Died on the Highway

I was taking my wife to the airport this morning, cruising along in the rain at about 65 MPH in our 2009 Jetta SportWagen TDI, about 10 minutes into the trip, when I thought I felt the engine miss a bit, but wasn't sure. Then a few seconds later it just flat out stopped running, with "Engine Fault, Workshop" on the MFD. We coasted to the side of the road, and I told my wife to grab her phone and start trying to find a taxi. Fuel level okay at about 1/4 tank.

Turned it off and back on, started and idled okay, but when I tried to accelerate to a normal speed it died again before I got very far.

Off and back on, and was able to drive very slowly, barely above idle, another mile or two (flashers on, on the shoulder) and got my wife dropped off.

Drove it normally from the drop-off to the nearby VW dealership (where we bought it new), without any further problems.

So, waiting to see what they say.

Car has about 52,000 miles, this is the first major problem.

Any advice, beyond waiting to hear what the stealer has to say?

David

After a week in the shop, here's what I was told:

1. Computer indicated an electrical fault to do with the fuel injectors.

2. Dealer shop was unable to find anything specifically wrong after checking everything they could. Test drove it a couple times without any issues.

So they reseated a bunch of electrical connectors related to the fuel system, and are giving it back to me. Not charging me since they couldn't find anything to fix.

I really hate intermittent problems.

Is it conceivable that something as simple as a bit of water in the fuel could have caused the vehicle to stop with an engine fault (I don't have any specific reason to suspect that there is such a problem)? Doesn't sound likely, but I think I'll pick up some PowerService Diesel Kleen (silver bottle) and give it a dose. Shouldn't hurt, right?

David

Does the 2009 have a water drain for the fuel filter? If so, that would be something to check.

Another thing is that maybe water did get into a connector and cause a problem and once the water went away, so did the problem.

Everyone hates intermittent problems, especially the mechanic working on it and the guy that has to tell the customer that they can't recreate the problem.

I have no idea if it has a water drain on the fuel filter, nor where the fuel filter is, to be honest. Sounds like a good thing to check. Can anybody tell me where I might find the filter?

David

Did a quick Internet search and found more than I expected about the fuel filter. Looks like it's easy to get to, although not the simplest fuel filter I've seen to work with. Also looks like I'd need siphon device to check for any water....

David

Don't forget that on these cars it is CRITICAL to either fill the fuel filter canister, or cycle the fuel pumps with VCDS.

rushtone said:

2009
"Engine Fault, Workshop"
VW dealership
fault to do with the fuel injectors.
Dealer shop was unable to find anything specifically wrong

... 52,000 miles.

Click to expand...

How long is your powertrain warranty? If memory serves it's 5 years / 60,000 miles right? Both of which expire soon.

Do NOT screw around with this. Make sure you have documentation (as in written and signed on official forms) indicating that you had the car at a dealership for this issue prior to warranty expiration. If this turns out to be something really bad in a few months then you don't want to stand there helpless when they tell you that they can't fix it under warranty anymore.

Ooh, good one. I'll have to check to be sure, but it looks like you might be correct. I assumed that the warranty ran out at 36,000 miles, but the powertrain may be still be in effect, but only barely (mileage and time-wise). I have the receipt from picking up the car yesterday, which clearly documents that we had the car in for a problem, and that they found fault codes "for fuel injector group B" (as well as current car mileage and original delivery date of the vehicle, which we bought new from the same dealership).

Thank you very, very much for pointing this out.

David

This problem did not reappear for a while. Got the 60k service done (oil change, DSG tranny service, and I think the fuel filter).

A couple weeks later my wife was driving the car halfway across the country when it happened again. She coasted to the side of the road, turned it off, got it restarted, and continued on her way. She found the next VW dealership on her way, who looked into it.

They also found fault codes to do with the fuel injection system, but failed to find anything specifically wrong. They reseated some relays and charged us about $75, saying that the 50k/5yr "powertrain" warranty is only for specific items, and this was not covered.

My wife continued on her way, now on the other side of the country from home, where I've met up with her. We occasionally notice it lose power for just an instant (just a brief "bump" kind of feel). Then tonight we got the "Engine fault" again and the car died. We went through the "engine fault", turn it off, turn it back on again cycle probably 10 times before we got back to our hotel. Sometimes it would die again immediately, some times it would go a few seconds or a few minutes.

Closest VW dealership to where we are now is about 50 miles away. I guess I'll see if I can get the car there tomorrow and see if they can find anything.

This is frustrating.

David

If you can get the codes, please post them. Sometimes they're printed on the service ticket.

No codes on the tickets. Here's what they did say:

April 14:
CUSTOMER SAYS CAR CUT OFF TWICE THIS MORNING AND EACH TIME
ENGINE FAULT WORKSHOP MESSAGE DISPLAYED ON MFI
RAN GFF. FOUND FAULT CODES FOR FUEL INJECTOR GROUP B
SUPPLY VOLTAGE CIRCUIT OPEN INTERMITTENT
CHECKED FUEL INJECTORS. WIRES AND CONNECTORS. CLEARED
CODES. TEST DROVE THREE TIMES FOR TOTAL OF 45 MILES
CODES DID NOT RETURN

May 27:
A CUSTOMER STATES THAT WHILE DRIVING ON THE HIWAY THE CAR DIED-CUSTOMER
PULLED OVER AND STOPPED-CAR THEN RESTARTED-NO WARNING LIGHTS
M SCANNED CAR FOR FAULTS-THREE FAULTS STORED-TWO
FOR CYLINDER PRESSURE IN #1 AND #4-LAST
FAULT FOR FUEL INJECTOR VOLTAGE-RESEATED
RELAYS

That's what I've got from the two tickets.

David

I'm in the waiting room of dealer shop #3 (California this time).
Guy tells me there's a P2149 fault code (fuel injector open circuit fault of some sort) that they are trying to find a cause for. Have pulled the wipers and cowl to inspect some wiring, nothing found yet.

David

With all of the driving that you are doing, it sounds like you need to push them to find the root cause of the problem and fix it.

Use that phrase "Root cause of the problem". As in, "So, is this the root cause of the problem?".

This is what came up when I googled the P2149, but nothing for VW: http://www.justanswer.com/dodge/446...injector-grp-supply-voltage-circuit-open.html

VW has prescribed replacement of a wiring harness from the ECM to the injectors. Part will take 2-3 days to come in. So we're doing part of our vacation in a rental car now. Sigh.

David

So what happened with the wiring harness? Did they find a rub point or broken wires inside the loom? If they don't know what caused the harness to fail, will a new harness fail in the same way? This is why it's important to know the root cause of the failure.

They did not find any visible problem with the wiring harness. But failing that, VW recommended replacing it anyway. Don't have the car back yet, so we don't any results yet.

The service manager seemed on board with finding the root cause, which is good. But three shops now have failed to find anything specifically wrong.

David

May not help at all, but this happened to me:

Purchased a new Jetta tdi in 06 with a DSG. Had it for a while and it started randomly losing power. You would be driving along and it would just die, but restart immediately. This got more and more frequent.

We were driving it one evening in a very light rain with the wipers on and it started again. This time is did not want to restart and slowed to a crawl and then restarted. I turned the windshield wipers off and started out again. As we gained speed and everything seemed to be going along OK, my wife said, "Humor me, turn the wipers on." I did and the car immediately lost power and regained it fully when we turned the wipers off.

It turned out there were a batch of cars built that had the wiring harness installed incorrectly and the wipers were causing damage and random malfunctions. Ours was the first VW had heard of with engine issues........most were inadvertent operation of the lights, horn, etc.

The Service guy told me if we had not told them about the wipers, they probably would not have found the issue. It had no codes.

He did tell me that VW had a TSB of some sort concerning the issue though.

May be unrelated to your problem, but the issue was incorrect routing of the harness. Might want to ask them about that.

That sounds exactly like what they were expecting when they first started working on the car. Step one was to inspect that wiring harness from the computer to the injectors, which goes right past the wipers and could be damaged. But in our case they found no damage.
The first time this problem occurred it was raining, with wipers on, but the 2 times since it was dry (no wipers).
David

Well, we've got a couple days and a few hundred miles under the car's tires, and so far so good after the wiring harness was replaced. No breakdowns or engine cut-outs.

David

David,

any updates since the harness replacement? Any more stalls?

My 2010 has died a few times now without warning while driving. The only fault code is:

008521 - Supply Voltage for Fuel Injector Group B​

P2149 - 000 - Open Circuit

I'm wondering if anyone has found that this is a sign of impending HPFP failure, with metal flakes interfering with the injector operation.

No more stalls since the wiring harness was replaced. This doesn't prove that the problem is fixed, but it's looking promising that it did fix it since there have been no new stalls.

David

Checking in.... almost 6 months since the wiring harness was replaced and still no more engine cut-outs.

But now the sun shade for the pano sunroof is all mangled up and won't close, and I'm trying to diagnose a dead battery....

David