MrMark
Well-known member
Hello All,
I am brand new to this forum, but not to the VW TDI. My wife and I bought a New Beetle TDI in 1998, and the TDI engine has given us many smiles in the miles that we have driven it…about 120,000 in all. At least, that was the case up until about a year ago…I am hoping that there are some TDI gurus in this forum that may just happen to recognize the symptoms. By the way, I just finished typing this post and it became quite long, so I apologize in advance for that!
Anyway, about a year ago, we started getting check engine lights. We had our local mechanic check it out each time, but the codes were always somewhat ambiguous. I wish I could remember the exact codes, but unfortunately, I cannot. Each time, he would do things that seemed appropriate, and indeed, some of those things made the car run better, but after a few weeks or months, the light would always come on once again. We probably took it in about four times in all.
The last time that we took it in for this problem the car was also getting hard to start, so we hoped that would give him something to lock onto. Other than the hard start problem and the light, the car was running well at this point…still bringing a few smiles with its wide low-end torque curve and great fuel economy.
On this last occasion, our mechanic noticed that there was quite a bit of endplay in the injection pump. The cogged pulley for the timing belt was showing a wear pattern that did not line up with the current position of the belt, so it seemed logical to me that something had changed with the pump.
Those injection pumps are pretty expensive, but we still liked the car, so we decided to let him replace the pump. Well, the job turned into a multi-week affair. The story I got was that the dealer kept sending the wrong pumps. Apparently, each one was a special order, so several days would pass between each attempt.
Towards the end of this time, I reminded my mechanic that the car was originally from Massachusetts…I was thinking that there could be some differences related to the emissions package. He told me that the injection pump ordering process is related to the VIN number, so it should match that car perfectly.
Once he finally got a pump that he was satisfied with he got it installed in one day and called to tell me that the car was ready. I paid the bill and drove off in the car, but to my great displeasure, it was like driving a completely different car – a car that I did not like at all.
The engine started easily enough, and it sounded fine, but it just didn’t have any guts at all. It was almost as if it wasn’t getting any boost from the turbo, and in fact, I could not hear the turbo spinning up. Even stranger, the farther I drove, the weaker it seemed. Starting out I had almost convinced myself that it had just been a long time since I had driven the car, but the closer I got to home, the more I realized that something really was wrong.
Needless to say, I took the car back to the shop and left the car for another try. He spent some more time running through the steps, from the base timing and going from there. He is a smart fellow, and to me, he seemed like he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. The only problem is that when he got everything exactly the way it was supposed to be, it just didn’t work the way that should. After several days of this and numerous test drives, he came to the conclusion that there had to be a problem with the pump. As I understood his explanation, everything starts with the mechanical timing of the pump, so if that starting point is flawed for some reason, then there is no way to get a good final result.
I used to make my living as a VW mechanic, but that was back in the seventies and eighties, so much of what I knew then simply does not apply to a VW TDI. The man tells me that a bad pump could be the root of the problem so I have to take him at his word. He’s killing a lot of time working on the car, and he’s not making any more money, so I have to believe that he is trying to do the right thing for me.
So, with that in mind, he orders another pump. It takes more time, but after a week or so, the car is ready to roll again. When I go to pick up the car, he is excited about the improved performance, so I thought he really had it fixed. I took off for home, expecting the best, but to my continuing displeasure, the car still wasn’t itself. It was different, true enough, but still not so good. This time, I could hear the turbo, and I could feel a little extra pull as it would come up on the boost, but honestly, the pull was pretty weak. I actually made it all the way home that time, but as before, it seemed like the closer I got to home, the slower the car was running.
I took the car back to the shop the next day, to my mechanic’s obvious dismay. Still, he took it well and told me he would try to figure out what was going on. At some point I seem to remember that he removed the entire exhaust and turbo assembly, thinking there could be a problem. He cleaned out some accumulations, and put it all back together again. He did the whole timing routine over again, and when it was all done, I have to say that it did, indeed, run much differently than before. Not the same as before the first pump, but the best that it had been since then.
He asked me to drive it for a while and see how it went, so I reluctantly drove the car home again. That was almost a year ago. Since then, the check engine light has never returned. At some level, the car runs just fine. It starts right up and it gets decent fuel economy, even if its not as good as it once was. I would say that the exhaust smells worse than it used to, but that’s hard to nail down…it never smelled great.
The problem is that it’s just not fun to drive anymore. I have almost forgotten what it felt like when it was running right, but it seems to me that it used to have useable torque as low as 1200 RPM, and it was full-on by 2000 RPM. I used to drive confortably in fifth gear at 45 MPH. I could even get away with speeds as low as 35 in fifth gear, if I wasn’t trying to accelerate, and the engine was up to temperature.
Now, I am always down a gear from where I used to be at any given speed. The engine has very little power below 2500 RPM, and as you TDI owners know, that equates to a fairly high road speed in fifth gear…I would guess it would be pushing 65 – 70 MPH. By the time the power comes on, it’s already running out of power. It seems like the engine revs more freely than it once did, but at the same time, there is no more power in those higher revs than there was before the change. Basically, I lost the pleasing low-end torque, but didn’t get much (if any) high-end performance in exchange.
The character of the engine seems to have changed completely. When I step on the gas, there is a little shudder…or vibration that runs all through the car. I can feel it coming up through the steering wheel and even through the floor. If this was a gasoline-powered car, I would say that it feels like the ignition timing has too much advance, or the cam timing is off a notch.
With a gasoline-powered engine, one might expect the response and power to improve as the ignition timing is advanced, at least up until the point that it starts to knock enough to start causing trouble. By comparison, the TDI has the coarseness that one might expect from over-advanced gas engine, but with none of the performance gains. It really has lost its most redeeming characteristics.
So…if any of you brave people have read this far, what do you think? Does all of this sound like anything that you have ever heard of before? I would really like to get the old bug running well again, but I have to say too that I could not survive another bill like that last one. If its going to cost that much, with no guarantee of success, I’m afraid that I’m going to just have to trade it in…very sad.
I am brand new to this forum, but not to the VW TDI. My wife and I bought a New Beetle TDI in 1998, and the TDI engine has given us many smiles in the miles that we have driven it…about 120,000 in all. At least, that was the case up until about a year ago…I am hoping that there are some TDI gurus in this forum that may just happen to recognize the symptoms. By the way, I just finished typing this post and it became quite long, so I apologize in advance for that!
Anyway, about a year ago, we started getting check engine lights. We had our local mechanic check it out each time, but the codes were always somewhat ambiguous. I wish I could remember the exact codes, but unfortunately, I cannot. Each time, he would do things that seemed appropriate, and indeed, some of those things made the car run better, but after a few weeks or months, the light would always come on once again. We probably took it in about four times in all.
The last time that we took it in for this problem the car was also getting hard to start, so we hoped that would give him something to lock onto. Other than the hard start problem and the light, the car was running well at this point…still bringing a few smiles with its wide low-end torque curve and great fuel economy.
On this last occasion, our mechanic noticed that there was quite a bit of endplay in the injection pump. The cogged pulley for the timing belt was showing a wear pattern that did not line up with the current position of the belt, so it seemed logical to me that something had changed with the pump.
Those injection pumps are pretty expensive, but we still liked the car, so we decided to let him replace the pump. Well, the job turned into a multi-week affair. The story I got was that the dealer kept sending the wrong pumps. Apparently, each one was a special order, so several days would pass between each attempt.
Towards the end of this time, I reminded my mechanic that the car was originally from Massachusetts…I was thinking that there could be some differences related to the emissions package. He told me that the injection pump ordering process is related to the VIN number, so it should match that car perfectly.
Once he finally got a pump that he was satisfied with he got it installed in one day and called to tell me that the car was ready. I paid the bill and drove off in the car, but to my great displeasure, it was like driving a completely different car – a car that I did not like at all.
The engine started easily enough, and it sounded fine, but it just didn’t have any guts at all. It was almost as if it wasn’t getting any boost from the turbo, and in fact, I could not hear the turbo spinning up. Even stranger, the farther I drove, the weaker it seemed. Starting out I had almost convinced myself that it had just been a long time since I had driven the car, but the closer I got to home, the more I realized that something really was wrong.
Needless to say, I took the car back to the shop and left the car for another try. He spent some more time running through the steps, from the base timing and going from there. He is a smart fellow, and to me, he seemed like he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. The only problem is that when he got everything exactly the way it was supposed to be, it just didn’t work the way that should. After several days of this and numerous test drives, he came to the conclusion that there had to be a problem with the pump. As I understood his explanation, everything starts with the mechanical timing of the pump, so if that starting point is flawed for some reason, then there is no way to get a good final result.
I used to make my living as a VW mechanic, but that was back in the seventies and eighties, so much of what I knew then simply does not apply to a VW TDI. The man tells me that a bad pump could be the root of the problem so I have to take him at his word. He’s killing a lot of time working on the car, and he’s not making any more money, so I have to believe that he is trying to do the right thing for me.
So, with that in mind, he orders another pump. It takes more time, but after a week or so, the car is ready to roll again. When I go to pick up the car, he is excited about the improved performance, so I thought he really had it fixed. I took off for home, expecting the best, but to my continuing displeasure, the car still wasn’t itself. It was different, true enough, but still not so good. This time, I could hear the turbo, and I could feel a little extra pull as it would come up on the boost, but honestly, the pull was pretty weak. I actually made it all the way home that time, but as before, it seemed like the closer I got to home, the slower the car was running.
I took the car back to the shop the next day, to my mechanic’s obvious dismay. Still, he took it well and told me he would try to figure out what was going on. At some point I seem to remember that he removed the entire exhaust and turbo assembly, thinking there could be a problem. He cleaned out some accumulations, and put it all back together again. He did the whole timing routine over again, and when it was all done, I have to say that it did, indeed, run much differently than before. Not the same as before the first pump, but the best that it had been since then.
He asked me to drive it for a while and see how it went, so I reluctantly drove the car home again. That was almost a year ago. Since then, the check engine light has never returned. At some level, the car runs just fine. It starts right up and it gets decent fuel economy, even if its not as good as it once was. I would say that the exhaust smells worse than it used to, but that’s hard to nail down…it never smelled great.
The problem is that it’s just not fun to drive anymore. I have almost forgotten what it felt like when it was running right, but it seems to me that it used to have useable torque as low as 1200 RPM, and it was full-on by 2000 RPM. I used to drive confortably in fifth gear at 45 MPH. I could even get away with speeds as low as 35 in fifth gear, if I wasn’t trying to accelerate, and the engine was up to temperature.
Now, I am always down a gear from where I used to be at any given speed. The engine has very little power below 2500 RPM, and as you TDI owners know, that equates to a fairly high road speed in fifth gear…I would guess it would be pushing 65 – 70 MPH. By the time the power comes on, it’s already running out of power. It seems like the engine revs more freely than it once did, but at the same time, there is no more power in those higher revs than there was before the change. Basically, I lost the pleasing low-end torque, but didn’t get much (if any) high-end performance in exchange.
The character of the engine seems to have changed completely. When I step on the gas, there is a little shudder…or vibration that runs all through the car. I can feel it coming up through the steering wheel and even through the floor. If this was a gasoline-powered car, I would say that it feels like the ignition timing has too much advance, or the cam timing is off a notch.
With a gasoline-powered engine, one might expect the response and power to improve as the ignition timing is advanced, at least up until the point that it starts to knock enough to start causing trouble. By comparison, the TDI has the coarseness that one might expect from over-advanced gas engine, but with none of the performance gains. It really has lost its most redeeming characteristics.
So…if any of you brave people have read this far, what do you think? Does all of this sound like anything that you have ever heard of before? I would really like to get the old bug running well again, but I have to say too that I could not survive another bill like that last one. If its going to cost that much, with no guarantee of success, I’m afraid that I’m going to just have to trade it in…very sad.
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