Follow-up to driving 2015 TDI in Mexico

Jetta_Pilot

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Apr 14, 2005
Location
West Hill, Ont.
TDI
2015 Passat Highline TDI Candy White (SEL Premium) long gone 2002 Jetta TDI
Before I left last fall to drive to Mexico for the winter, for almost 6 months, I had concerns about using Mexican non-ULSD fuel. Just returned home 2 days ago after a 3,000 mile trip.

During my time in Mexico I used about 6 tanks of fuel before I got back to the USA to refuel with ULSD. Now I did use the manual shift mode several times on the DSG tranny to run the engine at higher revs and hopefully create some regen. Also finally on my way home in Mexico I had to traverse some mountainous stretches where I used the engine to slow me down on long steep downhill sections. This had me doing 85Mph in fourth gear going downhill with my foot off the brake.

I also met a fellow with a 2013 Passat TDI who drove his car every day for about 4 months in Mexico. Some of his drives were for very short distances and he said he never had a problem. He also does about 3,000 miles to Mexico and 3,000 miles back.
 

jrm

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 24, 2013
Location
Oregon
TDI
2013 Passat SE with nav (totaled)
Its probably all ULSD down there now, the states switched in 05 so given the (Mexico is a decade behind) rule your prob ok :D
 

ZippyNH

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 22, 2015
Location
Southern NH
TDI
2015 JETTA TDI SE
Nobody ever said it would fail in one year/trip....
And since you will get some "free" emissions parts in a couple years....think you might be ok...even if it fails.
But after that first batch...could get $$$.
The sulfer does bad stuff to the emissions system...that why all fuel was changed in the USA/Canada...
To avoid another leaded/unleaded fuel issue, but without as many pumps, and fuel dealers having to pick just one version of the fuel.
I would expect issues to happen similarly to running leaded fuel in an unleaded car time wise...the sulfer is slowly poisoning the catylists....
Trying to "force" extra regens kinda shows a lack of understanding of the chemical reactions at work...it not the regens that saves the system, the regens only burn off excess soot and makes it into Ash...
 
Last edited:

tdiatlast

Top Post Dawg
Joined
Jan 21, 2009
Location
Fort Worth, Texas
TDI
2009 Sportwagen (boughtback); 2014 Passat TDI SEL (boughtback)
Thanks for the update on your short-term experiment. My "arm-chair" tech analysis is similar to ZippyNH's...you really don't know what (minimal?) "damage" has been done to your dpf/emissions system...hopefully truly minimal. But, as the captain of the Titanic must have said at some point..."...so far, so good!":D:D

jrm might (emphasis on "might") be correct that you may very well have been fueling with ULSD, but w/o a real chemical analysis, you'll never know.

So, for the real tech guys on this thread: Is there any practical way to determine what, if any, damage has been done to the emissions system, other than cutting the system open and visually examining it? Is any "damage" from the excess sulfur something that can be cleaned/purged from the system w/o major disassembly? (I no longer have a vested interest here, as I'm free from my short-term TDI addiction, but I'm still very curious...)
 
Top