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96 passat glx hurting!

Hey dubbers-

A couple of days before Christmas, I packed the family in the 96 Passat Wagon (GLX, VR6, auto tranny) planning to drive from upstate NY down to South Carolina. About twenty miles out of town, on a very slight incline going about 65 or so, I felt a slight hesitation and then started losing power. I could feel and hear a faint ticking sound, almost like a noisy valve. Check engine light starts to flash, I pull over.

I plugged the car into the laptop, and vag-com gave me codes for random misfires on three cylinders. The car would turn over and start, but run very rough and die as soon as I tried to drive off. Definitely sick. Called a tow truck and had the passat taken back home, transfered all the stuff into my 89 Jetta, which with 182000 miles on her is the most dependable car in the universe. She drove us down and back again without any problems.

Now I'm back and need some advice on where to begin diagnosing the passat. The problem happened out of the blue with no warning - plenty of oil and water. Dry conditions. The things I'm coming up with are head gasket, coil pack, or maybe a jumped tooth on the timing chain.

Do any of these sound right to you all? Am I missing anything obvious?

Thanks for any help - Chris

Reply to
starburst
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Um.... Fuel Filter?

I keep harping on this most obvious of items as each time I have heard or experienced symptoms such as you describe (my neighbor's Nissan, another neighbor's VR6 Golf, our Vanagon camper, my wife's Saab a year ago) irrespective of actual service interval, changing the fuel filter cured the problem. It's cheap enough and easy enough to start with. Some of the filter mentioned previously were less than 14,000 miles old. But if you cannot put your finger EXACTLY on when it was changed last, DO start there.

THEN: and further sticking with the obvious: Spark plugs & wires. Clogged injectors (see fuel-filter). When is the last time it got a shot of cleaner through it? Stations these days run their tanks to nearly dry before refilling... gas is EXPENSIVE... even to them.

And if none of this proves out, then start worrying about the expensive stuff.

You can pretty much rule out the head-gasket if you can release the overflow cap on a dead cold engine and not have it fly up into the air from the back-pressure. Not entirely, but pretty much.

Peter Wieck Wyncote, PA

Reply to
pfjw

How is it starting/running now that it is home? Start with the "tune-up" which should include spark plugs, ALL filters (fuel, oil, air), and wires if they are old. If the engine starts to run better then test your ign coil pack by spraying water on it while the engine is running to see if the running changes. If it does then you probably need to coat some of your coil pack with epoxy, or buy a new one.

The ticking could be the ign. spark(s) finding a shorter path to ground while causing the hesitation and loss of power.

Nothing like having a dependable car when you NEED it! ;-)

Let us know what happens! later, dave (One out of many daves)

Reply to
dave AKA vwdoc1

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