Hello all,
About a week ago my daughter was driving our 2000 Jetta that has the VR6 engine (about 50k miles). The serpentine belt broke/came off. She saw a battery warning lamp come on but did not see the temp guage move past the mid range.
The car was towed and the belt replaced along with the belt tighter. The car now idles ok but runs rough and backfires when you start to accelerate. This is so bad that is not driveable. Computers codes do not show any problems - any ideas?
Look for any broken hoses or wires that a broken belt might have damaged while it was flapping around. Did the tech put everything back on the engine, like the plug to the MAP sensor? Have him/her check their work! later, dave (One out of many daves)
Backfiring is most likely a blown or disconnected MAF or whatever monitors the air intake ratio in your car. Other than that, it may have munged the timing having the engine suddenly rev like that. That would be my other guess - it jerked enough so tht you slipped a notch or two.
Backfiring while accelerating is sensor and/or timing related almost every time. It runs fine at idle, but change the air/fuel ratios and it can't react properly. If it's bad enough, the car won't even get compression or start due to everything moving randomly. Jerking like that is hard on the transmission as well, so get it fixed sooner rather than later.
Given that it's at 50K miles, replacing the timing belt if it has one is recommended anyways.
Hello all,
For completeness of this posting, and for folks that may search this type answer in the future, here is what finally fixed the problems.
The serpentine belt was replaced. Plus a pully replaced.
A MAF (mass air flow sensor) was replace. The original folks working on the car though the sensor was ok by only checking the comupter codes that changed when the MAF was either plugged or un plugged. (The replacement was done under warrenty)Lucky thing!
The coil pack (for spark plugs) was replaced. The dealership claimed that two of the 6 sparkplug outputs were bad.
The car now runs well!
Total cost including two tows, parts and labor ...$1400. The labor for fixing stuff I have no problem with. But as for the cost of VW parts - the cost is BS, let me spell it out b.u.l.l.s.h.i.t.!
VW corp. - wake up!
VW Corp. - Your part costs are so high I will not buy another VW for that reason!
Regards.
Its german.....parts are pricey
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