po272 "Cylinder 4 contribution balance fault"

windaddiction

Active member
Joined
Dec 15, 2010
Location
BC
TDI
2011 Golf wagon
So my wife was driving, and the car threw a CEL, P0272. Now the OBD2 codes aren't very helpful, so I brought it into scan. My VW service guy did a good job and now the engine is fine 500 km later.

So they said this code is essentially poor cylinder pressure on #4. They explained there are 4 main causes,
-Bad glow plug ( they actually measure the cylinder pressure)
-bad injector
-worn cylinder or rings
-or... and i think a big or since it was just one cylinder... a bad HPFP ( which they confirmed for me is covered upto 100,000km )

What the tech did was move the glow plug from #4 to #3 cylinder. then reset the CEL. This will narrow down the issues and I thought was a great idea. If the light stays off it was probably a loose connection, if it comes back on but this time it is #3, that glow plug is bad. If it comes back and show #4 cylinder, then it could be low compression or a bad liner/rings.

As I am still good to go, I assume it was a bad connection, they only charged me for the scan and not changing the glow plug positions os i was happy, however I need to buy VAGCOM since I do own 2 TDI's that are both out of warranty now! Hope this will help some one one day!



tags po272 p0272 po 272
 

Samcar222

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 16, 2010
Location
Rochester, NY
TDI
2010 Salsa Red JSW TDI
Interested to see what this turns out to be. Hopefully just a GP. Good luck. (PS, the glow plugs serve as cylinder pressure sensors).
 

windaddiction

Active member
Joined
Dec 15, 2010
Location
BC
TDI
2011 Golf wagon
Yes I thought it was cool how the GP were used for the pressure as well! so far about 800+ KM with no new code or pending... I am guessing a lose wire, or something. Bumbed out that it happened 500 km after my warranty... oh well this was my first CEL so I guess I can't complain!
 

Smalls

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2014
Location
Chambersburg, Pa
TDI
Mk4 Jetta TDI
I glanced at the OP's last activity date, which is only 2 days after his original post. Hopefully this generates an email and h can update as to what the cause was. I'm having a same code.
 
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