those who have had a failure in the past few months have had they car repaired free of charge (according to my dealer) with some of them having close to 100,000 miles.

Lots of opinions here with damn few facts.

Like the car? Buy it. I've never been happier with my TDI. I have a 2006 Lexus IS250 and it sits in the garage having only 33,000 miles while my 2010 TDI just whizzed past 40,000 miles last week. You do the math.

Seasons' greetings to all.

Plus 3 Golfer said:

Well, looks like the less than one percenters and the 0.1 percenters need to readjust their thinking.

When I have time (or maybe someone else can do it), we need to compute the failures by MYs and mileage at failure. There should be enough data now to perhaps see some failure trends.

I thing I'll make a trip to the Ford dealer and get a trade-in value on my 2009 for a C-max.

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Now that we have more data, I am willing to change my mind on the 0.1% failure rate. I will continue to stand by my comments that NHTSA will do nothing if there are no injuries associated with the failures.

GTIDan said:

There is so much absolute BS about the HPFP on this forum to border on insane. Do they happen? Sure they do.

But keep in mind that in almost every test of a TDI against any other model of VW the TDI wins hands down. I've yet to find a single magazine tester raise the issue of HPFP failures both here and overseas. Remember you have a very closed audience here. The NHTSA is investigating the HPFP issue. Been going on for well over a year while almost every other investigation has come and gone. They still have not issued a ruling and the longer it goes I believe the whole mess will be set aside and the world will move on.

Those who have had a failure in the past few months have had they car repaired free of charge (according to my dealer) with some of them having close to 100,000 miles.

Lots of opinions here with damn few facts.

Like the car? Buy it. I've never been happier with my TDI. I have a 2006 Lexus IS250 and it sits in the garage having only 33,000 miles while my 2010 TDI just whizzed past 40,000 miles last week. You do the math.

Seasons' greetings to all.

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I like the car without a doubt, and I understand that parts such as the HPFP can fail since they are mechanical. I also understand that forums are prone to witch hunts that spread like wild fire. However, my concern is that these failures seem to happen more frequently then than should IMO. I would love to keep a reliable diesel for a long time, but I wouldn't feel comfortable with keeping the car out side of the drivetrain coverage. Even if the odds aren't that great, but consequence is great.

Regarding the Czech made pumps, are they supposed to be better than the German made one? I assume that they are the replacement part for failed HPFP? Perhaps with was to save money. So has there been any 2013's with a bad HPFP? I know that they haven't been on the market for very long...

STEye said:

Regarding the Czech made pumps, are they supposed to be better than the German made one? I assume that they are the replacement part for failed HPFP? Perhaps with was to save money. So has there been any 2013's with a bad HPFP? I know that they haven't been on the market for very long...

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No one knows. According to VW (and GTIDan!), there has never been a problem in the first place ... ! ! !

GTIDan said:

Lots of opinions here with damn few facts.

Seasons' greetings to all.

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Well, in case you missed the facts, here are a couple:

1. HPFP pumps are failing in significant numbers at varying mileages.

2. The problems causing the failures are definitely related to poor quality fuel, misfueling (gasoline) or a less than reliable pump design.

3. If you still don't get it, refer back to 1. & 2. above.

GoFaster said:

No one knows. According to VW (and GTIDan!), there has never been a problem in the first place ... ! ! !

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LOL,

STEye GTIDan's posts are mostly BS as he apparently does not grasp what is going on and ignores the facts.

waltzconmigo said:

looks to me like 2micron may have a very viable "retirement funder" going forward with the retrofit pump but in all seriousness, nearly 15% of all the fuel tested was outside of spec according to vw, this is a surprisingly high number. of course, we have no way of confirming this but we do know that other makes and previous vw models do not have problems too this extent. other than 2micron's efforts, not having designed in a post hpfp filter with the updated pumps is a major omission on vw's part. this seems to be a high enough percentage that bosch/vw should have known before release.
good luck everyone,
ciao,
waltz

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Yes,2micron is going to be the savior on these CR fuel systems for anyone that wants to keep their CR over the long run and out of warranty. The Cp3 pump has an all steel pump housing with steel on steel internal working parts. NO steel on aluminum like the VW CR. NO aluminum particles to foul the fuel system to cause complete fuel system replacement. IF the CR hpfp had an all steel pump housing...........I doubt we would be where we're at today.

John96895 said:

Long time lurker on this thread, that spreadsheet is amazing.....and in 3 or 4 years likely to be jaw-dropping.

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Can you explain this to GTIDan?

I am guessing if there was a HPFP issue on a 2013 TDI, we would hear about it. I really want this car, but since I tend to be more of a worrier, I should probably wait a bit and see if there is any more resolution (probably never).

The way I see it, that spreadsheet shows approx 5000 vehicles with HPFP-related issues of some sort in a period of something less than 2 years (only 2011 and 2012 dates on that sheet, and 2012 was not done), so (rough numbers) approximately a 1% failure rate for any given vehicle in any given year. If someone wants to keep the car for 10 years and the failure probability is completely at random, there's roughly a 10% chance that it will have a failure over that time period. Granted, 10 years is somewhere near the average age that a vehicle will last, anyways, but that 10% is significant. High-mileage drivers have greater exposure and will probably have a greater chance of experiencing a failure. We don't know the average mileage per year put on a TDI ... it's probably higher than average ... take a guess at 20,000 mi / yr. So the probability is 1% in 20,000 mi (and 10% in 200,000 mi). All order-of-magnitude numbers, of course - and contingent on the failures having a completely random distribution.

If there is any sort of cumulative-wear situation in effect - which I would expect to be the case - these numbers are going to get worse with time, and the probability of any given vehicle experiencing a failure over its lifetime is going to go up.

STEye said:

I am guessing if there was a HPFP issue on a 2013 TDI, we would hear about it. I really want this car, but since I tend to be more of a worrier, I should probably wait a bit and see if there is any more resolution (probably never).

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... or spring for a Passat (1800 bar injection pressure instead of 2000, and some design differences inside the pump), or wait a few months for the upcoming Mazda 6 diesel (which uses a Denso injection system rather than a Bosch CP4 ... but at this point, I don't think it's known how similar the Denso injection pump is to the Bosch.) Or wait for the Golf 7 in 2014, because I'm pretty sure "make this problem go away" would have been a high priority design objective.

aja8888 said:

Well, in case you missed the facts, here are a couple:

1. HPFP pumps are failing in significant numbers at varying mileages.

2. The problems causing the failures are definitely related to poor quality fuel, misfueling (gasoline) or a less than reliable pump design.

3. If you still don't get it, refer back to 1. & 2. above.

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significant numbers: what does that mean? Compared to what? Facts

definitely related to poor quality fuel: Really? So all the thousands, maybe millions of diesel trucks, busses, Locomotives and cars are all blowing up because of poor quality fuel. I must have missed this on the evening news.

I rest my case Lots of opinions here with damn few facts Opinions are fine but lets not forget that's ALL they are and not confuse them with actual fact.

Happy Holidays to all.

* Note to GoFaster: I never said the HPFP wouldn't fail. I'll be happy to see the NHTSA final report which will translate as follows: **** happens......get over it.

GTIDan said:

* Note to GoFaster: I never said the HPFP wouldn't fail. I'll be happy to see the NHTSA final report which will translate as follows: **** happens......get over it.

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Not very comforting,IF there is eventually an accident which results in a fatality.

GTIDan said:

[
definitely related to poor quality fuel: Really? So all the thousands, maybe millions of diesel trucks, busses, Locomotives and cars are all blowing up because of poor quality fuel. I must have missed this on the evening news.

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I've been in the oil business over 30 years in several engineering and management jobs. I have worked in refineries and downstream operations, including fuel terminals. What we have for D2 was sufficient "quality" for older technology engines. They were (are) able to "handle" poor lubricity and water issues better than the current CR HPFP pumps. That is pretty evident.

In past years, the quality focus was purely on gasoline due to its high vapor pressure and resultant air emission potential. Air emission regulations were based on heath effects of benzene and emissions of other gasoline components. Diesel was pretty ignored because it doesn't vaporize as readily as gasoline. As an example, large terminal storage tanks were required to be fitted with double seals on the floating roof for gasoline to minimize emissions (and water entry). Not so for diesel. Gasoline turnovers are much more frequent than diesel, thus the potential for water absorption in diesel and other problems associated with longer storage times in large tanks.

Diesel fuel has not had the regulatory focus except in recent years and that has been for sulfur removal, not so much for quality issues like water content or other contaminants that can be introduced by truck drivers or at terminals.

Basically, what has happened is that U.S. diesel fuel quality has remained somewhat status quo, except for sulfur removal and the addition of lubricity additives at terminals. While all this was going on, VW gave us the CR HPFP at a very high operating pressure.

Thus, it is what it is and it ain't going to get any better on its own.

Here's a MY summary of the xCHART_HISTORICAL.xlsx data. There are 6147 line items of which 5551 meet the alleged defect and 596 do not meet the alleged defect. The 6147 also includes 2102 labled Misfuel of which 501 do not meet the alleged defect.

I looked at the warranty data INRD-EA11003-54335P.xlsx as I wanted to look at the mileage at failure vs MY but unfortunately VW listed the VIN as the same for all 3037 warranty claims.

I did find my car in the xchart data with a "2" in the warranty column, not a misfuel, and an alleged defect but when I looked in the warranty spreadsheet under San Tan dealership, my vehicle was not shown (the dates and descriptions for the two cars are shown are not mine). So again like the previous data submitted by VW in the first round of data requests, I question the completeness of the the new data.

Plus 3 Golfer said:

Here's a MY summary of the xCHART_HISTORICAL.xlsx data. There are 6147 line items of which 5551 meet the alleged defect and 596 do not meet the alleged defect. The 6147 also includes 2102 labled Misfuel of which 501 do not meet the alleged defect.
I looked at the warranty data INRD-EA11003-54335P.xlsx as I wanted to look at the mileage at failure vs MY but unfortunately VW listed the VIN as the same for all 3037 warranty claims.
I did find my car in the xchart data with a "2" in the warranty column, not a misfuel, and an alleged defect but when I looked in the warranty spreadsheet under San Tan dealership, my vehicle was not shown (the dates and descriptions for the two cars are shown are not mine). So again like the previous data submitted by VW in the first round of data requests, I question the completeness of the the new data.

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Plus 3, just like to take a minute to thank you. You've always done a throrough analysis of any of the NHSTA info. You break it all down into info that all members can understand. You're a real asset the the tdiclub and it's members.

I'd also like to recognize 2micron for his hard work and reasearch on retro fitting the Cp3 pump to the CR VW. The work he has done is simply amazing. Not only is he working on the hpfp,he is also doing work and has a working manualy operated drain valve for the innercooler icing problem.

Thanks go out to both of you for your efforts.
Thanks also go out to other contributing members too numerous to mention for the contributions in solving these CR engineering shot falls. Once its all worked out,hopefully 09 thru 12 CR owners will have a durable,dependable and economical vehicle. Once that's done............all owners will finally be able to "drive more,worry less"

dweisel

If you've still got the data handy, can you break it out into, percentage of ones with the alleged defect, and ones that weren't misfueled with the alleged defect, by year?

The numbers will look a LITTLE better, but still horrible. This is Olds 350-level fail, really.

kjclow said:

I must have missed something in basic science and chemistry but I have always been taught that aluminum doesn't rust. IIRC, the hpfp is aluminum and therefore should not rust or corrod with any amount of water. The water may have adverse effects with other parts of the fuel system.

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i read some other posts where the rods inside the fuel tank (i believe that are supporting the fuel pump) are the ones that rust

i'm pretty sure VW would never lie but...who control that the data VW sent to nhtsa re correct?
i mean, it would be easy to delete entries to make the failure % smaller.
Another graph it is interesting is the one that shows that according to vw the majority of the pump that were replaced under warranty tested fine...can we believe that???

Claudio said:

i'm pretty sure VW would never lie but...who control that the data VW sent to nhtsa re correct?

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That would be fraudulent representation, a violation of 18 USC 1001, and probably a few other codes. Fines and up to 5 years in jail per instance. In other words who controls if it is correct VW and NHTSA, with NHTSA having to judge if it is the truth.

79 samples contained more than 5% biodiesel, 20 of those exceeded 10%.

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Aren't there a few states that have a few % bio anyway? I seem to remember one state that was 10 or 11%..

STEye said:

Regarding the Czech made pumps, are they supposed to be better than the German made one? I assume that they are the replacement part for failed HPFP? Perhaps with was to save money. So has there been any 2013's with a bad HPFP? I know that they haven't been on the market for very long...

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Kudos to 2Micron for this one, this is the best info we have at this point regarding the Czech vs German pumps.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=3799956&postcount=1705

No state, to my knowledge, mandates over 5% biodiesel (actually, I don't think any mandate over 2% biodiesel).

However, Illinois has massive tax breaks for 11% biodiesel, so it's hard to find any less than that in IL.

bhtooefr said:

If you've still got the data handy, can you break it out into, percentage of ones with the alleged defect, and ones that weren't misfueled with the alleged defect, by year?

The numbers will look a LITTLE better, but still horrible. This is Olds 350-level fail, really.

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Here it is. I didn't originally include the other data because NHTSA original % included failures from all sources: "ODI analysis of HPFP failures identified from all sources shows failure rates of 0.53% for MY 2009 vehicles and 0.11% for MY 2010 vehicles."

darrelld said:

Kudos to 2Micron for this one, this is the best info we have at this point regarding the Czech vs German pumps.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=3799956&postcount=1705

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Thanks for the link! Is there a quick and easy way to check the pump country of origin? Has anyone reported a failure with the Czech made pump?

GoFaster said:

The way I see it, that spreadsheet shows approx 5000 vehicles with HPFP-related issues of some sort in a period of something less than 2 years (only 2011 and 2012 dates on that sheet, and 2012 was not done), so (rough numbers) approximately a 1% failure rate for any given vehicle in any given year. If someone wants to keep the car for 10 years and the failure probability is completely at random, there's roughly a 10% chance that it will have a failure over that time period. Granted, 10 years is somewhere near the average age that a vehicle will last, anyways, but that 10% is significant. High-mileage drivers have greater exposure and will probably have a greater chance of experiencing a failure. We don't know the average mileage per year put on a TDI ... it's probably higher than average ... take a guess at 20,000 mi / yr. So the probability is 1% in 20,000 mi (and 10% in 200,000 mi). All order-of-magnitude numbers, of course - and contingent on the failures having a completely random distribution.

If there is any sort of cumulative-wear situation in effect - which I would expect to be the case - these numbers are going to get worse with time, and the probability of any given vehicle experiencing a failure over its lifetime is going to go up.

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Statistics do not work this way. It has been noted that for someone like yourself in Canada you would not have a 1 in 10 chance of failure over 10 years since for whatever reason Canada seems to require their fuel to maintain certain standards better than the U.S.

Arguments aside on whether or not the pump should have been built to withstand misfueling the graph shows a high rate of failures with low lubricity.

Misfueling is included in these numbers. One who knows not to run gasoline and I would add, perhaps runs an additive would not have a 1 in 10 chance over 10 years of a failure.

Claudio said:

252 samples showed a flashpoint below ASTM specification, but this has no direct
impact to the HPFP’s durability and may just be seen as an indicator for possible
gasoline content.

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You're damn straight it's an indicator of gasoline contamination.

Just like adding a very small amount of top quality lubricity additive improves the HFRR score by several hundred points, a tiny amount of gasoline contamination can take already poor 520 um fuel WAY out of spec.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND these cheap-azz petroleum companies who make billions of dollars in profit. Would it KILL them to dose up a little stronger on lubricity additives to transform the fuel into a RELIABLE low 400's um? Would it KILL them to tighten up their quality control to eliminate any cross-contamination?

darrelld said:

I can't find any 2012 Passat's?

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They are not included in the data. There is only production data for the A3, Q7, Tourareg, Golf and Jetta.

How come it was never an issue with previous generation TDIs?