I've been having computer problems for a couple of weeks, so here
is a problem that I have been having for a while now:
The wife had the car all day a while ago with no problems until she left a friends house to come home. The car starts and idles well, but when put in gear (manual transmission) and the clutch JUST begins to engage, the engine starts to miss (sputter). It sounds like it only firing on a couple of cylinders and then it stalls. It starts right up again and idles well again, but will act the same way when we try to go again. One thing that is kind of weird is that if it is shifted into reverse, the engine seems to work normally. When my wife told me that, I said that she was crazy, but when I got there to check it out - sure enough, reverse seemed to be ok.
The only other observation worth mentioning is the glow plug light. As soon as the engine begins to run as described above, the glow plug light will flash on and off repeatedly. The only way to make it stop is to turn off the car (if it hasn't already stalled from the rough running). Once re-started the glow plug light will be off unless we attempt to move the car forward and then it comes right back on.
A local guy plugged in an OBD II tester and said that it showed codes P1354 and P1562. I did a search and found the following:
P1354 - Modulating piston displacement sensor
P1562 - Quantity adjuster upper limit attained
Somewhere while searching the P1354 code, I found that it means that the injection pump isn't doing what the computer is telling it to do. The pump itself could be bad or the wiring going to the pump, especially where it passes over the starter. I followed the wiring from the pump, down to the starter area, under the battery box, until I couldn't trace it any longer. The wiring all looks to be in good shape. I unplugged the connector up by the pump to see how it looked. The inside of the connector looks good with no corrosion. I plugged it back in and the car now works well. The guy cleared the codes with his OBD II scanner.
The car worked well for about 20 miles, but now it is back to acting like it did earlier. Could this be a computer problem as it worked well in reverse, but not in a forward gear? (Now it runs a little bad in reverse,
but not as bad as a forward gear). I would think that if it were a mechanical
problem, it wouldn't matter what gear it was in - also after I looked for wiring problems, it worked for a while.
Can anyone shed any light on this? I am a school bus mechanic and can handle most of the work on my own vehicles.
Another question, where do I get a Bently manual and are there different versions? It seems to me I remember a different manual if using VAG COM. I also think I remember VAG COM selling the manual on CD and they were claiming that its content was somehow different/better than the printed version. Any recommendations?
This is a great little car and we're looking to put another 120,000 miles on it. Thanks and have a nice day.