VW Passat 1997 TDi 110bhp - VW TDi revs on hot start and no power

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Wed 9 Mar 2011 20:34
VW Passat 1997 TDi 110bhp - VW TDi revs on hot start and no power - Biped
This has been intermittent and was gone for approx last 12 months. I was doing servicing myself. Car has 164k miles and timing belt was replaced along with water pump, full service, fuel filter etc at a garage recently.

Collected it and it ran fine for about two days then the gremlin returned. In the past this is what would happen.

Start from dead cold, no problem and if would pull really well. Stop and restart when hot and the engine instantly hits 2k rpm for a split second and drops back to normal idle but no power like it was in limp mode.

Previously this went away even though I changed air mass meter but it didn't fix the problem and eventually it went away.

This time however after the timing belt and fuel filter change the problem started again after about two days. This time though it never comes out of limp mode. So start from cold no instand revs just normal idle but no power. Start from hot 2k revs the normal idle and no power.

Back to garage on diagnostics. Solenoid valve on fuel pump showed issue so took it to a diesel fuel injection specialist. On diagnostics again, fuel solenoid came up, he put in a new air mass meter and swapped the solenoid with another one (not new) faults cleared in ecu. He thought it made an improvement and to be fair it did but it's still way down on power and still revs on starting when hot.

Any suggestions welcome, I will try and pressurised the fuel system tomorrow as per another thread to see if there is an air leak using the rag in tank neck and compressed air.

I know she is old and has big mileage but when on song it pulls really great and everything else is perfect so if it's a few hundred to fix it's cheap motoring for another year or two.

Thanks in advance.
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Fri 11 Mar 2011 19:19
VW Passat 1997 TDi 110bhp - VW TDi revs on hot start and no power - Biped
Found the problem. Faulty solenoid seal leaking fuel in at shutoff. New solenoid an all is well. Hopefully that will save someone the trouble in future.
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