GTI Unresponsive Accelerator

[Spanner82]

I’ve had my MY16 GTI since October 2015, have done 4000km and am loving it, but had my first issue yesterday. As I was driving along at a constant speed, the car felt like it was decelerating, not braking, but as if I had lifted off the accelerator even though my foot was on the accelerator at a steady position. About 5 seconds later, the power returned and all back to normal. No warning lights came on, and the engine didn’t stall.

I didn’t think much of it, until accelerating from the next set of lights. Again, there was a definite loss of power for a few seconds at around 40km/h and the accelerator was completely unresponsive, then the power returned. This happened about 6 times in a 20 minute drive. The next time it happened, I put my foot to the floor and absolutely nothing happened. The car just sat at 60km/h, in 6th gear (DSG), and revs just above idle. A few seconds later, it responds and kicks back to 2nd.

After parking and restarting the car, it hasn’t happened again since. Bit of a scary experience to lose power like that, and just lucky it wasn’t as I was turning across traffic.

I’m considering taking it to the dealer to have a look at, but as there was no warning lights, was intermittent and hasn’t happened again, I’m expecting they’ll say they can’t find anything. Just wondering if anyone else has had something similar happen, and if so, did you find out what the cause was?

Thanks!


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[Jondalar]

This appears to be a bit of a known issue Volkswagen says no link between circumstances of Melissa Ryan's death and new reports of manual cars losing power - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (don't go by the headline just read a bit further down).

Hope you get it fixed!

Cheers,
Karl

[Spanner82]

This appears to be a bit of a known issue Volkswagen says no link between circumstances of Melissa Ryan's death and new reports of manual cars losing power - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (don't go by the headline just read a bit further down).

Hope you get it fixed!

Cheers,
Karl

Hi Karl, thanks for the response. The story does sound exactly what happened in my case, although mine is auto.

I just called my dealer and they said it's unlikely that it logged a fault code if no warning lights came on so just asked me to monitor it. Not very reassuring but I'll see what happens.


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[DV52]

Hi Karl, thanks for the response. The story does sound exactly what happened in my case, although mine is auto.

I just called my dealer and they said it's unlikely that it logged a fault code if no warning lights came on so just asked me to monitor it. Not very reassuring but I'll see what happens.


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Spanner. Dealers are a very unsympathetic lot in my experience -especially if they have a "VW" symbol mounted on their showrooms!

I would be very disappointed if my dealer gave me the response that you have had. The symptoms on your car are dangerously similar to those that tragically resulted in loss-of-life in the news story. How does the dealer know that a fault wasn't recorded in your car when he/she hasn't even made the effort to hook it up to their diagnostic machine?

Whilst it's likely that faults that result in an alarm, or an error message on the MFA will be logged as a Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC), this is not always the case. I've had plenty of DTCs appear on my car when there have been no Alarms/or error messages on the MFA.

It's entirely up to you (of course), but I suggest that you contact a forum member in Adelaide to run an auto-scan report with a VCDS cable on your car to see if any DTC have appeared (if you were closer to Melbourne, I'd do it for you gratis - as a concerned forum colleague). If you don't find any DTCs, then it has probably only cost you a couple of beers. However, if you do find DTCs on your car that look suspicious, then in your next conversation with the dealer, tell him/her that you will keep the auto-scan report as evidence of VW's criminal negligence should an accident occur!

I know that it sounds harsh, but in my experience, VW dealers only become motivated when their customers carry a big stick!!

Cheers
Don

[Spanner82]

I would be very disappointed if my dealer gave me the response that you have had. The symptoms on your car are dangerously similar to those that tragically resulted in loss-of-life in the news story. How does the dealer know that a fault wasn't recorded in your car when he/she hasn't even made the effort to hook it up to their diagnostic machine?

Whilst it's likely that faults that result in an alarm, or an error message on the MFA will be logged as a Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC), this is not always the case. I've had plenty of DTCs appear on my car when there have been no Alarms/or error messages on the MFA.

Hi Don, thanks for your valuable contribution as usual. It's good to know that not all faults will result in a warning light.

Although the dealer said it was very unlikely anything would show up, he did say he was happy to check for fault codes if I really wanted. Based on that tragic story, I think I will take it in. It's quite an unsettling experience that I'd like to avoid happening again.

Appreciate your offer to check with a VCDS cable. If I was in Melbourne I'd take you up on it!

Cheers
Paul

[tonymy01]

You aren't a left foot braker by chance are you? Because the car will cut throttle if you bump the brake pedal while still on throttle, and it won't return until you let your foot go off throttle and return it (Mk6 does this, I learnt the hard way when gently tapping the brake pedal to give a tailgater the hint with the brake lights on the F3 a couple of years back, and then freaked out that I was slowing down despite ramming more throttle down...not so fun with a tailgater up your clacker).

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[Spanner82]

You aren't a left foot braker by chance are you?

Hi tonymy01, thanks for the input. I had heard about the throttle cut when braking, but I don't left-foot brake so wasn't that. I'll let the dealer have a look and see if anything shows up. Cheers!


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[Toy_Dub14]

I think you should actually read the coroners report about the Melissa Ryan incident before getting all hysterical
Interestingly the coroner found no fault by the GTI involved which was actually a manual car however things that did come up were

Melissa actually was braking
found to be on the phone while drivjng
truck driver was not following at a safe distance

[Snail Style]

Hahaha but let's not get in the way of a good media story with facts! Mechanics are monitored on efficiency and productivity, unless they can clearly identify an issue within 30 mins of getting the vehicle, then they will not spend any further time on it.

Get a video of the issue occurring or actually take them for a drive to show them.