i live in portugal with a portugal bought vehicle. a while ago this light began to flash with no other effects shortly afterwards the engine began to cut out momenterally at just under 2000 revs. this was diagnosed as a faulty injector, the one with the needle lift sensor. this very expensive item was replaced by a seat dealer but the fault returned days later. the dealer now claimed that the injector pump is faulty! this was explained by a delay between the original diagnosis and the fitting of the new injector. my question is how can two separate problems have identical symptoms?
heater plug warning light
- Thread starter patkelly
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dont know if this is right way to add to post but i am surprised nobody has had this problem. my take is that the injector was wrongly diagnosed in the first place and the only explanation i can come up with for two different faults having the same symptom is that the ecu is programmed to produce this symptom no matter how trivial the fault is!
I'l assume you are talking about the High Pressure Fuel Pump (HPFP) in a diesel.
If the pump is faulty it could damage an injector, but the injector itself should be tested separately, as the problem could be from the pump not supplying enough pressure to the rail, or the rail. If there is no pressure from the HPFP, then this should be registered by the rail sensors, and most probably all injectors will fail. There are stands for testing injectors, they produce the exact pressure of your pump. If there is no damage, then the obvious problem is the fuel supply pressure or lack of it. The injector should be always tested. If there is no stand nearby, this is done by switching the injectors, from one cylinder to another or replacing it with one from the shop. If the problem remains in the same cylinder then it's not the injector. If the problem goes to the other cylinder then most probably is the injector. After that there should be an inspection of the cylinder and other components, with the small cameras, as there could be significant damage from the faulty fuel spray or metal debris .
You should check what of those things have been done when they diagnosed a faulty injector. And if you have your old injector go tests it separately. If there is nothing wrong with it, then there is a big problem with that garage and you could have a very big claim, at least a full refund of the injector. But if the injector is bad, then..... bad luck.
If the pump is faulty, then there are two major things, that could have happened. The valve that sits on top, which is pretty good as there will be no damage from metal particulates(just some electrical issues), the other one is a mechanical failure and metal bits going around. In both cases having only one injector and a HPFP failed is a very rare case. It will most probably affect not just one injector. If there are metal debris than the rail itself, or the valves or cylinder. Imagine metal particulates going around with fuel with enormous pressure. If that happens most probably you will not start or have a very very bad sound coming out.
Other faulty thing could be some gasket problems, or something clogging up the fuel free flow. This results in low pressure and lack of fuel, that should appear somewhere along the pressure sensors.
Also you should check the fuel supply pipes. If there is something wrong with them (like blocked from bad fuel), they could produce lack of pressure too.
Now engine cutting of around 2000rpm, could be from lack of fuel, fuel pressure, exhaust problems, EGR problems, incoming air, even high amount of water in the fuel, etc. This means that there is a reasonable amount/quality of fuel,pressure,air,exhaust until that point, but after that something goes wrong. The fault code should point to something.
Good Luck.
If the pump is faulty it could damage an injector, but the injector itself should be tested separately, as the problem could be from the pump not supplying enough pressure to the rail, or the rail. If there is no pressure from the HPFP, then this should be registered by the rail sensors, and most probably all injectors will fail. There are stands for testing injectors, they produce the exact pressure of your pump. If there is no damage, then the obvious problem is the fuel supply pressure or lack of it. The injector should be always tested. If there is no stand nearby, this is done by switching the injectors, from one cylinder to another or replacing it with one from the shop. If the problem remains in the same cylinder then it's not the injector. If the problem goes to the other cylinder then most probably is the injector. After that there should be an inspection of the cylinder and other components, with the small cameras, as there could be significant damage from the faulty fuel spray or metal debris .
You should check what of those things have been done when they diagnosed a faulty injector. And if you have your old injector go tests it separately. If there is nothing wrong with it, then there is a big problem with that garage and you could have a very big claim, at least a full refund of the injector. But if the injector is bad, then..... bad luck.
If the pump is faulty, then there are two major things, that could have happened. The valve that sits on top, which is pretty good as there will be no damage from metal particulates(just some electrical issues), the other one is a mechanical failure and metal bits going around. In both cases having only one injector and a HPFP failed is a very rare case. It will most probably affect not just one injector. If there are metal debris than the rail itself, or the valves or cylinder. Imagine metal particulates going around with fuel with enormous pressure. If that happens most probably you will not start or have a very very bad sound coming out.
Other faulty thing could be some gasket problems, or something clogging up the fuel free flow. This results in low pressure and lack of fuel, that should appear somewhere along the pressure sensors.
Also you should check the fuel supply pipes. If there is something wrong with them (like blocked from bad fuel), they could produce lack of pressure too.
Now engine cutting of around 2000rpm, could be from lack of fuel, fuel pressure, exhaust problems, EGR problems, incoming air, even high amount of water in the fuel, etc. This means that there is a reasonable amount/quality of fuel,pressure,air,exhaust until that point, but after that something goes wrong. The fault code should point to something.
Good Luck.
thanks for your reply and my slow reply as i can't access the internet very often. i have swopped the injectors with no change. the miss is ONLY at 2000 rpm below and above it goes fine. this is why i think the ecu is programmed to "miss" in response to various faults (no matter how trivial) in order to get vehicles into the dealers workshops! after the emissions scandal i think vw group is well capable of this deceit.
At this point anything is possible. But if the engine cuts around 2000rpm how do you manage it to go beyond that point, lets say 2500rpm.
Swapping the injectors and no change means that either all injectors are faulty or there is no problem with them. You have to check the other components - fuel management, air management, exhaust management, computer management.
Now for the ECU, I'm not sure how easy it is to put a new one, or lets say put a spare one from the shop. On most old(oldish)cars is pretty easy to change and calibrate and test. You could supply one from the breakers for testing, and if it is not that the problem, you could sell it again for nearly the same price.
Now that I think of it, we had an electrical problem on one of our company cars (not a VW one). At around 1700-1800rpm there were vibrations and an electrical socket was loose and did not make good contact. But on downhill the vibrations were not so bad so that the socked looses contact and the car did not stall. In the tests the garage got it with sudden drop in voltage, that did not appear in the stored faults.
Good luck, and keep us posted
Swapping the injectors and no change means that either all injectors are faulty or there is no problem with them. You have to check the other components - fuel management, air management, exhaust management, computer management.
Now for the ECU, I'm not sure how easy it is to put a new one, or lets say put a spare one from the shop. On most old(oldish)cars is pretty easy to change and calibrate and test. You could supply one from the breakers for testing, and if it is not that the problem, you could sell it again for nearly the same price.
Now that I think of it, we had an electrical problem on one of our company cars (not a VW one). At around 1700-1800rpm there were vibrations and an electrical socket was loose and did not make good contact. But on downhill the vibrations were not so bad so that the socked looses contact and the car did not stall. In the tests the garage got it with sudden drop in voltage, that did not appear in the stored faults.
Good luck, and keep us posted
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