2015 volkswagen passat tdi phase 2 refusal

[hubbell92tt]

I took my 2015 passat to the dealer last year. I was told phase 2 could not be done because of a bad mass air flow sensor and a bad fan control module.

I was quote 698 for the fan shroud(includes the fans and controller) and 476 for the mass air flow sensor. I replaced both of these myself. The maf with a bosch unit exact same part number(191 dollars) . I bought a shroud from rock auto(154 dollars) and installed it.

I took the car to Volkswagen this morning. They said the phase 2 could not be done because the maf was bad and the fan control module was faulty. The proceeded to tell me I was getting the maf CEL because it did not have the VW/Audi logo on it. They said the fan control module did not work because it was aftermarket.

I'm wondering if anyone else has ran into this issue. I've done a lot of research on the maf code (excessive air flow) and it doesn't seem like there is a fix for this... As far as the fan goes everything worked properly on the oem unit and everything works properly on the rock auto unit...

Looking for any advice. Is there a way around this? I'm now at 156k miles the DEF injector is leaking like crazy. And they also will not replace my DPF until phase 2 is done.

Thanks

 

[ticaf]

You have VCDS or something similar right? Any codes?

 

[hubbell92tt]

The wonderful P00BD. I have a kerma to scan the codes and polar fis to monitor the sensors.

code P00BD

My 2015 passat threw codes twice this past week. P00BD and P00BD pd. Fuel and air metering and Aux emission controls. I erased the codes the first time but they were back in a day. The car has been in the shop for two days now and VWoA has not come up with the reason for the codes or a...

forums.tdiclub.com

 

[thundershorts]

With my b5.5 I found maf's that had same part number but were phony on ebay. None of them worked. Thats what you may have.

 

[thundershorts]

The maf should be a warranty item, put the original back in, perhaps the fans as well.

 

[oilhammer]

That should all have been a warranty item. I swear it gets harder and harder every day to be a Volkswagen fan.

 

[Lightflyer1]

Especially for those who don't know or are unwilling to read and understand it and then stand up for themselves about it (Extended Emissions Warranty). "If" people were knowledgeable and represented themselves with that knowledge and held VWoA's feet to the fire each and every time, then I think things would get better. If they just give up VW gets a pass and everyone can bad mouth them but nothing changes. I personally have had good service and good experiences at the 2 dealers near me. But I have been here a while now and I have learned much about my car and the situation around it. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a VW fan, but I do like the tdi's still. If you go in blind and stupid you will probably not get satisfaction. Same as with just about anything else for that matter.

 

[hubbell92tt]

What value should I see with the maf? To me it looks like it works fine. I ended up throwing away the oem maf but I could buy another on car-part.

I lost my cool yesterday with the dealership. Completely went off on them for refusing to do any research on the issues and just quoting me replacements

 

[hubbell92tt]

Also can you please provide more information regarding these being under the recall or a different recall. I couldn’t find anything with a quick google search

 

[oilhammer]

Your google must be broken. Never heard of Dieselgate? (it even got its own name!) ?

This is literally the first hit when searching "VW emissions" :

Emissions

www.vw.com

And there is a HUGE ad on the sidebar. Unless you've driven a LOT, your 2015 should still be under warranty, and ANYTHING that causes the MIL to come on should be covered.

But the warranty is a joke, so.... Good luck. You'll find out soon enough why Dieselgate is such a farce, and delete-a-palooza is alive and well.

 

[hubbell92tt]

The brochure doesn’t specifically say anything about the maf or fan controller is what I meant.

 

[Lightflyer1]

Your google must be broken. Never heard of Dieselgate? (it even got its own name!) ?

This is literally the first hit when searching "VW emissions" :

Emissions

www.vw.com

And there is a HUGE ad on the sidebar. Unless you've driven a LOT, your 2015 should still be under warranty, and ANYTHING that causes the MIL to come on should be covered.

But the warranty is a joke, so.... Good luck. You'll find out soon enough why Dieselgate is such a farce, and delete-a-palooza is alive and well.

delete-a-palooza huh. Only a few actually have done this. The vast majority don't. By claiming the warranty is a joke you are pushing people to delete. Not good. Why not try convincing them to get knowledge on their cars, the warranty and how to deal with the dealer instead of pushing them to an illegal choice. I respect your knowledge and mechanical ability but I think you are doing a disservice to others by always preaching that the warranty isn't worth anything. As I have said before there are those here who I have clued in that they actually have warranty and they have gotten their issues fixed under warranty and properly. Not every dealer is a loser.

I do agree that Dieselgate was a farce for the most part. But that shouldn't stop anyone trying to take advantage of the warranty when needed. Most are so ignorant of what is available and about their cars in general that they don't have a clue how to proceed. Better to spend time trying to get them educated and get VW to do the work under warranty then just skip it and take it somewhere else. Heck most mechanics are worse than the dealer as they really have no clue. There are only a hand full of people who are close to a trusted mechanic and they must use someone else at times. Sometimes the dealer is the best choice to them.

 

[oilhammer]

You live in a very different little world, my friend. How many of these cars are being brought to YOU every day? How many do you personally own? How much have you driven them? How many piles of bad DPFs have you removed? How many MILs on have you diagnosed? How many cars HAVE been to the dealer, REPEATEDLY, and end up back in your care BECAUSE THEY ARE UNABLE TO FIX THEM? How many?

"A few"... yeah, OK, well as long as you and the EPA think that, we're all good then.

 

[hubbell92tt]

I called Volkswagen of America today... sounds like these issues should have been taken care of the first time I brought the car in. They are supposed to call the dealership today and call me back tomorrow.

 

[Lightflyer1]

I guess being a jerk is also one of your strong points. No need to scream and shout. I can read regular print.

Maybe the dealer(s) around you have no clue. I dare to say they are not all like that.

We have both had our say and I will let it go at that.

 

[Lightflyer1]

I called Volkswagen of America today... sounds like these issues should have been taken care of the first time I brought the car in. They are supposed to call the dealership today and call me back tomorrow.

Please let us know how this works out for you in the end! It isn't always easy in life. Good luck!

 

[oilhammer]

Being a jerk often gets peoples' cars back in working order, in the end that is what people want. The warranty is a JOKE. We have thread after thread after thread here, just like this one, with the same old BS. And I could provide a half dozen more stories for each of those threads (not everyone who owns a TDI reads or posts here, believe it or not). I know LOTS of people at dealers. They HATE these cars now. Like poison.

Still would like to know Lightflyer1 how many of these cars are in your care. You seem to be such a strong advocate of the warranty, perhaps write a letter to VoA and tell them how they should be operating. I did. And I wasn't even a "jerk" about it. Still same old BS. And they are counting on kicking this can as far down the road as they can until their whole Holy Grail EV nonsense saves us all. They've already said as much.

I know of not one, not two, not three, BUT FOUR people right now who have been waiting on parts since last year. What good is a warranty if they can't even fix something? And you know what is really funny? One of the cars is supposedly waiting on a part (an engine harness) that is obsoleted, and there are no more. None. There's the punchline to the joke! How do you warranty something that you do not even provide parts for? It is a joke, only I am not laughing.

 

[Zambee500]

I know of not one, not two, not three, BUT FOUR people right now who have been waiting on parts since last year. What good is a warranty if they can't even fix something? And you know what is really funny? One of the cars is supposedly waiting on a part (an engine harness) that is obsoleted, and there are no more. None. There's the punchline to the joke! How do you warranty something that you do not even provide parts for? It is a joke, only I am not laughing.

And then I thought the punchline was going to be the turbo, but I guess not.

 

[oilhammer]

Heh, there was a national backorder on CKRA turbochargers at one time. But that was a few years ago. Shame so many got crushed.

 

[Zambee500]

Heh, there was a national backorder on CKRA turbochargers at one time. But that was a few years ago. Shame so many got crushed.

Seems more recent than that. In the Blown Turbo thread a few threads down, the OP blew turbo in January this year and was told 6-12 weeks before the dealership found one somewhere else. But some of our trusted vendors were saying Borg-Warner wouldn't have any shipped to US until late April / early-May. Maybe something changed in the intervening weeks (I hope so), but still shows difficulties with supply chains for our cars.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

CKRA turbos are still unavailable.

 

[oilhammer]

Ah, so it came around again. That sucks. I remember early on, before they extended the warranty on those, there was a shortage. I waited a couple weeks for one, and a month for another. Then they got a bunch in, then the warranty came out. I have only ever done one since (it was already beyond the 120k miles). Although CKRAs are pretty rare here anymore. At least, not as common as they used to be. Sad, really. No other car could offer what a manual CKRA does.

 

[Tom in PT]

This thread reminds me of my all time favorite car video, Bill from Auto Europa in Naples going over a gorgeous 1990 MB W126 in 300SE trim. At one point he mentions that, at the time, MB made their cars to be essentially indefinitely maintainable, and largely that is true today at least for these models. How far the automobile world, particularly VW, as fallen, when you can't get basic parts for a car that is only 8 years old and the dealers are treating like poison. Ouch.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I have a W124 Mercedes and that car is clearly built so it's possible to keep it forever as long as the body holds up to the elements. And even that can be repaired. I recently had suspension work done on my ALH TDI and my mechanic said something similar about that era VW: If you take care of it you can drive it nearly indefinitely. After 19 years and 426K miles in mine I certainly feel that way. I'm not sure my 2015 GSW will provide the same outcome.

Although the VW warranty has some benefit, it has to be used carefully, as, as oilhammer has pointed out, dealer techs can sometimes make your car worse, not better. Personally I intend to never use the warranty on my '15. I might use it to get parts from my dealer if a component fails, but I wouldn't trust the car to any dealer. My son, who has a '15 Passat, has used his local dealer for CPO repairs and so far so good. Although nothing TDI related has gone wrong with his car.

Many people compare new cars, especially EVs, to cell phones. Lease one for a few years and when the tech starts to fail or looks dated, walk away. I've never treated cars (or much of any item) like that, so I may be stuck driving my old diesels for a long time. I don't mind, not a bit.

 

[hubbell92tt]

No word from Volkswagen today... Not really surprised but i'll update when I have new information

 

[oilhammer]

One of my customers, who I originally met when he had a 2000 Jetta TDI (sadly it was a slushbox, and when it needed transmission #3 at 360k miles, he decided to part ways). He bought a 2011 Sportwagon TDI brand new. It had been a reasonably good car, I had to do a couple minor things to it, but it was going fine until Dieselgate. After consulting with me, he made the decision that he'd go ahead and take the EPA blood money, have the "fix" performed, and if it had any issues, we'd deal with it. And it had issues. It had a couple instances of intercooler icing pre-fix, but it became MUCH worse afterwards. And the regens went up, he says he thinks it had progressively gotten to the point that they were happening at almost double the frequency that the originally were. And this is a car that had already enjoyed over 120k miles of use before Dieselgate. It got to the point he could no longer trust the car.

So he had me, um, ... "un"-fix the car. Now it runs better than it ever did, tags 50+ MPG easily, and it is 100% reliable again. He was so impressed, he bought his wife a buyback 2013 Jetta sedan and immediately had me do the same thing to it (although hers got mufflers instead of the straight pipe the wagon got ).

But anyway, they were travelling recently and the SRS light came on, and they stopped in a dealer in Arkansas just to have that checked out. The service writer said when they pulled in the lane "oh, deleted, eh? Got tired of the breakdowns? We have a lot of deleted cars here now, they are the only happy TDI owners anymore!"

Point to my ramblings: I think the EPA/VAG agreement to try and make these cars "run cleaner" ended up really doing the exact opposite. They should have left them alone. While they are not rolling coal like the brodozer knuckle dragger trucks that seem to always be missing the back half of their lift kits, they probably are not running as clean as pre-fix CR TDIs either. So in an effort to go after NOx, which was never a problem for us here anyway, they have instead added lots and lots of PM and the NOx is probably much, much worse, too.

I think the CR cars largely have good bones, and the engine proper is pretty good. If the engine/emissions management was just more durable and less finicky and fragile and the parts were not so frightfully expensive it would not be an issue. But that is not the case. And slapping some fancy warranty on it that so often is not honored or isn't even able to be honored because the people tasked with doing so cannot fix the car anyway doesn't help anything. That is on top of the fact that you really shouldn't even need the warranty at all. The Germans, ESPECIALLY Volkswagen, are notorious for not wanting to honor any warranty anyway. Their knee jerk reaction is usually BS. Step 1: deny. Step 2: charge the customer for "diagnosing" the problem. (Seriously, who the F does that???). Step 3: blame the customer for not operating the vehicle correctly. Step 4: offer them a $100 off coupon for a new car.

On the flip side: my cousin's 2013 Elantra, which she bought used, just lunched its first engine at 98k miles. They are putting a new engine in it, no questions asked, for $0. Our shop's old Sienna minivan, a '98, which we bought at wholesale auction for cheap, with a bad transmission, and I put a used transmission in it, which died again at 190k miles, got a new transmission for $0 when they extended the warranty on those. No questions asked. Is it really any wonder why Volkswagen gets such a bad reputation? It isn't necessarily that the cars are any worse so much as how the owners of those cars get treated.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Which is why I last took one of my VWs to a dealer for service was in 2004. Warranty or no, I won't go there. I'd much rather pay to have my guru repair the car properly.

 

[brandsheph]

Step 2: charge the customer for "diagnosing" the problem. (Seriously, who the F does that???).

I had a CPO Honda and they do the same thing. If they put it on diagnostics and "don't find anything wrong" then you're stuck with the diag fee even if you know there's something not right. Point being, that isn't just a German or a VW thing ... not that I'm defending that practice for a warrantied vehicle.

 

[Zambee500]

And the regens went up, he says he thinks it had progressively gotten to the point that they were happening at almost double the frequency that the originally were. And this is a car that had already enjoyed over 120k miles of use before Dieselgate.

I just picked up my 2014 NMS in February, so I don't have anything to compare pre-fix. But I can say that all the regens so far have been at intervals between 165-190 miles. While I wouldn't say I am short-hopping, I also haven't had my pre-pandemic 80 mile roundtrip daily commutes either, so it's possible or likely I could get more than 200 miles between regens with more highway driving, but I have a hard time believing it will go anywhere close to 400-500 miles between regens.

 

[oilhammer]

The CKRA has SCR, so the issues the CBEA and CJAA cars have with the DPFs do not apply. SCR already allows for leaner combustion. And I suspect much of the CKRA's implemented fix is just a higher DEF dosage and of course higher EGR duty (hence the clogged heater cores going from bad to worse).