NHTSA Update on CR HPFP failure investigation

pknopp

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This is not accurate. The very fact that NHTSA is involved indicates that it is a safety concern (meaning the potential for injury or fatality exists), and why they have an on-going investigation.
No, that the NHTSA is involved means they are investigating whether or not it's a safety concern.
 

pknopp

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I'm not going to pick at gnats. They are investigating whether or not there is a safety issue.

I wouldn't bet that they find one simply because the car stalls.
 

turbocharged798

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I predict that this will go the same way the B5.5 BSM, PD camshaft, 01M transmissions, ect. We the enthusiasts will be left mopping up VW's mess.

I have been thinking about this and I think the easiest way to fix this whole situation is to just retoft filters to all the HPFP outputs. At least when it blows up, it will only cost $1,000 in parts instead of $5,000. That I could live with.

the CP3 pump swap is nice and all but I think it might be too involved and expensive to make it doable.
 

TDIJetta99

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You would need a VERY stout filter.. One with a filter media that can withstand the deadhead pressure of the pump without blowing right through.. That would be the issue with a screen type filter; it gets clogged, and the pump blows right through it.. There would have to be some way of having a bypass that vents pressure back to the inlet side of the pump when the filter gets clogged so the bits and pieces are contained in the pump loop.. I'm sure it's possible somehow.. A pump retrofit might be easier though..

Here's a crazy thought... Is there any sort of electric driven hydraulic pump that can produce enough pressure and handle diesel fuel? If you eliminate the belt driven pump, a BRM timing belt will work in its place..
 

Blackheart

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Here's a crazy thought... Is there any sort of electric driven hydraulic pump that can produce enough pressure and handle diesel fuel? If you eliminate the belt driven pump, a BRM timing belt will work in its place..
I hope the critical mass of smart-thinkers, such as this idea, will eventually result in a good alternative fix for this problem. I'm not going to hold my breath hoping VW/Bosch will do it on their own. I have 4 more years of warranty left while these smart-thinkers do their thing....
 

turbocharged798

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You would need a VERY stout filter.. One with a filter media that can withstand the deadhead pressure of the pump without blowing right through.. That would be the issue with a screen type filter; it gets clogged, and the pump blows right through it.. There would have to be some way of having a bypass that vents pressure back to the inlet side of the pump when the filter gets clogged so the bits and pieces are contained in the pump loop.. I'm sure it's possible somehow.. A pump retrofit might be easier though..

Here's a crazy thought... Is there any sort of electric driven hydraulic pump that can produce enough pressure and handle diesel fuel? If you eliminate the belt driven pump, a BRM timing belt will work in its place..
They do make a filter that could stand it and its called a bronze sintered filter.

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/HASTINGS-FILTERS-Fuel-Filter-2XXY7

I made a thread about it in the MKVI section.

Good point about the filter clogging though.
 

chudzikb

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I predict that this will go the same way the B5.5 BSM, PD camshaft, 01M transmissions, ect. We the enthusiasts will be left mopping up VW's mess.

I have been thinking about this and I think the easiest way to fix this whole situation is to just retoft filters to all the HPFP outputs. At least when it blows up, it will only cost $1,000 in parts instead of $5,000. That I could live with.

the CP3 pump swap is nice and all but I think it might be too involved and expensive to make it doable.
What he said, VW's track record is not so good. At least when Ford's develop issues, they fix them. Other manufacturers as well, The number in service make this a VERY expensive fit, and doubtful that it ever gets fixed by VW. It is the way of German engineering, they do it RIGHT, so it must be us that is causing the problem? You know, by putting fuel from the pump that we have NOT analyzed for proper specs into the car. Maybe that's the solution a pocket fuel analyzer so you can test every time you refuel the car? Yep, that would surely make me want to own one of these fragile cars! I feel for you guys that have them, and worse for the people that have no idea of the issue and bought blindly.

Like that poor woman Amy1000, as if she signed on for her nightmare when she bought that car? I think not! The true VW enthusiasts know how screwed we are and develop our own solutions. Someone will come up with a work around for this issue, I just hope for your sake it is soon.
 

scdevon

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The problem is that nobody really knows what causes the pumps to fail. Some people add no lubricity at all to their fuel and beat the snot out of their common rail car and never have a problem.
Other people's pumps have failed with sufficient bio-blend percent fuel ran through the pumps throughout the life of the car that lubricity should not have been an issue at all.

With my limited engineering knowledge, I suspect that side loading of the piston may be a problem near the bottom of the piston stroke in spite of the fact that the cam follower uses a roller. If the piston sticks one time in the bore and loses clockwise / counterclockwise orientation, it's game over. Pumps built with sloppy tolerances and poor quality control of anti-friction coatings = a pump that can't be saved with ANY amount of lubricity added it would seem.
 

Claudio

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i believe too it is a mechanical issue, because as scdevon stated people like dweisel that was "anal" using biodiesel, additives and fuel from good sources, ended up with 2 failures.
 

LRTDI

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Wish there was a way to take that failure by state and try to link it with certain refineries.
Have to believe that some tanker trucks delivery gas in a tank one day and diesel from the same tank the next. Leading to contamination.
 

MotoWPK

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Have to believe that some tanker trucks delivery gas in a tank one day and diesel from the same tank the next. Leading to contamination.
Not familiar with tanker truck practice, but pipelines commonly carry multiple products. A common pipeline product mix is diesel, jet fuel and gasoline. There may be, for example, diesel flowing right behind gasoline. There is no physical separation, but the volume mixed is very small compared to the volumes delivered. That portion that may be subject to mixing is removed from the pipeline and returned for re-refining. Still, one can expect some mixing from small amounts of gasoline coating the wall of the pipe as the diesel passes by. It is a very small percentage of the following fluid, but not zero.
 

aja8888

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Have to believe that some tanker trucks delivery gas in a tank one day and diesel from the same tank the next. Leading to contamination.
The tank trucks have separate compartments for different fuels. It's usually driver error (or laziness) that causes mixing diesel with residual gasoline.
 

tditom

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...
Have to believe that some tanker trucks delivery gas in a tank one day and diesel from the same tank the next. Leading to contamination.
So the fuel delivery infrastructure is the root of the problem and not VW's HPFP reliability?:confused:
 

Scoutx

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Fuel line Seperation

Not familiar with tanker truck practice, but pipelines commonly carry multiple products. A common pipeline product mix is diesel, jet fuel and gasoline. There may be, for example, diesel flowing right behind gasoline. There is no physical separation, but the volume mixed is very small compared to the volumes delivered. That portion that may be subject to mixing is removed from the pipeline and returned for re-refining. Still, one can expect some mixing from small amounts of gasoline coating the wall of the pipe as the diesel passes by. It is a very small percentage of the following fluid, but not zero.
Actually there is a seperation. It is common and typical practice to use a buffer of several hundred gallons of water between different products in a pipe line. True there is going to be some minor amounts of cross contamination but probably on the order of parts per billion or even trillion when you figure a product transfer will often involve several hundred thousand gallons at a time. I would suspect tanker contamination first and formost. A few gallons of gasoline left in a tank that holds maybe a 1000 gallons could be enough to cause issues. Certainly that would be the first place I would focus my attention.
 
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aja8888

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Pipelines have a clear interface and separated mixed product is called transmix and sold for re-refining. Tanker trucks typically have three compartments, each with several thousand gallons capacity (8,000 I believe).
 

Ski in NC

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I thought pipelines use a "pig" or something like that, an inflated rubber bladder etc, that was inserted between product flows to minimize mixing. Or maybe that was just for line inspection and cleaning??
 

falcon_1898

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I work at an injection molding machine manufacturer, and see some analogy that could work. At the heart of the molding machine is a 210 bar (roughly 3,000 psi) hydraulic pump. When oil gets dumped back to the tank, a breather valve relieves any excess pressure. The oil then gets filtered through a kidney loop.

In a similar fashion, can't the return line of the HPFP be connected to an intermediate breather box?

The box would have diesel fuel on the bottom, air on top (i.e. never full). On the top, there would be a one-way breather valve that can relief the pressure from pump return. On the bottom there can be a filter that cleans the fuel as it returns to tank. This could either be gravity-fed or driven by a small electric pump.

Once in a while the owner can drain the fuel in the breather box andreplace the filter.

This should keep any debris out of the fuel tank and avoid any problems due to high pressures from the pump return. In addition, the filter can be very cheap then.

Depending the maximum amount of fuel that can be dumped, the breather box can be sized accordingly. The only problem is that the engine compartment is already very stuffed...

I can sketch it up if anyone is interested.

James

Sent from my SGH-I747M using Tapatalk 2
 

Foxfan

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That's not what I've been reading in the HPFP failure thread. Engine stall in most cases was instantaneous.
While stalling might be a "driver irritant", stalling w/o the ability to re-start is life-threatening.
Yeah, that would be my biggest fear driving through Detroit, St. Louis or the Bronx. :eek:
 

TDIJetta99

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Stalling without the ability to restart is common with any fuel system related failure on any vehicle produced with an engine from the beginning of time until now.. How about chrysler products that eat crank sensors? Or any of the various manufacturers that have ignition modules that fail?


Overall, I agree that they should have designed a more robust pump that can handle the crappy fuel we have here in North America.. They knew the fuel was garbage long before the CR's existed..
 

scubagli

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Let me preface this post with this is info I was told, but I do not know if it is fact.
Fiat developed current cr tech, Vw, and anyone else using cr injection, has bought the rights from fiat, Vw is using 1st or 2nd gen tech...fiat is on their 3rd or 4th gen tech....
So basically vw's design is old.


Sent from crazy town.
 

pleopard

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Let me preface this post with this is info I was told, but I do not know if it is fact.
Fiat developed current cr tech, Vw, and anyone else using cr injection, has bought the rights from fiat, Vw is using 1st or 2nd gen tech...fiat is on their 3rd or 4th gen tech....
So basically vw's design is old.


Sent from crazy town.
This is not true. Fiat may have designed it in the early years, but the Germans (Bosch particularly) refined it. Many Fiat JTD engines use common rail Bosch fuel pumps.
 

GoFaster

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Golf 7 should be in US/Canada approx calendar year 2014, maybe a little before. Jetta will eventually get redesigned from its current oddball platform to the new MQB platform but there's no telling when that would be. Golf Variant (wagon) prototypes have already been spotted in the wild. Anyone's guess when it would arrive in US/Canada - my guess is same time as Golf 7. By the time Golf/Jetta 7 arrive, for someone who wants a passenger vehicle with a diesel engine, there are going to be several other choices.
 

kjclow

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Let me preface this post with this is info I was told, but I do not know if it is fact.
Fiat developed current cr tech, Vw, and anyone else using cr injection, has bought the rights from fiat, Vw is using 1st or 2nd gen tech...fiat is on their 3rd or 4th gen tech....
So basically vw's design is old.


Sent from crazy town.
That may be from the engine standpoint, but the emissions on these newer diesel cars were developed through a joint project of VW, Audi, and Daimler-Benz.
 

Toronto

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Well,actually that's not so true anymore. Just recently I know I've added 3 Canadian failures to the State by State List on the forum here.Plus I had someone email me from Canada just yesterday that had a hpfp failure and was now fighting to get it covered under warranty. So, at one time Canadians seemed to be somewhat immune to failures. The recent current trend now seems to suggest otherwise.

Thanks for the info dwiesel and this sucks ! Either way i have kept every single receipt from shell when i fill up , so VW cant say crap to me if anything goes wrong.

The funny thing is , couple months ago VW sent me stickers advising " ONLY USE DIESEL " , stickers i would put by my reservoir.

Maybe they did that because they are starting to get these HPFP failures in canada and they think its because people are filling up with gasoline instead of diesel.
 

EJS

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Pipelines have a clear interface and separated mixed product is called transmix and sold for re-refining. Tanker trucks typically have three compartments, each with several thousand gallons capacity (8,000 I believe).
I may be wrong & you certainly are likely to know better than I....but....when I ran a filling station (a million years ago) the tankers were 3 compartments w/ 3,000+ gallons each (just under 10K total). If you needed more than of a specific grade they just used more than one tank. Never had the same truck deliver diesel & gas - always separate. Mistakes happen but by & large they were pretty careful about mixing (even fuel grades). Aren't most tanks still color coded (the lids in the station area are painted)?
 
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