oilhammer
Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Customer recently drove [a great distance] for me to perform a major maintenance service on his sweet silver '03 Jetta Wagon. When I pulled the cover, this is what I found:
The car has 100k miles on it (5-speed, 100k belt, right on schedule!). The story he gave me was when the car was a baby, about 12k miles, the car started to run erratic after a cold start, and the MIL came on. Dealer said it was a fuel temp sensor code and that the pump needed to be replaced. Now we all know here that the fuel temp sensor can be obtained, through a dealer, no less, for about $20. And the sensor lives under the top of the pump cover and can be switched easily in about a half hour or less.
But, following the silly VESIS flowchart, the dealer tech dutifully ordered a whole "new" (reman) pump. Installed it in the above [wrong] fashion. And, as you can suspect, the owner went through several bouts of "low power, MIL on, car not running right, etc." Well, I guess eventually they got it to run half-assed decent, but if you look closely you'll see the pump's sprocket is jammed ALL THE WAY to one side on the timing adjustment, and this car was STILL not even in the graph!
Needless to say, I performed the job properly with the proper tools, got the timing set in spec, and all is well.
Just thought I'd pass this along, that there is a butcher at a VW dealer in Fairfax, Indiana, that is doing shortcutted work on TDIs and presumably every other car his tools touch.
The car has 100k miles on it (5-speed, 100k belt, right on schedule!). The story he gave me was when the car was a baby, about 12k miles, the car started to run erratic after a cold start, and the MIL came on. Dealer said it was a fuel temp sensor code and that the pump needed to be replaced. Now we all know here that the fuel temp sensor can be obtained, through a dealer, no less, for about $20. And the sensor lives under the top of the pump cover and can be switched easily in about a half hour or less.
But, following the silly VESIS flowchart, the dealer tech dutifully ordered a whole "new" (reman) pump. Installed it in the above [wrong] fashion. And, as you can suspect, the owner went through several bouts of "low power, MIL on, car not running right, etc." Well, I guess eventually they got it to run half-assed decent, but if you look closely you'll see the pump's sprocket is jammed ALL THE WAY to one side on the timing adjustment, and this car was STILL not even in the graph!
Needless to say, I performed the job properly with the proper tools, got the timing set in spec, and all is well.
Just thought I'd pass this along, that there is a butcher at a VW dealer in Fairfax, Indiana, that is doing shortcutted work on TDIs and presumably every other car his tools touch.
