Loud wine from rear, then engine shuts off

Started the car this morning. 10 deg weather. 2015 Passat 60K miles.
There was a loud whine coming from the rear of the car. Wife leet it run about a minute, then drove off. Comes right back, says the glow plug light is flashing, engine dies in the driveway.

So they switched to my 2015 Jetta TDI 9K miles. Same whining sound!

Shut the car off and ended up taking the non-TDI car.

Any clue what this might be? I suspect it is the fuel pump. The two cars were filled up at different stations. Passat was just used the day before and had 425 miles on that tank. Jetta was used 2 days ago and had 75 miles on its tank.

I use a cup of Diesel Kleen with every fillup.

" Loud wine from rear, then engine shuts off"

Sometimes enough makes people loud, but I didn't know it could happen with cars.....

Happy New Year!

Flashing glow plug light is a sign of trouble. Scan with VCDS and get code(s).

The freeze point of DEF is 12 degrees F, if both TDI cars are parked outside it could’ve started to crystallize. The loud whine noise could be the pump trying to pump freezing DEF. I don’t know if these cars have a DEF heater.

I hear a constant pump noise from the back of the car whenever my 2015 Passat is running, never heard that in my Touareg.

Will get the code(s) shortly.

These cars have a DEF heater, but not sure if it runs when the car is off.

Now it is closer to 18 degrees, so will try to start after looking at the codes, and see if the noise persists.

I don't remember the Passat doing this last 2 winters and we did get some cold weather. The Jetta is a "new 2015", so this is its first winter. I am in NJ, how do people who live much farther North do?

Checked Passat's OBD - no fault codes.
Tried to start it and it did. The noise came back only for 5 seconds or so, then went away. Wife drove 20+ miles - no issues.
Did not run the Jetta today, but plan on taking it tomorrow to work.

Have a 2015 Passat and it was -12 last weekend, no wind, and in the single digits sense at night with the car outside and if the DEF is frozen, doesn't seem to be an issue. Have driven it almost every morning early.

Started the Jetta this morning (about 10 degrees) - same whine. I let it idle a bit, then drove gently. The wine went away after about 3 or 4 miles.

ilyago said:

Checked Passat's OBD - no fault codes.
Tried to start it and it did. The noise came back only for 5 seconds or so, then went away. Wife drove 20+ miles - no issues.
Did not run the Jetta today, but plan on taking it tomorrow to work.

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what are you using to check codes, VCDS will tell you more than cheap bluetooth dongles.

A whiny rear fuel pump is indicative of gelled diesel fuel. Treat every tank of fuel with Power Service WHITE fuel additive. This seems to be a particularly bad problem this year. Yes the weather is abnormally cold, but it seems that fuel suppliers haven't been treating their fuel accordingly.

OP: You mentioned treating with Diesel Kleen. Unfortunately, that does not have sufficient anti-gel additive for winter months. Silver bottle = summer. White bottle = winter.

http://powerservice.com/psp_product/diesel-fuel-supplement-cetane-boost/

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What he said.

The DEF system won't try to pump until the tank heaters have been on and bring the DEF temperature up first. The DEF doesn't start operation until the NOX catalyst is warmed up. That will take several minutes and miles in this weather.

I may have figured out what the commonality of our below 10f problem is. Most report temp below 10f; tank level usually half or less;loud whine or screech from lift pump; low pressure code; when brought into warm environment runs normally; problem blamed on jelled fuel. For the golf tdi there is net another pump superceded part # ending with...an.After having my 2015 golf tdi misdiagnosed by a typically incopetent dealer as fuel gelling, I tested the fuel myself in my sub zero using a fluke et78dmm using the temp attachment. My pump was shrieking at 7f but fuel was only slightly cloudy at -5f a good 12f colder.

The problem is blamed on gelled fuel/waxed or iced filters because that is almost certainly what it was.

not necessarily true. Oil retailers don't want problems and are responsible for any expence incurred by selling improper fuel.

Here's an explanation of why there are more gelling & freezing issues this winter(besides the unusually cold weather):

https://www.fuelsnews.com/diesel-tanks-gelling-winter/

The discussion I thought was about 2015 tdi's with failures occurring with properly treated winter fuel. I have both a golf and passat parked next to each other, both using fuel from same pump. Passat no trouble, Golf with shrieking tank pump at 7f

thundershorts said:

The discussion I thought was about 2015 tdi's with failures occurring with properly treated winter fuel. I have both a golf and passat parked next to each other, both using fuel from same pump. Passat no trouble, Golf with shrieking tank pump at 7f

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Your 2015 tdi burns the same diesel fuel as every other diesel vehicle filling from a given tank. You should read the article I linked to- it's pretty informative.

No gelled fuel in my instance.

My fuel hasn't gelled at -25° F yet either. That doesn't mean nobody else is having gelling problems this winter- clearly many are. The varying quality of crude feedstocks this winter are apparently partly to blame.