mookie
Registered User
I've owned my B6 1.9tdi for almost a year now, faultless driving with no problems... until we returned from a 2700mile European holiday.
The car essentially lost all engine activity doing 70mph on the motorway, completely out of the blue. All electrics still on, lights, radio etc not affected. But the revs dropped to zero as the engine turned off, lost PAS and obviously the brakes went very heavy etc. Managed to bump the car onto a grass verge and into thick undergrowth as we were on a stretch of motorway outside Grantham with no hard shoulder A very scary experience indeed.
AA attended, checked all the usual areas with nothing amiss. Car would turn over but not start. Sprayed some equivalent to 'Start Ya B*****d' in, engine started and immediately died. Tried to run diagnostics and he said it wouldn't return a fault code or he was having problems getting his tool to communicate with the car. Long story short, it's back outside the house but dead as a doornail. AA man said he was clueless, but suspected fuelling as the car would start but not maintain revs. He said ECU or injectors.
The sudden cut of power, got me wondering about a cause considering how sudden it was. Now on Saturday driving up from Dover, we drove through some insane rain storms (not to mention the Austrian thunderstorms we drove through previously). So a quick google brought up the plenum blockage problems. Sure enough when I removed the battery surround etc, I found water. Took out the battery and this is how it looked:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57349710/20130825_191735.jpg
That was 24hrs later. There was muddy gunk up to and over the plastic battery shelf, with a tidemark about another inch about that. Now I don't know how high the water was when the car broke down, but this seems to suggest I've had deep water in there for a while for there to be so much stuck on mud. Possibly even higher with fresh rain water on Saturday? I've now drained it and WD40'd every pipe and cable and gaasket I can see to try and drive out any moisture, and the car is now sitting for a day or two to fully dry out.
My big question. Is the water issue something that could cause my sudden cut in power? If so, what components could water at that level be in contact with to cause it? The ECU box seemed high and dry, i couldn't see in properly just peeked as I didnt removed the wipers but it didn't look wet?
Any help would be massively appreciated.
The car essentially lost all engine activity doing 70mph on the motorway, completely out of the blue. All electrics still on, lights, radio etc not affected. But the revs dropped to zero as the engine turned off, lost PAS and obviously the brakes went very heavy etc. Managed to bump the car onto a grass verge and into thick undergrowth as we were on a stretch of motorway outside Grantham with no hard shoulder A very scary experience indeed.
AA attended, checked all the usual areas with nothing amiss. Car would turn over but not start. Sprayed some equivalent to 'Start Ya B*****d' in, engine started and immediately died. Tried to run diagnostics and he said it wouldn't return a fault code or he was having problems getting his tool to communicate with the car. Long story short, it's back outside the house but dead as a doornail. AA man said he was clueless, but suspected fuelling as the car would start but not maintain revs. He said ECU or injectors.
The sudden cut of power, got me wondering about a cause considering how sudden it was. Now on Saturday driving up from Dover, we drove through some insane rain storms (not to mention the Austrian thunderstorms we drove through previously). So a quick google brought up the plenum blockage problems. Sure enough when I removed the battery surround etc, I found water. Took out the battery and this is how it looked:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57349710/20130825_191735.jpg
That was 24hrs later. There was muddy gunk up to and over the plastic battery shelf, with a tidemark about another inch about that. Now I don't know how high the water was when the car broke down, but this seems to suggest I've had deep water in there for a while for there to be so much stuck on mud. Possibly even higher with fresh rain water on Saturday? I've now drained it and WD40'd every pipe and cable and gaasket I can see to try and drive out any moisture, and the car is now sitting for a day or two to fully dry out.
My big question. Is the water issue something that could cause my sudden cut in power? If so, what components could water at that level be in contact with to cause it? The ECU box seemed high and dry, i couldn't see in properly just peeked as I didnt removed the wipers but it didn't look wet?
Any help would be massively appreciated.