Running rough, Please Help

[neilbarrett]

please help!

About a month ago out of the blue my golf 4 1.8t started running rough. All of a sudden it will start sputtering quite badly and when I stop at a light it will stall. it then starts back up again and I wait for it to happen again. I have taken it in to the problem and they say all the ecu said is their is a problem with the air fuel mix. They then said the solution could be to replace the breather hoses and valves.So..... this is what I've done.

Replaced all hoses in the breather system plus the three way valve and the puck valve.
cleaned the MAF sensor
cleaned the throttle body
cleaned the heat sensor in the inlet manifold
cleaned the inlet manifold
it has near new spark plugs
replaced fuel filter
ran an injector cleaner in the fuel

has anyone got any ideas? I heard a loud clicking noise coming from the charcoal filter valve so I checked the bypass valve and it seemed to be stuffed could this be the course? Please help this is really doing my nut in!!


cheers, Neil

[h100vw]

Could be sucking some air in somewhere but that's purely guessing.

You can't diagnose this over the internet.

You should check all the vacuum pipes as place to start.

Gavin



QUOTE=neilbarrett;852307]please help!

About a month ago out of the blue my golf 4 1.8t started running rough. All of a sudden it will start sputtering quite badly and when I stop at a light it will stall. it then starts back up again and I wait for it to happen again. I have taken it in to the problem and they say all the ecu said is their is a problem with the air fuel mix. They then said the solution could be to replace the breather hoses and valves.So..... this is what I've done.

Replaced all hoses in the breather system plus the three way valve and the puck valve.
cleaned the MAF sensor
cleaned the throttle body
cleaned the heat sensor in the inlet manifold
cleaned the inlet manifold
it has near new spark plugs
replaced fuel filter
ran an injector cleaner in the fuel

has anyone got any ideas? I heard a loud clicking noise coming from the charcoal filter valve so I checked the bypass valve and it seemed to be stuffed could this be the course? Please help this is really doing my nut in!!


cheers, Neil[/QUOTE]

[neilbarrett]

Its been smoke tested and nothing, forgive the lack of knowledge but arent the vacuum pipes the ones that I have changed? (breather pipes)

[h100vw]

Its been smoke tested and nothing, forgive the lack of knowledge but arent the vacuum pipes the ones that I have changed? (breather pipes)

Sorry I missed that. If it's not a leak then you have a hardware problem I'd say. Again though you can't guess, it'll be a waste of time and money.

You should take it back to the smoke testers.

Gavin

[neilbarrett]

They quoted me $570 to replace the vacuum lines,( which didn't work) plus charged me $120 for a smoke test and diagnostic so dont really wont to go back. Would love to fix problem myself/with the help of vwwatercooled. Surely with all the knowledge here we can get this done

[revhead1016]

first, you cant clean the air MAF, I try it on mine and it dosen't work. I had the safe problem with my 4motion 2 years ago, I had it all service, including plugs and lead and it didn't fix the problem. I change the air MAF sensor and took it for a nice drive to clean the O2 sensaor well. fix it.

[neilbarrett]

shouldn't a faulty maf put out a fault code?

[Manaz]

Depends if it's faulty or just reading incorrectly.

You need to get the car to someone who can scan it properly - not a general mechanic, but a VAG expert who can use VAG-COM or similar to read the output of the ECU. They'd pick if you had bad MAF readings pretty quickly. As already noted, cleaning a MAF is tricky - they're VERY sensitive, and putting the wrong kind of cleaner on them can actually make them worse.

If it turns out to me a MAF issue, a new Bosch one from ECS would cost you somewhere somewhere south of $250 shipped to the Gold Coast (get me your engine code if you'd like and I can confirm the exact part you need - it may actually be significantly cheaper than that).

Regarding replacing the vacuum lines, I hope you didn't pay for it if it didn't fix the problem!

[RolfGolf]

There's got to be someone nearby who can scan it for fault codes - another forum forum member - for beer ... Would be a good place to start surely?

[neilbarrett]

did it myself for half the price. the mob I took it to are quite a big mob so Im sure there Diagnosis software is pretty good and would of picked up a faulty maf, but still maybe I'll just change it ?

[neilbarrett]

someone close by who can help me diagnose the problem would be great!!

[neilbarrett]

could it be the bypass valve to the charcoal filter, heard a nasty noise from cf plus valve is stuffed

[revhead1016]

shouldn't a faulty maf put out a fault code?

yes, but replacing your MAF will stop the engine from stalling and also it will fix youe fuel and air mixure, maybe right now because your air maf is not working it
s messing with your engine.

[Manaz]

did it myself for half the price. the mob I took it to are quite a big mob so Im sure there Diagnosis software is pretty good and would of picked up a faulty maf, but still maybe I'll just change it ?

Big mob doesn't mean that they're specialists and can properly diagnose a VW. Most places run a generic ODBII diagnostic tool, but VW extended the ODBII specification significantly, and a standard scanner won't necessarily pull all the info.

If I were up your way, I'd happily spend an hour with you with my VAG-COM cable.

Regarding just changing the MAF - you could - but then you'd potentially end up with yet another expense and a car that still isn't fixed. That's not an ideal solution.

[Manaz]

could it be the bypass valve to the charcoal filter, heard a nasty noise from cf plus valve is stuffed

The carbon filter on my Bora has always been "clicky", so I'm not sure that's the issue. Again, a proper scan should really be what you get first.