ZiggyTheHamster
Veteran Member
It's possible that the majority of dealers that stiff customers are doing it because their regional managers want to lower warranty claims.
Bingo, too much in warranty claims brings down the men in black into the dealership for an audit. We have turned many cars away, had a customer come back 2x for a leaky trans case on a 07 TL. They cut back labor times, and good luck getting anything from the manufacturer. I don't work for VW.It's possible that the majority of dealers that stiff customers are doing it because their regional managers want to lower warranty claims.
If the US fuel standard is the problem I would expect to see similar problems with the Duramax, Powerstroke and the Cummins in pick ups. I also own an 08 Duramax and frequent those forums as well as this one. HPFP failures are not prevalent there. It would seem to me if a company(VW) is going to market a product in a given market then they need to make it suitable for that market and not blame the fuel for inherent shortcomings in their product. There are plenty of the CR systems on the previously mentioned pick ups with hundreds of thousands of miles without this type of failure. I say BS on blaming the US fuel standard.I found a confirmation for the differing lubricity standard in Canada. See question 19 in this question-and-answer document.
http://www.believeinit.ca/userfiles/pdf/ULSD_Q&A_e.pdf
The wear scar limit is 460, which is in line with the recommendations of fuel injection equipment manufacturers (including Bosch, the manufacturer of that infamous HPFP), in line with standards elsewhere in the world, and more stringent than the US limit of 520.
To ME, it is sounding more and more like the USA needs to change its standard to match the rest of the world. Good luck with that.
It sounds like this is a Bosch problem. VAG needs to get serious with their vendor AND do a much better job with the customer relations.I'm listening to this because it's holding my wife back from buying a CR TDi. I would love to hear there is a fix.... But this will end the same way Bosch HPFP problem has on the 3.0 twin turbo gasser BMW, no fix.
Their response is exactly the kind of thing that will stop them from making the massive increase in sales over the next few years that they want.The number of incidents is too small to justify a recall. But VWoA needs to take care of this and not deny warranty coverage for replacement of this part.
It's actually a major blunder by VW -- they should have just told the dealers to replace the parts and not try to stiff the customers. The bad publicity is more costly than the parts and labor for these ~200 TDIs.
That wouldn't account for the metal flakes and destruction of parts inside the HPFP. The inter-cooler has no relationship to the fuel injection system. It is part of the forced air induction system. It takes compressed heated air and cools it to increase its density.how do we know the "stall" complaints are HPFP and not the iced intercooler (water in the intake)?
maybe NHTSA should look at the complaint data and zip code to determine the temperature and weather conditions during the failure.
There is no way VW is going to replace everyone's HPFP as a preventative measure. At this time the failure rates aren't steep enough for them to be forced to do so, either. There will be a certain amount of goodwill and a secret warranty from VW if you have a pump crap out that was from the weak production run. That's the cheapest way for VW to handle this.Hopefully we get a recall, new redesigned HPFP's in all of our TDI's and in the 11's going forward and we can put this problem to bed.
What kind of nut a that dealership gave out TDI's as loners?The dealer ship were I bought my car uses TDI as loners.I guess a couple put of customers put gas in them.Now they a magnet that say diesel fuel only in bright letters.
I'd love to see how that goes in an engineering review. It's akin to selling a gasoline car advertised as requiring regular gas, then later finding out if you don't use >100 octane racing fuel it may cause serious damage to the engine. (I'm sure someone will have an issue with this analogy but...)The 460 rating is an absolute maximum, no leeway - Bosch recommends 400, actually.
The engineers at Bosch and VW aren't idiots. What's likely the issue here is that the pump that was re-engineered to be compatible with US fuel lubricity standards, however that engineering effort just didn't work out as well as it was intended to, hence the redesigns.I'd love to see how that goes in an engineering review. It's akin to selling a gasoline car advertised as requiring regular gas, then later finding out if you don't use >100 octane racing fuel it may cause serious damage to the engine. (I'm sure someone will have an issue with this analogy but...)
I'm not sure how the NHTSA can just ignore that fact. The VW CR engine hasn't been out long enough to get a good long term sampling of pump failure rates. Given the manufacturer says is must be less than a 460 scar rating and US specification is 520 (and lubricity isn't labeled at the pump like octane is for gas, so there's no way for a consumer to know), I just don't see how that gets past an NHTSA engineering review. (Granted you could make the argument that it shouldn't have made it past internal VW reviews.)
I'm probably oversimplifying this, but if the pump by design can't handle US diesel and subsequent wear can lead to catastrophic failure (and catastrophic failures are happening), the how could the NHTSA write that off?
True, but if you and I can figure that out.....given the number of revisions that have been made to the pump, you'd think the NHTSA review process would figure that out as well. I just find it hard to believe it would just sweep that under the carpet.The engineers at Bosch and VW aren't idiots. What's likely the issue here is that the pump that was re-engineered to be compatible with US fuel lubricity standards, however that engineering effort just didn't work out as well as it was intended to, hence the redesigns.
This theory would probably shed some light on why the pump that is installed in engines destined for the European market has a different part number.
Which makes me wonder if Euro spec HPFPs were built into a small number of US or North American bound TDI enginesThe engineers at Bosch and VW aren't idiots. What's likely the issue here is that the pump that was re-engineered to be compatible with US fuel lubricity standards, however that engineering effort just didn't work out as well as it was intended to, hence the redesigns.
This theory would probably shed some light on why the pump that is installed in engines destined for the European market has a different part number.
You said it just before I posted it... That's what I think tooThe engineers at Bosch and VW aren't idiots. What's likely the issue here is that the pump that was re-engineered to be compatible with US fuel lubricity standards, however that engineering effort just didn't work out as well as it was intended to, hence the redesigns.
This theory would probably shed some light on why the pump that is installed in engines destined for the European market has a different part number.
Not from my data so far.Which makes me wonder if Euro spec HPFPs were built into a small number of US or North American bound TDI engines
Spiegel.de. Germany's biggest magazine (akin to TIME here) mentioned the investigation on their website today.
http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/0,1518,745232,00.html
I don't see them producing two different spec pumps either. It's worth mentioning that quality control of ULSD in the U.S. probably wasn't all that great in the beginning and still might not be that great now; particularly with regard to wear scar rating. Europe probably has a leg up in Diesel fuel quality which could explain why pumps don't seem to fail in Europe as much.I'd be surprised if Bosch/VW/Audi would carry two lines of different pumps, it costs money to do so...