Hi all, I'm hoping someone here can help me out or point me in the right direction? I have been trawling through forums searching for a solution to my issue but no luck and I'm wondering if anyone has experienced the same issue before? Earlier on today I popped to the shops and waited in my car with it idling for around 10-15 minutes or so. When I set off again, the car lacked power and no matter how hard I pressed the throttle it felt like the car was choking itself out. It eventually ground to a halt and cut out. After 5-10 minutes I tried starting the car up again, it fired up first time and was running perfectly fine for most of the day. A little later on I got caught in some traffic and noticed the temperature gauge steadily increasing and after setting off once again, 5 minutes later the same thing happened again, down on power feeling like it was choking itself before grinding down to a halt and cutting out. This happened once more, and seemed fine after waiting a few minutes to start up again. I finally reached my destination and left my car parked up for a few hours. So now it was my return trip, in much cooler, late evening conditions and my car didn't miss a beat. The entire 30 mile journey home it ran perfectly fine and I never encountered the same issues I'd had earlier in the day. I'm just wondering if anyone has any guidance on things to check, or if anyone has successfully found a solution to the same/similar problem?
what car/engine is it, and how hot did it get exactly on the gauge? my first thought would be rad fan isnt working though since its conking out when sat for a bit but fine while driving
Hi John, apologies, it's a 1990 MK2 GTI 8v. Yesterday I was doing some testing to try and get the car to stall when idling and I was somewhat successful. I have done some more digging on this forum and believe the issue to be very similar to this: https://www.clubgti.com/forums/inde...-misfire-judder-randomly-when-driving.286196/ It mainly occurs after a prolonged period of driving and/or being stuck in traffic. When accelerating the car will occasionally misfire, and at it's worst it will continue misfiring all the way down to a halt where the engine would stall. Fortunately this has happened in places where I have been able to pull in somewhere safely. I have ordered a new Ignition Switch and Ignition Coil and I have also found that one of the HT leads does not feel as secure on one of the spark plugs in comparison to the others. I'm not a mechanic by any stretch but am keen to learn how to diagnose and fix issues with my car, is there anything in particular that could be causing the issue?
when driving your gaugr should sit around 1/2, then at 3/4 is when the fan should cut in. some gauges may read a little under or over, you can compare to the MFA oil temp gauge. 1/2 on gauge should roughly 90 degrees on oil temp, some difference here is also to be expected since the dahs gauge is water and mfa is oil and they're in different spots on the engine as well though. but yeah, roughly equivalent If your leads are suspect just replace, bosch or beru ideally. I would do cap and arm as well while there unless you know they're recent. I do most of my parts shopping here: https://www.vwspares.co.uk/VW_Golf_Mk2_Electrical.php?model=1.8 GTi 8v next time the engine conks out have a listen for the fuel pumps, do they run on for a few seconds (they should) or do they cut same time the engine does? another thing you can do, when you attempt to restart immediately also listen out when pumps are priming on the first click of the key. do you hear both of them or only the one inside the tank?
some other general digifant troubleshooting tips in my guide here, dont jump straight into messing with idle and co though if it generally pulls fine that side of things should be ok: https://clubgti.com/forums/index.ph...ose-and-tune-your-mk2-digifant-gti-8v.124949/
Thank you, that is incredibly helpful. It sounds like the temperatures are all ok, fan does kick in at around 3/4 on the gauge and for the most part the temps sit anywhere between 1/4 and 1/2 when driving. I will order some new leads, dizzy cap and rotor arm and see if that hopefully resolves the issue as I am not entirely sure when these were last replaced. I believe the pumps do continue to run once the engine cuts but I will be sure to keep a good listen out for it when it stalls out next. When I get a bit more time I will run through your guide to check the timing etc. Thanks again
The temp. rise might also be due to the thermostat going on the blink and not opening to allow circulation (that's a relatively straightforward job and if it's old would be worth replacing regardless). You could also flush the radiatior in case there is crud in there and is also contributing to the issue. This cutting out business could be a number of things, RJ's tuning/setup guide is certainly a very good place to start. My own 8V digi had similar issues when I first bought it - juddering, spluttering with the occasional cutting out thrown in for good measure. Over a period of years (I'm in Canada, car is in Ireland) I have improved it but not completely fixed it yet. The first thing was a full service for the car: Oil filter, Air filter, fuel filter, spark plugs, cleaned the ISV. The car definitely improved but was still not right After that the process of elimination started: Blue Temp Sensor - Replaced with a new genuine one (Nope) Vacuum hoses - Check them all and replace if they appear in any way dodgy - I replaced them all (Nope) Check Throttle switches/wiring - see RJ's guide (Nope) Throttle body - Remove the boot and check around the butterfy valves - if they are gummed up - clean with throttle cleaner (this is next on my list) Hall sensor - Apparently can cause juddering etc. if they are misbehaving (I replaced the full distributor in mine with a new Bosch one - SFA of a difference) HT leads - I replaced them all just in case (Nope) Coil - Replaced (Nope) Check ECU wiring and connector for damage/corrosion (Nope) As you can see this is an ongoing battle of wits with my GTI - she is being a bit of a Charlie Uniform November Tango.
Thanks everyone for the help on this. I have replaced the HT leads, dizzy cap, dizzy rotor arm, ignition amp and ignition coil and everything seems to be working fine once it gets going. I have found that the car idles around 500rpm and after some searching around and checking over the engine it appears that the rocker cover breather bung has 2 splits in it. I have ordered a new bung as well as the breather valve itself. I'm hoping that this will fix the idle rpm issue as well as the engine stalling after being left to idle for a period of time.
