Misfire need help!

Hello everyone!
This is my first post here so please allow me to introduce myself. If you wish to get right to my concern then just scroll down..
I'm currently serving overseas in the United Kingdom and bought the wife a VW Passat 1.9L TDi (Estate model). I've posted on the UK forums for help and have gotten little to no guidance. Read up and down the internet for any possible solutions and all have not resolved my misfire even the slightest. So here I am asking for help!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Passat has a misfire but only at idle with no codes. Took it to our local shop and they recommended that they replace the injector's wire harness. About $200 later our problem still persists! They then told me that it'd be wise to just scrap the car and move on because the injectors might be bad. I simply thanked them and decided to take this problem on myself. Gathered from my reading I replaced the fuel filter, which has a fuel heater on top and has to be the dumbest setup I've seen yet, but that got us nowhere. Cleaned the MAF/AMM and any other solenoids I could get my hands on with no change.
So I went out and purchased a bluetooth/wifi OBD2 reader and it supported a few PID's that I could watch live but no injector readings or misfire readings of course. What I did notice was an overboost of 23psi when the wife gave it some gas and instantly engaged it's limp mode. Discovered a feint hissing noise of a vacuum leak from the N75 solenoid and read that it goes hand-in-hand with overboost issues. So I'm gonna tackle that problem and buy some new vacuum lines to replace these cruddy braided lines and hopefully eliminate any and all leaks. I'm also contemplating the cleaning of my EGR valve and intake manifold just praying maybe something that simple will fix our family car. (Side note: closing, or is it opening? Pushing the plunger/actuator all the way in on the EGR valve eliminates the misfire completely)..
**Cliff notes**
Engine misfires: replaced the injector wire harness, fuel filter, cleaned MAF, possible faulty N75 due to overboost, trying to isolate vacuum leak in that area. Shop can't tell me which injector or if it is the injector(s) that's causing the issue. Please help, I fix planes not cars.
P.S. I'll post pics for attention tomorrow when the sun comes up!

What year and engine code?

2001 B5.5 3BG? Not too familiar with Volkswagens to be honest.

bump?

Does the misfire feel "regular" when it occurs - indicating it is only on one cylinder?

Negative; It's very irregular and intermittent. Only occurs on idle, some days it doesn't happen at all and others it happens almost immediately then the problem vanishes after a little drive or doesn't happen until after a drive.

Removed and replaced the EGR valve, misfire solved.

Now I'm just dealing with what appears to be a bad torque converter in this cruddy automatic..

Juuuust kidding, after about two hours of driving the misfire showed it's face again. It's not rythmatic at all.. Would video evidence help any? It only occurs at idle to about 1500 rpm's.

Video would not hurt - post up.

Here's the videos. Went for a drive to the store with the wife, parked and no misfire. We shopped then drove home and parked then the misfire started but only in gear? Went away while in park..


Misfire: https://youtu.be/fYdMb8HGdYA

Normal idle: https://youtu.be/BxjM3MIkWes

In both videos temp guage down below normal ?

It was roughly around the 90* Celsius, the store isn't too far from home, drove about 20 miles round trip. So yes, just a tad under normal operating temp.

That is less of a misfire, and more of an erratic idle.

The #1 thing I would do would be to get a good scanner on the car - VCDS and scan through all of the engine readings when the problem is occurring.


Failing that, the rest would be educated guesswork - I would guess MAF, MAP, and double check the coolant temp sensor as suggested above.

I would also be looking at group 13 injector balance readings to see if you have a bad injector, again only available in a VAG specific scan tool like VCDS.

Windex said:

only available in a VAG specific scan tool like VCDS.

Click to expand...

Yeah I was unaware that this tool even existed before I purchased this VW and holy cow are they expensive. I'm going to prod around the local auto shops and see if they can help us out.

I can see what you mean by more of just a rough idle instead of the problem being a misfire. I was so gung-ho about our misfire issue when the original shop checked it out that it's all I've been researching and replacing associated parts.

Any suggestions on isolating if it's the MAF, MAP and coolant sensor?

Much appreciated!

Wife just informed me the car died on idle in the parking lot today. Any clues?

Not familiar with the 3BG. Does it have an injection pump or is it a PD with a tandem pump?

I recognize the PD when doing parts look-up on the car in UK. What's the way to tell them apart?

Can you post a picture of the engine bay?

vwztips said:

Can you post a picture of the engine bay?

Click to expand...

Sure thing! We're driving home now and it's already 11pm here so let me find the flash light..

That is a PD motor. The tandem pump is at the back of the head. I had the exact same experience with mine. It would randomly misfire and one just shut off at times. It would start right back up. I changed everything like crank position sensor, filter, even complete harness.

My last gasp was to rebuild the tandem pump. It hasn't missed a beat since. The kit came from somewhere in Europe. I bought it on eBay

vwztips said:

My last gasp was to rebuild the tandem pump. It hasn't missed a beat since. The kit came from somewhere in Europe. I bought it on eBay

Click to expand...

Time to go shopping! Better than throwing injectors at it like the shop suggested.. I'll start pricing some kits out.

Edit: Looking up and down and noticing minor differences in these kits, some guidance would be greatly appreciated!

I found these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LUK-Fuel-...745175?hash=item2a85393497:g:O2AAAOSwA29Y46Qf

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bosch-Fue...2f8157e&pid=100005&rk=1&rkt=6&sd=182623745175

Sorry for the long links

Not sure if your scanner is compatible with the following request but,...
Where is the torsion set? Engine controller, group 4
Rough, lumpy idle can come from overly retarded camshaft position. Don't know if it will cause the stall out or not. Jumping far enough out of time will. Could it be borderline?

I might add that a PD Jetta (BRM) that I just worked on had a code for cylinder #2 misfire and torsion set to -3.9kw. It had a lumpy warm idle.
Both conditions went away when resetting the torsion to -0.5kw and have not returned.

Yeah this scanner isn't capable of making any computer corrections. Still poking around to find an auto shop willing to help me out.

Consider that your rolling / erratic idle, the engine did not miss - I would be looking at the fuel delivery as a possible issue from the tandem pump as mentioned above - the scanner is not going to show you that - only a pressure / flow test will.

Check here for people that have VCDS cables near you. http://www.maptive.com/ver3/VCDS_Locator

Unfortunately there are no cables near me, go figure haha, but can someone point me in the right direction for the correct tandem fuel pump repair kit? I don't mind putting away a 12-pack and a few dollars tinkering in the garage one weekend. So even if it doesn't correct our problem at least I can annotate it's been rebuilt when I leave this island and sell our tdi!

Focus your attention upon post #23.

JETaah said:

Focus your attention upon post #23.

Click to expand...

Yes, I linked those but there are differences in hardware and I was inquiring as to which kit is correct before I go using old or incorrect hardware and create a bigger mess for myself.