T4 TDI Woes

[Seano]

Righto....dropped the T4 back into the shop on Monday morning. They suggested that they keep it overnight to see if they could match the symptoms that I was experiencing. I received a Kia Cerato sedan as an alternative - which they agreed not to charge me for.

The next morning the T4 apparently performed as I suggested...but the intial diagnosis was unexpected. No.1 glow plug is history. This might explain the awful start but both the shop and I (me more so) are slightly doubtful since this vehicle has never before been an unwilling starter - ever. So how the heck a new belt and fuel pump timing might conspire with one or more dud glow plugs is something of a mystery to me. Suffice to say that they've apparently not looked much further than that...

Upshot at this point is that the T4 remains at the shop, I remain driving a Kia and a full set of glow plugs are in transit from Sydney. I cough up the $250 for the plugs, the shop will fit them for free and then they'll see what happens. With luck, I'll get it back before the weekend.

[Sunny43.5]

Without stirring a hornets nest some of the reasons why these jobs sometimes take so long is unless you get the "older " mechanic to work on your van these younger mechanics are from a new methodology school . Very recently and this is true a woman told me that the reason this sort of thing happens is that the Technicians who train these young guys virtually only show then how to replace whole components rather than repairing them so a timing belt would fit nicely into the category of a mongrel not anyones favourite job to do as they DO have to do lots of manual labour where as replacing a whole single component is more straight forward .Come on all you mechanics get out your machine guns and shoot me down if I,m wrong here .

[gldgti]

Righto....dropped the T4 back into the shop on Monday morning. They suggested that they keep it overnight to see if they could match the symptoms that I was experiencing. I received a Kia Cerato sedan as an alternative - which they agreed not to charge me for.

The next morning the T4 apparently performed as I suggested...but the intial diagnosis was unexpected. No.1 glow plug is history. This might explain the awful start but both the shop and I (me more so) are slightly doubtful since this vehicle has never before been an unwilling starter - ever. So how the heck a new belt and fuel pump timing might conspire with one or more dud glow plugs is something of a mystery to me. Suffice to say that they've apparently not looked much further than that...

Upshot at this point is that the T4 remains at the shop, I remain driving a Kia and a full set of glow plugs are in transit from Sydney. I cough up the $250 for the plugs, the shop will fit them for free and then they'll see what happens. With luck, I'll get it back before the weekend.

Hrrmmmmm. You're right ofcourse, its rather unlikely that the new timing belt spoke with the old glow plugs and got into a fight and killed one of them.... much more likely that when the injector pump belt was changed the timing is now retarded a bit.

having said that, a new set of glow plugs isnt a bad thing. But, if you keep having problems I will bet its the pump timing. A couple of weeks ago I posted that my dad had done the t-belt job himself - well, it took him 3 or 4 goes to get the pump timing right aswell. The shop doesnt have any real excuse because they should have all the correct tools (the dial gauge and adaptor) but you do need to be extremely careful even with the right tools because you only need to be out by a little to make a big change to performance, economy and especially cold starting.

Best of luck with it

[Seano]

... a new set of glow plugs isnt a bad thing. But, if you keep having problems I will bet its the pump timing...

I reckon it is almost certainly pump timing. The glow plugs were certainly old - they are the originals - and they don't last forever. But the timing is critical and is almost certainly the only thing that has changed between last week and this.

The bonus of all this is I'll get a set of plugs fitted for gratis...glass is half full!!

[jets]

Hrrmmm The shop doesnt have any real excuse because they should have all the correct tools (the dial gauge and adaptor) but you do need to be extremely careful even with the right tools because you only need to be out by a little to make a big change to performance, economy and especially cold starting.

As I said earlier in this thread, VagCom is needed to set the timing. The dial gauge & adaptor aren't good enough for the TDI. The engine needs to be above 85C & running & the timing plotted on a graph.It needs to be spot on to start at the touch of the key.It takes time to set it properly & adjusted carefully.

[Seano]

Things get better but not totally fixed as yet...

The glow plugs have arrived and should by now be in the engine.

An added wrinkle is that on the second teardown (this one to get the old glowplugs out - the first was to do the belt change) the tech noticed that the idler belt was impacting on the plastic belt cover and chopping it up a bit. Closer inspection found the idler pully bearing had way too much play in it so a new one was ordered along with a new belt. However, VW sent the wrong pulley and that didn't turn up till yesterday. So today it 'should' go back together.

The only question now is...does that fix it? We wait and see...

[Seano]

It is back in my hands. It seems to work. It does make the odd noise. But it cost me nothing further...

[POSTSCRIPT] Booted first go this morning despite the -1 degree air temp and ran sweetly. So I think they've sorted it. New plugs, new ider pulley and new belt. And I'm guessing by the fact they didn't charge me for these things despite my agreement that I would pay for parts...that the mechanic found the actual problem that caused the crook start.

Regardless...it's fixed and the VW dealer treated me very well so no harm done.

[jets]

Pleased to hear it's finally sorted & that the dealer treated you well. Where you live you will need to use them again in the future.