PD Hesitation under hard acceleration

I'm stuck on this one! I have a PD 115 Golf and above 2k rpm the car eventually pulls fine with full power however when I start off in each gear and try to pull away more than gently the car stammers and chugs before becoming smooth.
The car has just reached 120,000 miles and had the timing belt replaced today along with the tensioner and damper. I did not expect this to cure the fault, but it was due.
In what order, and which things should I check to fix this, I am used to loads of low down torque and the car's peak torque around 2k revs and it's been taken away from me! So far I have used Vag-Com to test the solenoid valves but am I right in saying that this cannot confirm alone if I have a vacumn leak in one of the small pipes at the back
Lastly, the EGR valve has started weeping oil, I have taped up both holes just under the diapham, it's hard to tell if the fault appeared before of after these leaks though.
All advice will be much appreciated.
Thank you in advance with regards Jamie, UK

Try untaping the holes. The holes are there for a reason and that reason is to allow air to escape from the back side of the diaphragm. If the air can't get out, that MAY cause a problem.

It's like a Motel 6 lot Lizard: cheap, easy and it may help.

Zero good news to report, have now changed the £60 oil temperature / level sensor and resolved that fault code, but this has not cured the hesitation!

Apologies for giving this information in dribs and drabs but I am now running a fuel cooler, which works great but maybe the extra fuel I have been able to get in to the injectors has clogged the fuel filter enough to cause hesitation when trying to accelerate. Having said that it consistently stutters only when trying to accelerate hard below 2000 rpm.

I'm really stuck now, any pointers would be really appreciated.

Im getting this on my Pd engine also, but it seams intermittent, last week car run fin but now it getting to slugish driving again under 2000rpm, it makes city driving horrible.
I dont get any fault codes apart for an intermittent coolant temperature sensor falt that i errased and it didnt come back again.
I checked my grounds
Cleaned Maf

But i still have this intermittent problem, i think it could be the intake and the egr clogged...

Is there any vag com test i can do to try to find clues to this problem ??

Thanks

I also had this problem, but it only happened when I used fuel from a station that I normally never used. (One that had a low turnover rate.) I was using Stanadyne additive at the time. I switched back to my normal station and the stumbling went away.

But i use always the same fuel(Special diesel here in Europe), and my problem is intermittent...

As i said car runs fine now, but sooner or later the problem will be back, and when it does i can hardly put ASR into use, cos there is no power in lower gears under 2000rpm.
After 2000 rpm car runs fine, great top speed and no flat spots.

Whats the most normal value of the Maf at iddle?Maybe my maf lower readings are on the low....

Low cetane fuel is causing the problem. Low cetane in conjunction with the retarded timing that is dialed in by the ECU once the engine warms up leads to missing when cetane drops below 49 (keep in mind that 49cn is the MINIMUM specification for the TDI!!!). Ahhh but lets not forget that 40cn is MINIMUM for the US meaning that in most cases you are NEVER running the MINIMUM specification for the TDI.

Dose up the fuel with some Power Service or whatever they sell in your country that can be used that has "2Ehn" aka "2-ethylhexyl nitrate". This is the primary ingredient in "Cetane" boosters for diesels.

More than you ever wanted to know about 2EHN...LOL
http://www.atc-europe.org/info_/public/doc79-2ehn.pdf

DB

I always use the same fuel (Highest quality here in Europe), but the problem seams to be other.
My bet is on the intake and the egr being clogged...

Kompressorvr6 -Did you solved your problem ?

Evening

Many thanks for your time and thoughts on this it's appreciated, however I have not yet resolved the problem!

I think the combination of two mods may have triggered the fault but I need a confirmation on something first. I am using a 150ohm resistor and a front mounted fuel cooler. This results in the car providing maximum and very cold and dense fuel all the way through the rev range.

My question is this! Can too much fuel at lower revs (below 2k) cause hesitation? I now have some fuel pipe to replace the return line which looks quite old but I intend to book the car in for a remap next weekend and during that time I will ask them to advise on the issue. Once I'm booked in I'll go without the extra go for a few days and remove the resistor mod and see if that cures the issue.

Thanks again rgds J'mee

Dont go for a remap before solving your problem.
As i said did you ever cleaned the egr and the intake ?With more than 100k every tdi should have this cleaned(Im going to clean mine in 2 weeks (along with filters change).

Im not getting to much fuel and i still have hesitation.

http://pics2.tdiclub.com/gwillie/VW/Sballintake/INTAKEMAN101b.htm

Hello, intake manifold and EGR is now clean as a whistle but unfortunately it has not resolved the problem. I've been trying to work out how to explain the problem better and on close experimenting with my boost gauge and a bit of driving I guess I'm experiencing boost creep. That's fine as long as it corrects itself but below 2k revs it isn't able to do this. Above 2k revs it overboosts and then snaps back to just over 1bar but there is a real problem cutting the boost back below 2k revs. Definitely seems like a boost issue now but I'm not sure what. Any pointers??

Ok i have the same problem like yours i cant point you what i think its the solution to our problems , because my problems are also boost related.

Ive serached 2 or 3 different forums and i think the solution(rulling out the egr and intake cleanning) lies on the N18 and the N75.

Check this thread

http://www.seatcupra.net/forums/showthread.php?p=779414#post779414

Does your turbo whinnes a lot ?

Can you post your turbo logs ?

Bump!
Had my EGR adaptation and setting reset this evening by a friend in the know, and now my problem is greatly reduced so I think all that is left to do is to replace my old and tired EGR valve, which must still be sticking a something similar.
Was told that sometimes the EGR valve requires resetting and for it to be retaught how open and close it is because the spring in the looses strength as it gets older and the slow clogging and occasional cleaning of it can throw out the settings it's learnt.
I hope this may be of some help to others.

How didi you did you do that ?Using vag com ?
Is the N18 ok ? Did it resolved some of your boost issues ?

Sorry for all the questions.

Hiya, little progress on this issue I'm afraid, have tried disconnecting the EGR and temporaily blocking it off completely but the fault is still there. Maybe this is specific to the PD115 where the ECU cuts the fuel is the boost is too high below 2k revs. I notice on my boost gauge that the boost gets up to just over one bar very quickly, even when pulling away at low revs and the chugging hesitation doesn't match the timing of the boost cutting back when it starts to happen.

My turbo isn't broken, almost zero play in the spindle and it doesn't smoke plus it holds the correct boost all the time in every gear, above 2k revs. Maybe the actuator is getting a little softer following all the low revs action I've been giving it, this part cannot be purchased on it's own from VW much to my dissapointment so maybe a specialist company like Allard could supply a new one. As you can image this is a bit of a big if and I don't fancy spending out on this replacement if it doesn't fix it. To be fair the N75 and ECU can measure and adjust quick enough so it should just be able to make the boost on slower but when freer flowing exhausts and de-cats happen on these cars the backpressure is greatly reduced on the turbo.

I had a go at removing the c-clip on the actuator rod yesterday so that I could extend the rod by one turn to see if it gives the N75 a bit more control on the boost that likes to come on so quickly and agressively. I couldn't remove the c-clip though! Maybe there's a better tool for it, was sure I'd be able to remove it with the flat-headed screwdriver though! If anyone else fancies trying this out please let us know the outcome, in the mean time I'll try and get another pair of hands on the case to adjust mine.

Oh, I got a friend who works for VW to use their VAG machine to recalibrate the stuff, I'm quite sure you can do it on Vag-Com though but it's in a different section to the reading blocks where you adapt the EGR though. Afraid it didn't really sort the boost issues. Does anyone know how to completely switch off the EGR valve and anti-shudder valve on European PD's or the next best thing since I'm sure a race pipe will be cheaper than a new replacement EGR valve but I really don't want any mpg loss from check lights being present in the ECU memory.

Any improvment Kompressorvr6 ?

Same issue here after 208k on a 2002 golf tdi

First time post. I'm having this same issue. I plan on selling my 2002 golf tdi, gold 208k, all maintainence records since I bought it in 2009 at 72k. Selling in the Asheville, NC area if any are interested. I'd like 3500$.

I'm planning on buying a 2015 golf tdi sprotwagen sel. Any advice, I don't usually go for the jigher price point for cosnetics, but as I plan on keeper her for life, I figure it's worth it. Thanks all, I love reading the posts, been a long time fan of this forum.