I ran out of gas a couple of weeks ago, then had difficulty starting the car two days ago. Now it won't start at all and I am told it needs a fuel pump. Could this be related to letting it run out of gas? I heard somewhere that it could damage the car if I ever let it completely run out of gas.
Yes it could. I take it you did get it to start and run at least once before it failed.
Nope! Not unless you let the pump run a long time, but to do so means you would have to been cranking a long time. I would venture to say your starter would have gave out first!
It may be a long-shot.. try the thread named "2001 Passat GLX will not start"
In short, my car once would not start for no good reason at all. It behaved as though it was not getting fuel so I bypassed the computer by running power directly to the fuel pump for a few moments and then started the car with the jumper in place. This worked although I never did figure out why, the car still is driven every day and is still running and starting perfectly. The jumper was removed after the car sputtered back to life. It can't hurt to try this (assuming you leave a fuse in line with your pump while you test it)... and do not over-work the starter as Woodchuck implied.
good luck!
Passat_driver wrote:
Thanks for all of your responses. I will give it a shot and see what happens.
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