2015 GSW TDI Spontaneously stalls (dies) while driving

My 2015 GSW with 6-sp DSG transmission and push-button start was "new" in 2017 when we bought it from the dealer after having part 1 of the settlement modifications complete. Still under original warranty. Car has about 18K miles on it.

The car has spontaneously died while driving 5 times in the past 1.8 years. The first couple times, I thought it was just a fluke, but the 3rd, 4th, and now 5th time I've taken it to the dealer.

Behavior: Driving steadily along with no issues. Suddenly the engine stops running. Cost to side of road. Car is still "on", but engine is not running. Glow plug indicator is on. Pressing the brake pedal and the start button, the car cranks quickly, but will not start even after 20 seconds of cranking. Foot off brake and push the "start" button so car is completely off. Depress brake and then the start button again and car starts immediately as if there were no issue.

No fault codes are set when this happens.

Repeat this behavior for failures 2, 3, and 4 over a period of about a year. Months and thousands of miles go by between occurrences. Dealer could find no issue after 3rd time. Dealer (at VW recommendation) re-downloaded the ECU firmware (same version) to see if that would remedy the issue.

5th occurrence happened 2-16-19 at highway speed and car coasted to side of freeway. After turning car off, the car started again immediately. Upon putting car in Drive, engine dies. Wait 1 minute. Car starts again, appears normal, but dies again after putting transmission back into drive. Car towed to dealer.

At dealer, car would not start at all. Dealer found the starting battery failed the performance test and replaced the battery under warranty. I think this is probably unrelated.
Dealer's has had the car for 3 days now attempting to reproduce the issue. It continues to behave normally since replacing the battery. Planning to speak to the VW rep tomorrow.

Anyone else had a MK7 TDI spontaneously die like this and leave no codes?

Jim

just a suggestion, may be a bit complicated to setup - having a camera recording dashboard in order to capture moment when it dies..... to have a proof of a problem.....

That's not good. Maybe talk to the feds and maybe have them look into it. I thought dealers were supposed to "check" batteries and replace before selling. Seems awfully strange that it doesn't trigger any codes in ecu.

I have a truck that recently had a similar problem, the throtttle position switch was intermittently faulty.

Was there an outcome to this? My car has just done this twice in the last week. 75k on the ODO 2015 Golf TDI s

Have you inspected your wiring harnesses for signs of rodent damage?

If the battery was the original, that may have been the problem.

Our 2015 sportwagen has the exact same issue. It was in at the dealer a month ago and they did the final tdi update to the engine and all the recalls. Told me the latest revision of the engine would likely take care of it, but this morning my wife had it happen twice and she doesnt trust the car in case it fails on our busiest freeway, or out in the country where there is no cell service.

Having the same issue with my 15 GSW. Lots of symptoms sound similar to relay 109 issues. Is there a relay 109 in the 15 GSW?

Read the post pedro provided.

If you have VCDS scan it. My check engine light came on the second time it stalled on me Tuesday night. Stalled 3 or 4 more times by time I got home( was sitting at stoplight each time). P2149 came up on OBD scanner. CEL went away on it's own the second time I started it the next day. Got home and scanned it with VCDS-P2149, injector #2 once again. So it could be the CPS, wire chaffing somewhere, or injector. Then they found metal flakes in fuel filter housing yesterday, so I'm just wondering if they've been in system since they replaced injector first time in April( filter wasn't replaced then)...