Glow plug recall

I was just in my local VW dealership and they told me a new glow plug recall was issued today.

My car has NGK-08s. I'm wondering if I could or should replace them with the shorter NGK-09s, or leave well enough alone and only replace with the more expensive 08s, if needed? Except for a recent instance in Colorado, cold starts have been good for me. I'm suspicious that one instance could have been less than good fuel.

there must have been a good reason for vw to use the 09's over the longer 08's. for the 40 bucks it might be wise to use the latest 09's as the longer plugs might invite trouble. perhaps jborcher will post more info on what his vw dealership told him.

If your steels are ok for start, and not likely to get into situations where they might not be, then I would stick with steel. I.e. they will not break on you.

Otherwise two options. If you travel to iffy places for start and can plug in, a pad heater on the oil pan works well.

We have no long term history on the new glow plugs, so I would hold off as long as possible if you go that route.

Thundershorts is an enthusiat supporter of the new stuff, despite VW past record of failure to deal with problems corrctly (including Gen 2 glow plug).

A smart man I knew took a seminar one time, one of the key things was to never make a deciosn until you needed to, last minuge informaiton can come in that can allow you to make the right decision.

That said, the new plugs go in next week.

Why? We are experience long periods of sub zero. The car will not start sans plug in reliably below 5 degrees. It also almost failed to start plugged in at -10 (pad heater). I don't know how long it can sit at 5 or lower and still start.

The inability to count on the car is causing operational issues. One day or two we can adjust, a week like we are looking at and its a serious issue (my wife is flexible, but she does have to get to her work two or three times a week).

This is the second time this winter we have been sub 5 for extended periods of time.

thundershorts said:

there must have been a good reason for vw to use the 09's over the longer 08's. for the 40 bucks it might be wise to use the latest 09's as the longer plugs might invite trouble. perhaps jborcher will post more info on what his vw dealership told him.

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I'm thinking the shorter 09s may be a little bit safer in the long run.

I need to catch up on this one because its been on my mind for both my 05 Passats.
If I go to the dealer - does VW 'claim' to have solved the re-flashing issue? I can now get the ceramics out - metal glows in and expect reasonable starting with a all new re-flashing to get the voltage right ? Sort of a problem solved by VWAG Tec's but it took them two tries? I rather risk a bad start than a trashed engine. What glow plug should I ask for on the 2005 Passats? Is it that " shorter 2009 plug" the latest and greatest hope on this experiment?

Oddly enough another forum had an article on this. Maybe I read it wrong, but there seemed to be a risk just taking the old ceramic glow out. They showed a gap between the glow plug and the chamber that glow plug rests in. Carbon could form in the surrounding gap and when the glow is removed - a chunk of carbon could break off into the combustion chamber. Never heard that one before. Hope I read it wrong. It was on a website called "myturbodiesel.com"
I've been using "Ethanol Shield" in my gas truck. Not just for the hydroscopic ethanol which is a nothing but a bad idea - but the lab guy at ethanol shield told me he puts a additive which will slowly eat the carbon build up too. He sent me some ethanol shield for diesels too. The bio diesel is creeping into the diesel and the buyer gets no notification as to if the bio is in his diesel or not. No label at the pump. Same hydroscopic issues with bio as you get with ethanol. Hope the ethanol shield for diesels works at eating carbon and I hope it reaches that gap around my ceramic glows. I really don't have a clue - just hope. Regardless, the bio is only 2% and at least it gives me lubricity. For now I'd be happy if you guys tell me yes, a new but somewhat unproven reflash is now at the dealer matched to a new - shorter 2009 glow plug.

Blair

Blair

tdiblair, the new ngk cz112 plug appears to have been designed for our bwh engine. the orginally installed ceramic bosch plugs, when failing, presented two problems, first was tip either seizing in the bore in carbon, because it was no longer heating to burn the carbon away, and ending up either stuck and shearing off as it was removed or dropping in the cyl, causing possible damage. the second was the steel part of the plug seizing in the threads and sometimes shearing. the person who started this thread said vw dealer told him that a new recall was announced. i sugest you call vw customer service to ck on that. when vw notified people with the last recall/reflash that they were offering an extended warranty on their glow plugs by having the newest ngk plugs installed along with a new reflash, they also told the dealer they were considering offering the new plugs/flash to all owners, not just the ones that had the recall done before. when a manf, such as vw , purchaces components, the contracts almost always contain clauses pertaining to damage claims if the component causes harm. in otherwords, if the component destroys your engine, the manuf has a remedy. not only does my car start well, but the engine runs smoother since the flash. idle in gear has no objectionable vibration. checking the fueling at idle, with vcds, its even across all cyls now. mileage, on 3.50/gal fuel has improved s bit as well. the good news is , tdiblair , that the steel gp flash is no longer available, yours will be the latest flash installing the- 09 ngk cz112 plugs.

thundershorts said:

not only does my car start well, but the engine runs smoother since the flash. idle in gear has no objectionable vibration. checking the fueling at idle, with vcds, its even across all cyls now. mileage, on 3.50/gal fuel has improved s bit as well.

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Are you implying that these other benefits are the result of new plugs and software? I don't see how GP mods relate to anything once the engine is at temp, so please explain.

Thundershorts,

Thanks for the good come back. A few clearifications. You wrote " 3.50/gas fuel has improved." Does that mean your mileage has gone up 3.5 MPH?
Also, my bother bought a 2004 Passat BWH engine ( now sold to a friend) and I own two 2005's. None of us ever received a recall from VW on the glow plugs. Don't know what to make of that, but I assume we all have cermamic glows.

Did the dealer put you CZ 112 plugs in and re-flash for free?

I'm also not wild about a chunk of carbon breaking off in my combustion chamber when the dealer twists the old ceramics out. In my favor one car only has 30K on the odometer and the other has 46k. I'm assuming the carbon break off issue occurs on cars with far more miles on them. What say you. I'm wondering how the dealer even knows if a chunk of carbon has dropped off on top of the piston during the glow plug change out. Do we just drive away and hope for the best?
Now I wonder if removing the head is the an option or would that be overkill.
I'm also wondering if I should spray penetrating oil on the glows everyday for a few days before I bring it to the dealer in the hope it limits the thread seizing issue.
I'm just leary of VW living up to my damaged engine if carbon does break off into the combustion chamber upon the removal of the old ceramic glow. Might be lots of red tape tracing my engine damage back to a chunk of carbon. Any alternatives here or is the carbon break off issue rare? Especially on a 30K and 46K low mileage car?

Blair

One unconfirmed report states that a VW owner who changed to the new ceramic glow plugs lost 20 pounds and now looks 10 years younger as a direct result of the new glowplugs!

my car idles smoother in gear since flash. mileage is slightly better but its winter so impossible to really know how much. coldest here was 8f so far and starts are easy with 1/2 sec cranking time after 10 sec glow heating. extended cranking beyond a sec or so in a diesel only cools cyls by drawing in cold air

i had to pay for flash and plugs, my car had been used briefly as a submarine. plugs 40 flash 60.

Thundershorts,

Actually your MPG, as I think you hinted with the (it's winter so hard to say) quote.
Well your right. In the winter we blend kerosine into the diesel for the pour and cloud spec's we need to meet for cold temps. The kerosine has less BTU's so MPG suffers some with the winter time kero blended diesel in cold climates. So you will get even better MPG when we warm up and circulate the kero blended diesel out of the fuel tanks. I also see you have a Peugeot 505 turbo diesel. I had one too - think mine was 1981 or 82? It was slightly faster up a hill than my 300-D non turbo.

Thanks for the info. I'll call my dealer today. Last year he said there was no recall.
I'm assuming I'll pay for the flash and NGK Glows, I'm good with that but somewhere I read one who got a 'glow plug relay.' I'm assuming the relay is not necessary to do the switch over to the ceramic NGK's unless the relay itself coincidently just happens to be bad due to age.

thundershorts said:

there must have been a good reason for vw to use the 09's over the longer 08's. for the 40 bucks it might be wise to use the latest 09's as the longer plugs might invite trouble. perhaps jborcher will post more info on what his vw dealership told him.

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The dealer wasn't able to give me any details at the time, he assumed that was due to the fact that the recall was just issued that morning. I'm planning on taking my car in for the recall later this week as it still has the original ceramic plugs. I'll get more info at that time.

Jborcher, my only concern is the mechanic at the dealer , who I will not be observing, might break off the ceramic bosch into my piston. Sure I can ask for all the old glows back for inspection and hope the 4 glows they hand me our out of my car but I'm going to hit them all today with penetrating oil and see if I can loosen them and pre-inspect them myself so I , at least, know the mechanic could get them out with ease and no broken off tail in the glow port. A friend of mine who has the large machines that rip trees out of the ground is up in the cold country. He says the following helps. After spraying the penetrating oil on the area - he uses his compressed air hose and hits the area near the threads. Say it helps the migration of the penetration oil.

Blair

if you can see the old plugs you will know if they broke one. if they do, it may be vw's responsibility since they ordered the recall. i wouldn't worry about it and don't mess with them yourself, let them do the removal. if you don't have a fault indicated chances are they are ok.

tdiblair said:

Jborcher, my only concern is the mechanic at the dealer , who I will not be observing, might break off the ceramic bosch into my piston. Sure I can ask for all the old glows back for inspection and hope the 4 glows they hand me our out of my car but I'm going to hit them all today with penetrating oil and see if I can loosen them and pre-inspect them myself so I , at least, know the mechanic could get them out with ease and no broken off tail in the glow port. A friend of mine who has the large machines that rip trees out of the ground is up in the cold country. He says the following helps. After spraying the penetrating oil on the area - he uses his compressed air hose and hits the area near the threads. Say it helps the migration of the penetration oil.

Blair

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If you take then out to check them, don't put them back in!

Buy a new set to put in and go to the dealer for the flash. Putting them back in is asking for trouble.

Thundershorts, have you noticed any laziness in car's response, after the flash?

I had the transmission replaced shortly after the flash (3 days) and cannot say if the laziness was there before transmission swap.

Car runs very smooth after the flash, MPG is improved, but significant less power is noticed and this "not normal" acceleration (laziness).

The MAF was suspected, I replaced it but only a minor improvement was observed.

Well the dealer here in CT does see a Jan 14th "recall." She could not explain why my 2 Passats and my brother's never got a recall notice. For clearity all 3 of our Passats are 2.0L TDI 2004 -2005. She did not describe it as a EPA action - just the very current Jan 14th recall.
No mention of if I/we get Boshch or NGK or a reflash. Just that they check the existing system for issues which I think is 'dealer-speak' for maybe you get the glows and reflash - maybe you don't if your originals are working fine?

Anyway 3 of the glows spun out with no issue. Didn't want to mess with the 4th near the firewall since acess would be easier with the fuel filter removed. It was 17deg F here - hands cold enough working in the driveway without fuel spilling on them too and on the 4 lines that go to the top of the fuel filter, I didn't know which one I have to vac to get the air out of the line. I remember there was a film clip done on the Jetta. I assume it's the same set up on our Passats?

Regardless, on a 5 year old car with 30K on it - they spun out like butter. Not sure the penetrating oil did anything. The 3 I did pull out showed no signs of decay on the ceramic shaft but what would you expect with 30K.

I recorded the old Bosch numbers so I could see if I really do get the new NGK's put in.
For those who want to know what were stamped on my original ceramic glows.

The original 2005 Bosch Ceramics are numbered from top to bottom:

1 250 302 0 02 7.0V
France -4 10 27 ( assuming all will be different since this looks like a country and date code)
N 105 9 16 01 ( at the very bottom) and yes all stamped Bosch at the top.

Blair

tiri.liri said:

Thundershorts, have you noticed any laziness in car's response, after the flash?

I had the transmission replaced shortly after the flash (3 days) and cannot say if the laziness was there before transmission swap.

Car runs very smooth after the flash, MPG is improved, but significant less power is noticed and this "not normal" acceleration (laziness).

The MAF was suspected, I replaced it but only a minor improvement was observed.

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Are you sure you are not in limp mode?

abctdi: Shouldn't be, the car returned 2 times from dealer (2 different dealers) where it was inspected and verified for errors.... First after the reflash, second after transmission replacement

tiri.liri, no difference in performance for me,just smoother idle and less vibration. Was the trans replacement a zf factory unit from vw? glad you reported the smoother running after flash as some here might have doubted it would make a difference.

tiri.liri said:

abctdi: Shouldn't be, the car returned 2 times from dealer (2 different dealers) where it was inspected and verified for errors.... First after the reflash, second after transmission replacement

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Dealer confidence? not so much.
Limp mode does have to throw a code, IIRC.
On cruise control, does it lose speed going up a hill?

I still wonder how a GP fix would make it smoother once at normal temp...

tdiblair said:

Jborcher, my only concern is the mechanic at the dealer , who I will not be observing, might break off the ceramic bosch into my piston. Sure I can ask for all the old glows back for inspection and hope the 4 glows they hand me our out of my car but I'm going to hit them all today with penetrating oil and see if I can loosen them and pre-inspect them myself so I , at least, know the mechanic could get them out with ease and no broken off tail in the glow port. A friend of mine who has the large machines that rip trees out of the ground is up in the cold country. He says the following helps. After spraying the penetrating oil on the area - he uses his compressed air hose and hits the area near the threads. Say it helps the migration of the penetration oil.

Blair

Click to expand...

I'm of the opinion that if they break one off into the cylinder the dealership will cover any work associated with it since it was a recall.

Well Thundershorts you talked me into it.

Friend's Passat (previously owned by my brother) goes in Thurday 1/20/11 for the Flash and NGK plugs - 1 of my 2 Passats goes in Friday. After this I'm just going to replace them in about 3 or 4 years. I slighly heated the engine for about 5 min then a squirt of penetrating oil which wicks down the threads towards the heat. Capillary action I think they call it. Same as sweating copper pipe. The solder is attracted to the heat source and flows towards the flame. Anyway, I did not have the new NGK's handy or I would have stuck them back in and just go for the reflash Friday - but - I didn't know how rusted the originals would be and wanted to be sure. The best deal was a post I found from Oil Hammer. Loosen the fuel filter holding clamp - slide Fuel Filter down to the lowest postion to acces the glow plug near the fire wall. That made that SOB a breeze to get at. I always hated that glow plug near the fuel filter. Now when I check to see if I really did get NGK, I'm going to replace the fuel filter. Found another set of instructions on another site. Seems our Passats are different than the old Jetta TDI's I had. To prime the new fuel filter, beyond just manually filling it with fuel - they just hit the key ( not start position) at 2 or 3 times for three seconds each time. The electric fuel pump does the rest of the work and you get a normal start. I didn't know. Now I'm hoping that if our wifes ever run out of fuel on a trip - instead of battery draining cranking which will be their first reflex - just tell them to turn the key right before the 'start' position for maybe 60 seconds(?) to let the electic full pump fill a totally empty filter - then try starting? No need for them to pop the hood. I hope my assumption is right?

Blair

Blair

you will get the ngk's without question as the old flash for the bosch 5v is no longer available.

abctdi: I don't trust the dealer(s) but there is not much you can do about it, at least when the car is still under warranty. I always ask to have assigned someone that is Diesel "certified", as most answers when something is not running smoothly, are: "that's a Diesel, it's normal how it runs"

There was no error code, except the P0741 code from the transmission, before having it replaced. It's not that bad, the car is not struggling but is slower in acceleration and a litttle less power is seen. Still, is acceptable, but compared to the previous status, is noticeable.


I don't use the cruise, I don't like it at all
And a hill...I don't have one in my day-to-day route. Until I will find one, I hope the car will return to normal. Anyway, I will test it on the next hill and post the results.

Maybe now I can say that with the replaced transmission the car runs smoothly, but that was noticed before the replacement.
A lot less vibrations and engine noise, especially at idle and low rpm (i.e. when the transmission downshifts).
It is REAL

Thunder: yes, the trans is a VW reman one (part number ending in X), replaced under warranty. No mounts were replaced, I asked to have them changed if the least sign of wear is noticed, they said they are good.

With trans replaced, the gears are changing smoother, I like the new global "smothness" (the car runs better then when I bought it) but the laziness is killing me.
Maybe the cold weather (-10 to -20C) is the reason, or the fuel quality (winterized).

It's acceptable, I will finally adapt ... I just need some time

Tiri Liri

Questions that don't help you, but will assist me.
I always wonder about the ZF Trannys on these Passats.
How much is a transmission job on the B5.5Passats and what are the options....like...what did they quote you for a new VW tranny and then the VW remanufactured?
How many miles before the tranny went out - what kind of driving do you do.
At what intervales did you change the tranny fluid and filter?

So If you can, just a brief summary of
Cost
Miles before it blew
Type of driving
Tranny Oil Intervale changes

As to the lazy - maybe a flash did that. if you cant' take it anymore - at least you have options like RocketChip.

thanks

Blair

tdiblair: My car had about 92.000 km when the trans was replaced. When the P0741 code appeared, a VW basic diagnostic did not find anything. I insisted and provided info found here and they opened a case with VW Canada. Opened the trans, found the TC with problems. At the attempt to install the reman TC other parts were found damaged and the trans was replaced with the reman one.

There was no option about a new one, the reman is what VW offers, like for a lot of other parts - you cannot find the new ones.
And I have no prices, just a verbal mention of about $4.000 for the reman trans.

The filter and the oil (trans flush) were changed at about 65.000 km, at the same time when the BS chained failed, seized the engine and the engine was replaced (again under warranty), with a reman one - minus what they call "accessories" - reused from my old engine.

One week after the new engine was installed, car was running very rough, vibrations...no power. Brought the car back and they replaced the turbo (again under warranty), with a reman on.

I drive about 60-70 km a day, about 50km on highway (100-120kmh)
I don't push the car, I can say that I baby it most of the time.

Maybe some of the performance issues were related to the fact that the car was not used for about 2 years - manufaatured at the end of 2004 and purchased at the end of 2006, as a new car.

since you just had dealer install the transmission, I would request that they recheck your car for the performance issue. you have something which is causing the lack of pep you are used to. tramsmission is pretty major surgery which can disturb any number of things. first thing comes to mind is turbo/vac circut. the normal scan they did was with the car static in the shop. I would request a tech who knows these cars to do a dynamic test drive, with the scanner in the car during the drive. they made enough money on your job to afford the time. neither i nor anyone else has reported any drop in performance after flash, so it would narrow it down to the transmission surgery. there probably will be a fairly simple explanation for your performance problem. if you get a hard time, then get the vw service rep for your area to to drive it with you.