[Mmalkie]

As the title mentions, I'm having issues when starting my car for the 1st time everyday.

Usual routine is key in, foot on clutch, start car.

Taking my foot off the clutch the cars revs bounce between 600-800 rpm for about 15 - 30 seconds. If I try to put it into gear & drive in that 30 seconds, it stalls.

Quickest way to get driving is start it, then while the clutch is depressed, rev it for 10 - 15 seconds (starting to depress accelerator slowly, increasing till foot flat on the floor). I bounces & engine vibrates, but all of a sudden it hits 1000 rpm (will climb to 2500 / 3000, which is the limit when parked / not driving).

Car was 10k serviced 6 weeks ago & it has been sounding like a 250K mile taxi since a service a year ago when it was last serviced. I did specifically ask garage to check the underside / running gear / exhaust while it was in for the service & dealership reported no issues of any kind / confirmed all heat shields are in place & secure / everything attached as it should be.

Car is a 15 plate 1.6TDI bluemotion, on 74.5 k miles

 

[Crasher]

During the service, was a new fuel filter fitted?

 

[Mmalkie]

During the service, was a new fuel filter fitted?

No, purely 10k oil & filter service.

 

[Crasher]

Well it is a CAYC so it could be injectors, EGR valve or a porous head which seems to be a new one creeping it’s way out of the woodwork.

 

[Mmalkie]

Bugga, as they say in Australia...
I am a regular user of fuel additives/ injector cleaners, but have only ever used grocery store forecourt fuels over the last 24k miles of ownership.

Think its tme to find a local independent, as I ain't paying £100 - £120/hr Labour at the dealership for them to scan the car.

 

[Mmalkie]

So...

Been to my local independent with this issue. Just before I put the car in, I checked the service log book. According to the service history from 'reputable' VW dealerships, the fuel filter has never been changed !

So took car in at the end of the day so it was part of the next day's workload, explained what the issue was & the next day he duly changed the filter, as well removing each injector & using some 'specialist' injector cleaner (been told that they were left sitting it it for a couple of hours). He regularly services VAG Taxi's (Skoda's / VW's & the odd Audi / Seat). He has had this regularly & usually recommends switching to 'full value' (read as premium) diesel.

Unfortunately for me, I had literally filled up round the corner, so will have to burn thru 500 miles of Asda's finest (mixed with a full bottle of REDEX, before attempting this.

Wot a time to have to do this, with Premium being closer to £2/litre !

 

[Crasher]

If you don't have the time/inclination to mix your own special brew like Gaz then V Power is an easy alternative and the CR TDI in our loan car idles better with it.

 

[Mmalkie]

So...

The woes continue.

Since the garage trip / fuel filter replacement I've covered circa 1000 miles, with x2 trips to a local Shell garage that does V-Power diseasel @ £2.13 /litre, plus a bottle of REDEX DPF Cleaner, added for good measure at the 2nd refuelling !

My first fuel up after emptying the last of the Asda gunk, a friend in need resulted in a 450 mile round trip up to Banff from the Glasgow area. Travelling thru lots of 50mph average speed cameras, but never pushing the car above 80 (only for overtaking purposes), on stretches of road that didn't have cameras. Car behaved & had returned over 550 miles before the fuel light came on. I promptly filled it again dumping another £90 quid's worth into the tank.

Car sat for x5 days, while I was away for a family weekend to Manchester.

First time I started it after it sitting idle, car turned over, coughed/ spluttered & even with the foot flat on the floor, the engine start / management system had to restart the car x3 times, as it cut out/stalled, with revs bouncing between 600 & a max of 1200 RPM. After the 3rd stall, the MFD came up with the restart car manually message & a flashing orange glow plug/coil warning lamp, above the rev counter.

I took the key out, put it back & restarted the car, with a repeat of the 1st attempt (x3 stalls, then restart manually)

Tried again & actually got the car to run. Sat there for 30 seconds with foot flat on the floor, but car running lumpy / lots of engine vibration, as if it was running on two, then 3 cylinders. Engine revs never went above 1200rpm.

Put the car into gear & rolled down the hill where I stay, car driving, but never getting above 10mph. Car drove for about a minute like that, then engine revs climbed & car pulled like a train.
Once up to the local 30mph speed limit a quick switch off & then on again cleared the flashing coil light.

Car has been driven every day since, with the AM start beginning to get slightly better, but still taking about 30 seconds pootling along at low revs / foot flat on the floor, doing no more than 10mph, then revs building / car attempting to sprint off. Only other thing noted is that I am getting the odd cloud of white smoke after this start, but reckon that's down to unburnt fuel getting to the exhaust.

Other than the starting issue, the car drives & runs fine. My commute to & from work is 5 mins at 30mph on A roads, the 70mph on dual carriageway/motorway for 30 mins (Max). I get the feeling that this issue down to a clogged butterfly valve in the air/exhaust system, limiting either fresh air in, or exhaust gasses going out & that a specific sensor isn't getting the correct reading, thus strangling the car at start up. As the car is only at 79.5k miles, I had been contemplating a Terra-Clean session to help alleviate this, but I've generally understood that that facility should only really be used on cars that have covered more than 100 / 120k miles.

Crasher - what do ya think ??

 

[Crasher]

Do you know if he bled the fuel system after changing the filter before starting the engine?

 

[Mmalkie]

Do you know if he bled the fuel system after changing the filter before starting the engine?

I don't know for certain, but knowing his knowledge / experience with VW/Audi/Skoda diesels & the fact that he also had the injectors out, I believe he did.
The slow starting issue was there before I took the car to him, to get the filter changed.

You thinking there's an airlock, or maybe a vacuum leak ?

 

[Crasher]

More low fuel pressure on start up, the high pressure pumps are very sensitive and troublesome, they can play up or just failure for no reason.

 

[Mmalkie]

So...

Back to see my friendly independent.

He scanned for faults with a Snap-On Moduis ( ?? ) fault reader - nothing found but a P2263 ( ?? ) "Turbo/Supercharger Boost System Performance" which he put down to when the coil light flashed on from the engine management over cranking / attempting to start the car. He cleared the code, rescanned & nothing else found.

I did ask about the fuel filter change / pressure/airlock checks & confirmed he had bled the system.

He wasn't impressed with the sound of the fuel pump priming & used a 2.0 tdi sirrocco & an Audi TT S-line that were in the garage, to give me a practical demonstration of the noises expected. My fuel pump is running, but tone is a lower pitch than the other two. So while it is running, it tells me that it's running at a lower speed. That said, i'm a 1.6 TDI, they were both 2.0, so will have slightly higher fuel pressures.

Based on his experiences, short of getting a hard fault / warning lamp, he's recommending that I go & see an injector specialist he knows, who can do testing / run live data on the computer...

 

[Mmalkie]

..& it continues.

Called up & chatted with the injector specialist for about 10 - 15 mins this morning. I explained the issues & he's had a few similar issues with VAG cars (predominately Skoda's being used as taxi's, but that's another story).

As this seems to be a cold start up problem & rather than him hanging onto my car for a week, to try & get the diagnostics data once a day, he's recommended a VW fuel additive (Part no. G 001 790 M3 / £23.99 from my local VW dealership). He's had good experience with this curing cold start issues, but warned that it has to be measured out as per the label on the back of the bottle (22ml to 10 Litres of fuel), as too much is bad for the injectors !

As part of the chat he asked specifics about servicing & I mentioned the 23X4 'engine management software update' that my dealership insisted that I have about 15k miles ago. He's recommended that if the additive doesn't fix it, simply to go back to the dealership & explain the issue, the fact that it became prevalent after the install of said software fix, & that because this was a 'product recall', it should cover the engine/fuel system with a form of warranty, for a period in time out to circa 140,000km.

I appreciate that I have to take the last phrase with a rather large pinch of salt, as I know only too well that VW UK can often run out of 'goodwill' if it suits them...

However, I'll prep a dosing of the additive for the next fuel up.

 

[Mmalkie]

Update...

After wanting to drive this thing into a river & never mention it again, I eventually got the fuel light to come on & headed to the local Shell garage paying £94 (£2.089/Litre), for 40 odd litres worth of premium diesel & about 90ml of additive. As it was an 11 mile drive to the garage, car was nice n warmed up / driving well. So made it back home & parked it up for the day at around 5pm last night.

Came out this morning at 5am & car turned over & started 1st time !

Yes it grumbled & felt a little rough for about 5 seconds (literally), but a sedate drive to work on the motorway got me to about 62MPG on the MFD / 'Think Blue' app.

Left work at 3.30pm & same again, grumbled for a couple of seconds & because of the hill on my return trip home, I got 55MPG on the MFD.

Will see how this tank goes & may contemplate another dose of additive at the next fuel up, assuming that the minor grumbling continues.