Hi and HELP! 96 Jetta will not start!

Hello VW people. I have been a member of Rec.Games.Pinball for several years and it's members have helped me many times. I have also been a VW owner for many years from the early air-cooled Beetle/Rabbit years and had always been able to get myself out of jams... until now. We have a 96 2.0 Jetta GL that started running like it had lost all power after a 1/4 tank of fuel was added when the tank was low. We live in NH and the weather is around freezing. I took the car out to test drive and filled the tank with fresh fuel from another fill station and the problem continued. As I was returning home the car had so little power it could barely make it up a hill. I did manage to get it home and into a heated garage and let it sit over night. I started it the next morning, took it for a quick test spin and it had plenty of power until I got about a 1/4 mile from home and the power disappeared again. Once I had it back in the driveway it died and has not started since. Now it's in the heated garage again, I dumped in some fuel anti-freeze and pulled the fuel line at the engine and cranked the engine and watched the fuel pump into a container. It did fill the quart container but not as fast as I thought it should. I also noticed the engine fire a few times and actually ran for a few seconds. I then reconnected the fuel supply line and cranked the engine again and it would not fire... weird? Removed the fuel line again and it tried to start again. Why would the motor try to start without any fuel pressure or supply? There is a vacuum diaphragm before the injectors that has a fuel line going in and out of it. What does that do? And I wonder if that had become stuck closed somehow. I did pull it and the shaft with an o-ring on it does not move at all. I'm confident the motor is okay, the ignition is good and the fuel pump is working correctly. Something seems to be shutting off the fuel to the injectors. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you, Keith

Reply to
K's Arcade
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have you actually checked for a strong spark? in my experience, ignition faults are more common than fuelling faults. if it has a distributor, check inside the cap. if it is cracked, or the contacts are dirty, corroded of heavily pitted, change it. they aren't expensive.

if it still won't run, check for a voltage at the injectors (i'm assuming it's multi point)

could also be a fuel pressure issue, caused by a tired pump.

is the EML on on the dash?

Reply to
Nathan Lucas

The check engine light has been on so long we have just learned to ignore it. The light was on for a thermostat problem last year and that issue was corrected by changing the thermostat after a few other sensors were changed. Now the light is back on for a vacuum problem but the car was running fine and we figured we would chase down that problem after we pay for the front end work we had done, all new struts complete. I should have mentioned also that the car has 130k miles.

The pump seems to be working but I thought it would have more pressure. It did fill a pint jar in say maybe 5 seconds.

The cap and rotor were changed maybe last year but I'll check the cap next. I should mention also it has a new coil.

Thanks for your help, I will post again if I find anything new.

K
Reply to
K's Arcade

I checked the cap and rotor and they were a little worn but not bad, cleaned and re-installed. Pulled a plug, grounded it and checked for spark. Good fat hot spark.

Fingers pointing at fuel pump/injection again? Fuel pressure unknown.

Not sure if the fuel filter had ever been changed on this car. Maybe the fuel pressure is low because the filter is clogged? We bought it used so I'm not sure what had been done in the past. I know we had never asked to have it changed while we have owned it. I know that it was run low on fuel too many time to count because my wife does not like to keep it full like I do. (typical?) I might try changing the fuel filter tomorrow and see what happens. Wish I had a fuel pressure gauge. The only thing I can go by is how fast it fills a jar and it just doesn't seem like it's fast enough to me. The last FI car I had problems with was a Scirocco and that was a bad pump. K

Reply to
K's Arcade

are you sure you added gas and not diesel or kerosine?

Reply to
Eduardo K.

Yes, and yes I checked before I added more gas, and yes I did grill my wife to make sure she did not add diesel. I pulled a sample when I tested the fuel pump and it is in fact gas. To my disappointment I did not see any water yet. I was hoping it was just water in the fuel when my wife bought a 1/4 tank. When I took it for a test drive and it was running horribly, I pulled into a Exxon and smelled both the filler neck and the tail pipe and I did not smell diesel. I then filled it with supreme GAS. Even if there was a quarter tank of diesel in there it's now diluted with 3/4 tank of super fuel.

I'm fairly certain the fuel filter is clogged with dirt and maybe water. I can't explain why the car ran great for a few minutes after it sat in the heated garage for 8 hours and then stopped running completely. I'm hoping the filter is lowering the fuel pressure enough to keep the injectors from working.

I'll have the answer good or bad tomorrow when the parts stores open.

I'm getting too old for this under the car, rust and gas and... yuck.

Time to buy a new car!

I'm hoping a VW tech would chime in. If I could get it hooked to a computer would the error codes show low fuel pressure? And possibly the culprit part/s?

K
Reply to
K's Arcade

Your experience agrees with my experience with a clogged filter. One day my Rabbit left me stranded, and when I came back, it fired right up and ran fine for about 5 minutes before dying again. Wait a few hours, repeat the same performance. Replacing the fuel filter made everything right with the world again.

I'm not sure what the recommened change interval is for fuel filters, but I do mine every 50K miles. A clogged filter can quickly ruin an expen$ive fuel pump. Your wife may have just got some dirty gas. It happens sometimes.

I don't think cars are equipped with fuel pressure sensors so it probably wouldn't show up as a code.

I would change the fuel filter before deciding to get rid of the car, however. ;)

Reply to
tylernt

Too late, we just bought a 05 Passat. Should be good for many years. I'll fix this 96 Jetta and sell it in the spring. I used to fix up VW Rabbits and sell them for extra $ years ago. Painting, engine work. detailing, mono-color paint scheme, german license plate. I'm not sure how much I would like to do to this Jetta. I used to enjoy that sort of work when I was younger but now I enjoy working on pinball machines. Maybe not as profitable but a heck of a lot more fun than getting a face full of rust and gas running down your arms while you are pined under a car. Not my cup of tea anymore. Hopefully I will endure the agony of changing the fuel filter and end up with a running car I can sell and at least get a few Passat payments out of it.

K
Reply to
K's Arcade

Update: changed the fuel filter (which was original) and no change. Motor will still not start. Maybe the fuel pump is worn out? I checked the injector connector and I have 5V with the key on. I will have to borrow a fuel pressure gauge and find out what the pressure should be. I don't have any information for the 96 Jetta besides the manual which came with the car, which is useless, "any problems... bring it to the dealer".

So for now it's going to sit outside until I either sell it or figure out what's wrong with it.

96 Jetta GL for sale.... cheap. K
Reply to
K's Arcade

I would just ignore it like you have done in the past and maybe it will just dry up and blow away. :-)

Reply to
Peter Parker

Wow! Lots of NO Help here...

I'm really surprised, I thought VW owners always helped each other. Probably would have been better off asking pinball collectors.

Big thanks to Peter Pecker, he was the most help.

Reply to
K's Arcade

Every post was a solid response, even Peter's "tongue in cheek" post - which probably was meant to ease your tension. Some people say "Thank you" under such circumstances, even if the suggestions offered do not solve the problem.

Reply to
Papa

"tongue in cheek" does not get the car to run.

I asked for help, not stupid comments.

Tension is not eased but elevated, wasted my time here.

Thank you

Reply to
K's Arcade

You think *you* got stupid comments?

Reply to
Tom's VR6

Get lost, jerk ! You don't deserve any help, and may all 4 wheels of your never-maintained Jetta fall off their axles!

Reply to
Papa

F. U. never maintained!

I have the receipts to prove it JERK!

Maybe the garage I was bringing to was negligent.

My life is pretty busy, I suppose your car is perfect right?

Not my fault the garage we brought the car to chased the check engine light problem for three visits and hundreds of dollars later the light still came on. Maybe you (Papa Jerk) have all the time and money in the world to dump into a car that has 130K miles? But at what point do you put a 45 between cylinders 2 and 3?

One thing not found here: knowledge

Certainly nothing to be gained or learned here.

Reply to
K's Arcade

Update: 96 Jetta, The crankshaft timing belt sprocket bolt came loose and the keyway built into the sprocket wore away. This explains why the car would start and then die again. It finally got stuck so far out of time the motor would not start at all. The timing belt had been changed

10K miles ago and maybe the bolt was loosened then or the belt was out of adjustment and the backlash was enough to loosen the bolt. It could have also been the pulleys that are mounted to this sprocket that drive the water pump and the serpentine belt could be out of balance and the vibration caused the main bolt to loosen.

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New sprocket on the right was $60 at the VW dealer. You can see the original sprocket on the left has no keyway at all. I have no idea how this car ran at all or how it got me home that night.

It seems this has happened to someone else on this group and that is how I found the problem. Never seen or heard of this before but these news groups are great for finding odd, never heard of problems.

Thanks to all, hope this information is helpful

Reply to
K's Arcade

I have seen it with a 92 Cabriolet and an Audi 100. What is odd is that usually that bolt does not need to be loosened or removed on these engines! On the Audi it does make changing the belt a little easier, but you really need the locking tool to properly tighten down that front crank bolt.

If the belt/engine timing was checked, esp. since the engine did not start, it would have been quickly found.

later, dave (One out of many daves)

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Reply to
dave AKA vwdoc1

"If the belt/engine timing was checked, esp. since the engine did not start, it would have been quickly found."

I agree, but I knew I had just paid a garage to replace the timing belt only 10K miles ago so I thought I would not have to worry about the belt for the rest of the car's life. The way the car acted when this problem started, it seemed like a fuel supply issue which sent me looking in the wrong places. It wasn't until I checked everything else did I check the engine timing. I also found someone else had posted on this newsgroup that the same thing had happened to him.

I'm not sure if the bolt coming loose is a common VW thing or not. I can see there would be a lot of vibration from all the stacked pulleys hanging off that smaller crank timing belt pulley. It is true that the bolt never does need to be loosened to change the belt so I'm not sure I will ever know how it happened. It does look like it was loose for a while. I can't say it was the garage who changed the belt. It's just one of those fluke things that happens rarely but does happen. Thought it should be posted for future reference.

Reply to
K's Arcade

I hope you applied the proper torque to the bolt and possibly used sealer (locktite). The shop you took it to didn't.

JoBo

Reply to
Jo Bo

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