Hard Start / No Start - Is your intercooler frozen? Check Here!

[HNKS]

Looks like I may have a case of intercooler icing here in NC (Golf ~ 19000 mi)Temps here Monday night into Wednesday morning were below freezing. Car was kept outside during this time and driven about 80 miles. Got off of work on Wednesday and tried to start the car. I only tried 4 times and the last time it almost started but seemed rough and cut off. I called the dealer that I purchased it from and they are going to look at it today.
Side note everyone wanted to know if I needed a jump, thinking that it was my battery, but I politely declined. I am the only one with a TDI at my job. Also, it took VW Roadside 2 hrs. to line up a tow truck and then another hour for the driver to get to me. At least I was able to get a ride out to get a loaner from the dealer and wait in it until the tow truck arrived. Finally dropped my car off at the dealership at 8pm.
I will update when I hear back from the dealer today.

Would you mind saying to which dealer you had it towed? Southern States? Leith? Had the same issue yesterday but the car choked through a rough start and I made it to work. Emailed my dealer and he said they haven't had to act on this before. He was diplomatic and polite but not particularly helpful. The Polar Vortex seems to have exposed VW's design flaw with gusto this week.

 

[ctmoore79]

Would you mind saying to which dealer you had it towed? Southern States? Leith? Had the same issue yesterday but the car choked through a rough start and I made it to work. Emailed my dealer and he said they haven't had to act on this before. He was diplomatic and polite but not particularly helpful. The Polar Vortex seems to have exposed VW's design flaw with gusto this week.

I went to Leith VW of Cary. They have taken good care of me and my car so far. Had my 10k service, front bumper repainted (because of bubbling clear coat) and now the IC kit. Hoping everything goes well with the IC kit since I am sure they have not had to do very many. I will be going back for my 20k service in a couple of weeks as well.

 

[Engineers<3Diesel]

^ you must be the other car the dealer was talking about on the phone with me today. i dropped mine off last night and put my keys in the "night owl" box. I wrote the TSB on the packet as it doesn't get cold enough for them to see these that often and wanted to make sure they checked. They said this was the first they had seen the issue and that I wasn't alone.

 

[ctmoore79]

^ you must be the other car the dealer was talking about on the phone with me today. i dropped mine off last night and put my keys in the "night owl" box. I wrote the TSB on the packet as it doesn't get cold enough for them to see these that often and wanted to make sure they checked. They said this was the first they had seen the issue and that I wasn't alone.

Well I guess we will be the guinea pigs for the techs. I had to drop mine off last night as well. The tow truck dropped it off in front of the service office entrance around 8pm.

Does anyone know what I should be on the look out for when I pick up the car. Any particular hoses I need to look at to make sure it was done correctly, at a glance? I figure I could always use the PDF for the TSB.

 

[hackzall]

It sounds like my 2013 Golf has fallen victim to the frozen IC as well.

It's been fairly cold here this week (polar vortex and all). Went to start my car Monday, it made a loud thunk and then refused to turn over. I was totally unfamiliar with the frozen IC issue at the time so I proceeded to attempt jumping my car thinking it was a dead battery (which seemed odd since nothing was left on).

Finally had my car towed to the Heritage VW in Baltimore after having made an appointment. When I got there and despite having an appointment the service consultant informed me it would probably be two days before they would even look at my car. She also said it was likely just mice/rats chewing at my cables so a rental car probably would not be covered. I got them to issue me a rental anyway and found out yesterday (48 hrs after bringing it in) that it was due to "ice in the IC". The consultant seemed pretty cagy when describing the problem which prompted me to look into it, and WOW. Did not expect to find such a prolific problem.

Still don't have my car back and have no idea what the extent of the damage is (if any). But what bothers me more than anything is that the dealer, who I'm sure is familiar with this issue here in the north east has not been entirely upfront and honest through this whole process.

Can anyone share some lessons learned when dealing with VW, either the dealers or VofA with this issue?

 

[Rob M]

Intercooler icing

I have a 2013 Jetta TDI.

About a month ago it did not start. My wife drove the car to work in freezing rain conditions. It took numerous times for her to start the car.

Last weekend it was very cold and humid again. I tried to start the car after running it when it was snowing the night before. The car would turn over but not start.

Called VOA and had it towed to the VW dealer (The tow truck also cracked my bumper), and told them about the TSB and the fact that it extended to 2013 models. After 3 days the dealer came back with NPF. I have called VOA and they want me to take it back to have it re -inspected. I am documenting everything, but I understand they have to see the problem. Any ideas on my next step?

 

[kjclow]

One thing that I learned with the beetle is to never let them tow my car. If it's going anywhere, it's going on a rollback. Should be a way to keep them from cracking your bumper again.

 

[Rob M]

Yes. I assumed that they would have used a flatbed. I was walking up my driveway and saw it coming, but I was too far away to do anything.

 

[RES]

I have a 2013 Jetta TDI.

About a month ago it did not start. My wife drove the car to work in freezing rain conditions. It took numerous times for her to start the car.

Last weekend it was very cold and humid again. I tried to start the car after running it when it was snowing the night before. The car would turn over but not start.

Called VOA and had it towed to the VW dealer (The tow truck also cracked my bumper), and told them about the TSB and the fact that it extended to 2013 models. After 3 days the dealer came back with NPF. I have called VOA and they want me to take it back to have it re -inspected. I am documenting everything, but I understand they have to see the problem. Any ideas on my next step?

What did the dealer do? Did he drain the water? What does NDF mean?

 

[bhtooefr]

Most likely no problem found.

 

[path23dv]

Intercooler frozen again(fourth time overall) this morning. I guess I need to drain more frequently than every two weeks. Luckily I left the belly pan off so I can easily drain the pipe. Can't wait till spring!

 

[flyboy320]

If anyone is interested, I posted a thread on my findings of blocking the front grill and removing the intake snorkel with respect to the intake temperature. The short of it is I managed to increase the intake temps by 15c-25c so as to reduce the intercooler from icing from all the moist gas the LP EGR sends into the intake.

 

[MonsterTDI09]

Intercooler frozen again(fourth time overall) this morning. I guess I need to drain more frequently than every two weeks. Luckily I left the belly pan off so I can easily drain the pipe. Can't wait till spring!

I never had a problem with ice build up on my 09 or 10. Why I have no clue.

I would try blocking the bottom part of grill with pipe insulation. This will help

For the first time I try blocking the bottom part of the grill during the clod snap. I did notice it got up to temperature faster. The reason why I try it, because I'm going to the auto show next week where they have colder temperatures.

 

[path23dv]

Flyboy320,
Thanks.
I went ahead and removed the snorkel and blocked off the grill as you described.
Hopefully this will reduced the accumulation of moisture. This is what I pulled out of the hose:

 

[flyboy320]

Flyboy320,
Thanks.
I went ahead and removed the snorkel and blocked off the grill as you described.
Hopefully this will reduced the accumulation of moisture. This is what I pulled out of the hose:

No problem, hope it helps. With that much ice I'm surprised there was enough air flow to the engine to give any power...

 

[Jayg]

On the cold weather kit it shows an entirely new IC getting installed. From the pictures I have seen, the new IC looks like it has aluminum end tanks. Can anybody confrim that? I'm wondering if it is similar to the S3 intercooler.

 

[cristoaca]

Intercooler hose drain

I am planning to do what you recommended in your post as my car didn't start today in the afternoon either (above freezing) but did in the morning (20 degrees). Will the dealer do anything different than what you advised? If not, I could try to jack the car up and drain the hose myself.
Thanks to this forum, I was aware of what the issue might be and stopped cranking it after 4 short attempts. (It ran for about 5 seconds at first, then died) How much damage could have that caused? Thank you for your help.

Intercooler hose drain:

 

[dirtysouthjacket]

I had the car towed in on Thursday. Service Rep at the dealer called me before close of business and said...

"It was really hard to get your car to start, it took me a bunch of cranks to get it to even run. The service tech checked your charging system and it was all fine, so we are exploring all options and will get back with you tomorrow."

I reminded him about my fears of a possible hydrolock and to show the TSB to the service tech. I kind of wanted to throw up after that phone call.

VWoA case manager called yesterday and said that it was in fact a frozen intercooler and would be repaired under the TSB. He said that they were covering it out of "goodwill" even though it was no longer covered since it's not a drivetrain part and I was 2k miles out of the bumper to bumper.

But at least VWoA seems to be taking care of the problem now. Doubtful that they will do a recall in my opinion though. It would be bad PR, but waiting for cars to have problems to fix them doesn't sit well with me. Especially since most of us purchase these cars in the hopes they last hundreds of thousands of miles.

We don't like to see this...

And most TDI owners that I know are pretty frugal (dare even CHEAP ), so having to break out money on repairs above normal maintenance (don't lie, some of us actually really enjoy changing our timing belts) is very stressful. I like to keep the broken parts to my non-daily driver vehicles.

I repeatedly told the VWoA case manager if VW kept making a Jetta TDI that was comfortable, had a low fuel cost compared to other cars, and lasted over 200k miles I would buy one as long as they keep making them.

 

[VeeDubTDI]

After their forced start attempts, I would request that they do a compression test while they have your car in the shop to make sure you don't have a bent connecting rod.

 

[RES]

After their forced start attempts, I would request that they do a compression test while they have your car in the shop to make sure you don't have a bent connecting rod.

I agree with VeeDubTDi, I think it is criminal that the Dealer did not know about the Icing issue and kept trying to start the car with the danger that he could be damaging the engine. Being a dealer that far south, he probably never experienced the problem before.

 

[VeeDubTDI]

Seriously... This is a known issue with technical service bulletins explaining the problem. Do these dealerships not have regular meetings to go over new TSBs?

 

[ctmoore79]

Update, got my car back this morning. Dealer said they had two other cars that needed the new kit installed. Everything seems good with the car. Hoping there is no damage. Will update if anything occurs.

Thank you to everyone in this thread for all the information that is provided and making it so I was able to go into the dealer well informed.

 

[kjclow]

Seriously... This is a known issue with technical service bulletins explaining the problem. Do these dealerships not have regular meetings to go over new TSBs?

My guess is that the service managers only review the TSBs that they feel the service department is most likely to see. IIRC for the failure map, there had only been a few IC failures in the southeast (NC, SC, GA, FL) prior to this severe winter. If they don't think they'll ever see the issue than they won't review it.

 

[VeeDubTDI]

I'm going to put together a map of the polar vortex deep freeze so we can compare the spread if IC icing events to more normal year.

Keep submitting your data, folks!

Http://tinyurl.com/icyicform

 

[roostre]

After their forced start attempts, I would request that they do a compression test while they have your car in the shop to make sure you don't have a bent connecting rod.

For reference here is my intercooler experience:

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showpost.php?p=4394152&postcount=4036

When my vehicle was towed to VW, I asked the technician who installed the TSB's modified intercooler to also do a compression check on the engine. He mentioned that each cylinder's glow plug contained a pressure sensor that would indicate if there was a compression problem. I forgot to inquire about this again when I picked up the vehicle, so I do not know if anything was done to check the engine compression.

Things I wonder about now:

1) How reliable, consistent and accurate would the individual glow plug pressure sensor readings in each cylinder be compared to a normal compression check?

2) Would a trouble code for too high a pressure (or now too low) have been set and retained if damage had occurred when the engine hydrolocked?

3) I do not have Ross-Tech VCDS as I am waiting for the new mobile version to be released, but can this product read the glow plug pressure sensors?

4) Should I ask or pay VW to do a compression check now or maybe during my next annual service?

 

[VeeDubTDI]

Yes VCDS can read the pressure sensors. The sensors have insanely fast reporting and are very accurate.

Will they tell you if you have a bent rod? I don't know.

 

[roostre]

Thanks VeeDubTDI,

I'm hoping but also guessing that I did not bend any connecting rods and are pretty sure it would be highly unlikely to bend all of the connecting rods exactly the same amount, so if the glow plug cylinder pressures reported by VCDS are not similar in value then I will pursue having the normal compression test performed by the VW dealer.

Now I just need to wait for VCDS mobile's release.

 

[MonsterTDI09]

Yes VCDS can read the pressure sensors. The sensors have insanely fast reporting and are very accurate.

Will they tell you if you have a bent rod? I don't know.

No it will not tell you if you have a bent rod. The reason why is the ECM will try to balance out the cylinders by adding fuel or cutting fuel off. If it see a imbalance between the cylinders.

 

[bhtooefr]

Well, if it sees an imbalance, that's a sign of something wrong.

IIRC, there's a test that can tell it to stop trying to balance the cylinders, too.

 

[roostre]

No it will not tell you if you have a bent rod. The reason why is the ECM will try to balance out the cylinders by adding fuel or cutting fuel off. If it see a imbalance between the cylinders.

Thanks MonsterTDI09 for the additional clarification,

So it seems like only a compression test done using the normal procedure can diagnose a bent connecting rod easily.

EDIT: I understand that other issues besides a bent rod will affect the compression test and that a compression test cannot definitively identify a bent rod as the issue. But if the compression test results are OK, I will not need to look further for any other related issues.

Before the TSB, my engine started once, stalled a second later, turned over slightly on the second start attempt, and hydrolocked on the third start attempt. My Golf's engine seems to be running fine with the modified intercooler from the TSB. But I will ask for a compression test at my next annual service and pay for it if I have too.

The knowledge I have gained through this forum has helped me immensely. Thanks again.

Well, if it sees an imbalance, that's a sign of something wrong.

IIRC, there's a test that can tell it to stop trying to balance the cylinders, too.

Thanks bhtooefr, I'll investigate this.

It will probably take me quite a while to become familiar with VCDS once I get it.