Bad needle lift sensor

Well, CEL is on and the GP light is flashing, as well as reduced power on my 00 Golf. Pulled the codes and there is a "17655 Lift Needle Sensor (G80) open or short to +" code.

Cleaned up the area and checked the wiring to the #3 injector. All seems OK, no obvious broken wires or the like. And when I test the resistance of the wires to the sensor on top of the injector it reads open (eg infinite resistance). So I will look once again for possible breaks in the wires that don't show thru the insulation, but I suspect the sensing coil in the injector is toast.

My question is what is the right way to "fix" this? I assume I need a new #3 injector with sensor, new copper washer for it, new copper washers for the return T fitting. What else? Would it be best to take all the injectors out have them cleaned and balanced? New nozzles (300K miles on them).

Guidance here?

Reduced power because you are in perma limp mode.

You need to replace it, but it's the expensive one from VW. I would look around for a good used set.

Yeah what jokila said, you need to replace the #3 injector body. Best bet is in the forsale section and see if a used set is for sale.
Now would be a good time to pull the other injectors get what nozzles you want , have them cleaned, pop tested and flow check.....
Also look into the hot swap program that several venders on this site has.
Stay away from cheap e-bay nozzles........just my .02.

Well, perhaps progress. Bought a recon'd #3 injector and installed it yesterday. It cured the 17655 and limp mode. It ran just fine in the driverway. I thought I was done but in taking for a test drive the engine would hesitate for a moment every now and then when over 3000 rpms. Checked the codes and it now is throwing a 17654, Needle lift sensor (G80) Implausible Signal Intermittent. Tried clearing the code and cleaning the electrical contacts in the plug, but the same thing.

My conclusion is I got sent a defective #3 injector. It works OK at low RPM but fails intermittently at higher rpms. It doesn't seem to be at the electrical connector so it must be internal to the injector. Don't know if folks here had any suggestions for me before a pull this injector and send it back? Would a gummed up inside potentially cause this, and could running some injector cleaner thru fix it (although the injector was supposedly cleaned and tested)?

What does it read when you ohm it out?

It read ~100 ohms, which from what I read is right. The old one had infinite resistance which threw the CEL and limp mode.

Where did you get it?
I would triple check the wiring in the loom. Could actually be a short that caused the failure in the first place.

Thanks all. Don't think it was the wiring harness since the original injector ohm'd out as infinite, so that was likely the cause. (But I suppose it might be the wiring too but seems a bit too much to think both of them failed at the same time) Also since the new one works fine at lower RPMs, and when I wiggle the harness, it does not seem to be a connection issue with the wiring.

I called the vendor and they offered to send a new injector, and a prepaid mailing label to send back the old one. That was about all I could reasonably expect them to do to fix it. Hopefully the new injector will not have this problem, will know in a couple of days...

Sup guys, am currently having a g80 fault code on my jetta 2002 model, i ohmed injector side wires and they read smthin around 100ohms (i cant still remember the actual figure) but from the other end of the harness (from ecu) it seems there is no current flowing into the njector coil, so my question is is it how it should operate ? If you are to ohm test it what reading should it give ? Should there also be a voltage reading ?
Please help

Ohm reading is good. A lot of things could cause an irregular reading. Check everything in the turbo control and monitoring system. Sticking vnt, slowly failing n75, or other vacuum issues are common problems.

How do you test all those lol, ofcz the vnt i have worked on them but my n75 if i put a test light on its harness it starts up bright then dims abruptly, it does that every time i test it, is it how it should be ?

I had that code come up when my n75 was failing, along with vnt issues. Sticking and worn. Do you have vcds, and are you having runability issues?