Resurrecting a 2006 Jetta

Hi everyone! First off, I'm new here and this is my first post, though I have been reading through the threads for the past couple of weeks trying to catch myself up on these engines.


About me: Fairly mechanically inclined, I've done all of the maintenance on all of my cars, from complete engine rebuilds to changing the oil. This is my first diesel car.


The Car: I went to an estate junk sale and while poking around I discovered a 2006 Jetta TDI 5spd covered in blackberry bushes with 130k miles on it. The tabs are from 2015, so it's been there quite a while. The son and wife of the owner said the car "stopped working" and they parked it. I was intrigued, so I went back out with some fresh diesel, chopped away the bushes, pulled the fuel filter, drained out the old gas, poured in a little fresh, threw in a new battery and it started right up. Revving the engine the oil light and alarm would sound. I bought the car for $100 and towed it home.


So Far: Once I got the car home I changed the oil and filter (it had oil but it was black as coal and very thin, no metal in it). Started it up and at rpm the oil light still came on. I took off the engine plastics, poked around and discovered the pressure sensor wire had come loose. Plugged it in and and no more oil warning!


The Plan: It has 3/4 tank of diesel in it, so I'm going to pump that out and get as much of the fuel out of the hoses as possible. I'm going disconnect the hoses at the filter and run some pure diesel purge through it. All together, oil change and filter, fuel drain with fresh diesel, purge, fuel filter, cabin air filter, and an engine air filter. While testing for the alarm the only codes it seems to be showing me are a yellow steering wheel and a airbag fault code. So I'll dig into those codes. After that the plan is to find out why (if it wasn't the wire) it was parked. If it's really bad, sell it. If it's something I can fix pretty affordably, it could be my new daily.


The Question: Is there anything else I should do to resurrect this thing? Replace the glow plugs? Replace the orings on the injectors?
Thank you!

Check the camshaft and the tandem pump. Also change the timing belt and water pump. If the oil was really thin, that could point to a failure of the tandem pump seals, and I'd wonder if it was maintained correctly, which will cause excessive wear on the cam.
Make sure to use oil that is 505.01 VW approved (search) pentosin is one brand, there's a few others too. If you don't, then plan on replacing a camshaft... (I found that out the hard way)

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There is a good chance that the steering wheel light will turn off after you drive just a short way. The steering angle sensor has to reestablish itself if the battery has been disconnected or run down significantly. The airbag light may turn off but it could be that it will need to be reset with a scanner.
It depends on how the fault code reads...insufficient voltage is one code that may clear itself but I can't remember for sure.


I would not replace the glow plugs if they have continuity that reads about .5 ohms.
The glow plug harness connections for them are troublesome. Get yourself a digital multi-meter and test each glow plug. That may come in handy for other possible electrical problems that these cars can develop.
Another sore spot is the engine wiring harness where it passes over the starter area.

The corrugated sheath that is there to protect the wiring will rub its way through the insulation and create havoc. If you pick up fault codes for engine electrical issues I would look at the harness before replacing any component.



Before you waste money on an oil change check the camshaft and lifters for typical wear. Even at 130K miles there can be significant wear damage. There is plenty of info on what to look for if you Google 'BRM engine camshaft wear images'.

Your best bet of maintaining the camshaft (if it is not already worn) is to use a 5W40 weight oil with VW spec 505.1 as mentioned above.

Oil will always be black as coal, it's a diesel; even when you just changed the oil and thought to have drained every little drop out of the system, the new oil will be black a minute after adding it.

I believe you scored a pretty good deal with this car, even if you have to change the cam and lifters, you can find a decent kit from Cascade, IDparts, Metalman, tunemyeuro, among others. A good kit would not be more than $1k and the work is not bad, but you have to catch it before the head needs machining (mangled lifter seat).

Besides checking for cam wear, I would also check the timing belt and make sure the car never lost timing, otherwise you risk a dropped valve if you keep running that engine.

Okay. I will check the cam and timing belt.


Yesterday I drained all of the old gas and tried to purge the lines as best I could. After that I hooked up a little cup and ran only Diesel Purge through it until it was mostly gone and then dumped the rest into the fresh diesel and poured that into the tank. I drove the car around the block for a bit, once it got warm it held temp. There is no smoke, and no hesitation on acceleration. All of the warning lights went out except the yellow airbag light, airbag fault warning and a Service Now! warning. Seems to run exceptionally well for sitting in the bushes for 6 years, starts instantly.


New things I did notice was at idle and after warming up a bit it will start shuttering. It doesn't seem to be in sync with the motor. The best way I could describe it is it sounds like a marching band a couple blocks away, a horn section you can't hear and then you'll hear the snare drums... I also hear a slight hiss coming from the alternator/belt area and lastly, when you give it gas the lights dim.


Looking through here I'm guessing the shuttering could be a range of things. EG cooler, alternator pulley, DMF gone bad, glow plugs, worn cam. I'm going to warm it up and pull the serpentine off and see what that does as well as push in the clutch and see if that stops it. Would it be worth pulling the EGR valve and giving that a good clean?

jagris said:

Okay. I will check the cam and timing belt.





Yesterday I drained all of the old gas and tried to purge the lines as best I could. After that I hooked up a little cup and ran only Diesel Purge through it until it was mostly gone and then dumped the rest into the fresh diesel and poured that into the tank. I drove the car around the block for a bit, once it got warm it held temp. There is no smoke, and no hesitation on acceleration. All of the warning lights went out except the yellow airbag light, airbag fault warning and a Service Now! warning. Seems to run exceptionally well for sitting in the bushes for 6 years, starts instantly.





New things I did notice was at idle and after warming up a bit it will start shuttering. It doesn't seem to be in sync with the motor. The best way I could describe it is it sounds like a marching band a couple blocks away, a horn section you can't hear and then you'll hear the snare drums... I also hear a slight hiss coming from the alternator/belt area and lastly, when you give it gas the lights dim.





Looking through here I'm guessing the shuttering could be a range of things. EG cooler, alternator pulley, DMF gone bad, glow plugs, worn cam. I'm going to warm it up and pull the serpentine off and see what that does as well as push in the clutch and see if that stops it. Would it be worth pulling the EGR valve and giving that a good clean?

Click to expand...

Sounds like there's a possibility of a bad alternator, with the lights dimming... unless it's the clutch pulley, or both. To check the clutch pulley, you take the serpentine belt off and turn the alternator pulley one way and the other while holding the rotor in place with a tool, such as a screwdriver. It should turn one way, but not the other. If it doesn't turn either way, or turns both ways, then it's bad. (I have a clutch pulley and tool which I'd sell for a good deal if you need one) testing the alternator can be done at many auto parts stores, or alternator rebuilder shops. If you have a true RMS multimeter your can use it to check for ripple current, which would show a bad rectifier (YouTube) or even better if you have access to an oscilloscope like a Pico scope or snap on scope or anything like that, you can scope the waveform and look at the sample waveforms online (that's my favorite way!)
There are also handheld testers for alternators...

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Regarding airbag light, my guess would be a bad door harness, I had to replace 3 of them - both front doors and right rear. I have fixed them myself a couple of times but the original design was so bad that I decided to buy new ones from VW - they changed design completely. There was a class action, not sure if your car still qualifies based on age/mileage...


Edit: https://www.myturbodiesel.com/threa...ttlement-reached-2005-2006.26408/#post-118954 class action closed...


http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=501320
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=410623


https://www.myturbodiesel.com/threads/wiring-harness-replacement-comments.20732/#post-94010


https://web.archive.org/web/2017111...ring-harness-cracked-wire-replacement-mk5-vw/



Another suggestion: a scan with VAG-COM would be helpful, see if there is any member here nearby who can do it for you...

Any update on this project? I'm in the Spokane area if by chance you're here too.