mobandy
Member
- Joined
- May 3, 2002
- Location
- Here, where else?
02 Golf TDI won\'t start
My 02 TDI won't start. It now has 63000 miles on it and has been difficult to start periodically. Once in a while it would crank and usually hit on, seemingly, the first compression stroke or two but not start. After many repeated tries, sometimes perhaps as many as 40-50, I would get lucky and it would start. Then it would run perfectly and reliably start for several weeks. Then it would repeat the process. I looked into the fuel cut-off valve, actually removing the little plunger on one occasion, and of course the car started right up and did so reliably for another two or three weeks. I figured that must have fixed it and low and behold, it did it again! Anyhow, at this point I have actually pulled an injector nozzle out of the head and aimed it into a glass jar and got cloudy puffs coming out. Currently the car will not start. It seems to hit on the first couple of compression strokes then mostly just cranks with the occasional single hit. I hate the thought of taking it in. They could easily just throw parts at it until it runs, perhaps without even fixing the problem. Then, three weeks later, with a considerably lighter wallet, have the same problem again. Has anyone got any ideas? Oh yeah, VAGCOM never gives me any DTCs. It has in the past, if I leave something disconnected it does and once I had burned up glow plugs and got a DTC so I'm saying it does work. I just haven't seen a code due to my problem. Based on that and what I see going on I believe the computer is not holding the engine off. I believe it to be more mechanical. Bad fuel comes to mind as a possibiilty. I don't know if the symptom I have could be bad fuel or not. I would appreciate any help anyone could give me.
Thanks,
Morris
My 02 TDI won't start. It now has 63000 miles on it and has been difficult to start periodically. Once in a while it would crank and usually hit on, seemingly, the first compression stroke or two but not start. After many repeated tries, sometimes perhaps as many as 40-50, I would get lucky and it would start. Then it would run perfectly and reliably start for several weeks. Then it would repeat the process. I looked into the fuel cut-off valve, actually removing the little plunger on one occasion, and of course the car started right up and did so reliably for another two or three weeks. I figured that must have fixed it and low and behold, it did it again! Anyhow, at this point I have actually pulled an injector nozzle out of the head and aimed it into a glass jar and got cloudy puffs coming out. Currently the car will not start. It seems to hit on the first couple of compression strokes then mostly just cranks with the occasional single hit. I hate the thought of taking it in. They could easily just throw parts at it until it runs, perhaps without even fixing the problem. Then, three weeks later, with a considerably lighter wallet, have the same problem again. Has anyone got any ideas? Oh yeah, VAGCOM never gives me any DTCs. It has in the past, if I leave something disconnected it does and once I had burned up glow plugs and got a DTC so I'm saying it does work. I just haven't seen a code due to my problem. Based on that and what I see going on I believe the computer is not holding the engine off. I believe it to be more mechanical. Bad fuel comes to mind as a possibiilty. I don't know if the symptom I have could be bad fuel or not. I would appreciate any help anyone could give me.
Thanks,
Morris