Passat (B5) :: Momentary Engine Cut Off On Freeway / EPC Light
Jul 1, 2008
Background: During the last couple of weeks, this happened at least twice: I had to turn the engine for a good 3-4 seconds before it started, and after it did, the EPC light came on. The car drove normally (short lunch drive) and later started with no problem and no EPC light.
This morning, during some stop and go driving, it felt like the engine cutoff for a split second and the EPC light came on. The car then drove fine but the light obviously stayed on. Then on the freeway at 70mph, the engine cutoff, the RPM needle dropped to zero, but within a second or two it came back to life. The "STOP driving" sign blinked just once or twice during this time and disappeared." I can't say for sure, but I am almost sure the engine came back on its own before I cranked it. After that, it felt like it was about to go anytime, but that could have been psychological. Got to work, turned off the engine, turned it on again, and no EPC light!
I found his tidbit on the web claiming it could be the MAF. I also have had the secondary air pump code for the last few months. Could that also be triggered by a faulty MAF? Obviously, I am taking the car to the dealer tomorrow morning. I hope it will be easy to diagnose and fix. Otherwise, it might be time to dump the car?
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I have a problem with my 2004 Santa Fe, 2l diesel. Will try to keep this short!
When driving it suddenly 'heaves' (not sure how else to describe it), then it cuts out. I wait about a minute and then it restarts.
At first there was no 'heave' but there would be a momentary loss of power (I thought it was the clutch). Then it progressed to the 'heave' and then cut out, this happened now and then. Very quickly it started to do it every time I drove it. My neighbor mechanic blew down the fuel line, said the fuel pump in tank sounded ok, seemed to do it more when below quarter of tank.
So I kept tank topped up, it seemed ok, then on one 11 mile journey it did it 3 times, the last time the engine management light came on, crawled it home, after which it would not start at all. The computer said it was either fuel rail or coolant sensor. Neighbor replaced coolant sensor, it started ok. Tried it next day - 6 miles and it heaved and cut out again. This time no light coming on.
I've read about cam sensor, crank shaft sensor, fuel pump at back of engine...
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I have a 1999 F350 200,000 miles. Now getting an intermittent engine light. Still runs well, although once or twice I felt a momentary surge at highway speeds. The light is on intermittently about 1/2 time. I read the codes and the following codes, as in the thread title, came up:
P0280 - ICP circuit out of range - low
P0113 - intake air temp sensor circuit - high input
P0470 - Exhaust back pressure sensor circuit malfunction
P0478 - Exhaust pressure control valve - high input
What would make these all code at the same time? Would these not make a noticeable problem driving? And how do I resolve these?
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My tpms light came on tonight after 15 minutes of freeway driving. I checked the pressure in all 4 tires, and they were all right about 36 lbs. The door jamb tire info says 33 lbs cold, so this seems about right to me. why the tpms light might have come on? Is the spare tire hooked up to the tpms system? My Passat is only 1 month old, so I'm surprised the light came on.
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2001.5 V6 Tiptronic ... A few times in the last couple of months I've felt what I think is a quick lapse in power, like 1 sec. or less. I say "think" because sometimes a bump in the road, traction related, or some other perceived issue can feel strange, especially when cruising along on a smooth cruise-controlled drive.
Each time this has occurred I've been in cruise control, freeway driving, relatively low speeds (65 MPH) . No other signs of anything wrong, chimes, flickering lights, vibration, nothing.
I can't be sure this time around but it seems in the past it's been on the same stretch of freeway, perhaps the same spot. In other words perhaps just a subtle anomaly in the road ...
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I have a 2007 volkswagen passat 2.0 L...115000 miles. Yesterday I was entering the freeway and I accelerated the car a bit when I started hearing this noise on the engine. I will try my best and describe the noise as a knocking of metal on metal. I thought maybe is the oil and changed it.
Now today I was going up the hill and accelerated the car when the noise appeared again, it happened again a little bit later, again going up a hill. There is no noise when I drive normally or I accelerate and I am not going up a hill.
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I can hear a drone at freeway speeds coming from the engine compartment of my 99 Passat 1.8. I don't know whether this is normal, but it seems like the down pipe has a resonance/vibration. How to reduce this? Test pipe? Header wrap? Or is there something wrong that I have this buzzing?
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The engine of our VW Passat 2000 quit suddenly while driving home on freeway. Night. Rain. We put on the flasher lights as we were slowing while trying to move to the right lane. No shoulder as we we were on a bridge. Do not remember being rammed from behind. Had a new battery installed one month earlier after VW mechanics could find no reason for intermittent non-starting of car which we had been experiencing. They had run "fault codes".
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I was driving on the freeway and the trac and engine lights came on.. Noticed that I am no longer getting the Eco light when coasting. Ran the codes and it's P0157 and C1201. I have recently changed tires, not sure what other reason can cause the lights.
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I have a 2002 v6 Camry with over 270k on it. Today the Check engine light came on while driving on the freeway. When I got home I used my scan tool and it gave me the following codes.
P0128, P0440, P0446 and P0440, P0441, P0446 pending.
I understand that the 128 has to do with coolant temp and that the other codes are evap system related.
What I'm trying to figure out is what might have caused them to all occur at the same time. I know once with my 98 Camry it threw a P0125 which had to do with coolant temp issues but it also threw several other codes for a bad 02 sensor and the 125 was just a false code (replaced the 02 sensors and they went away). If this 128 is possibly a false code or if I also have a bad thermostat/sensor on top of an evap system issue.
Also. coolant level is good and I checked the gas cap and insured it was on tight, reset the codes and am waiting to see what comes back.
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I can drive below 40 mph and nothing, once I hit the freeway engine light turns on and gears start slipping. I erase the code and it runs fine at first this would happen once in a while but lately its every time I get on the freeway. I cant keep driving and erasing the code, Every shop says I need to replace the transmission?
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I have 2002 camry 4 cylinders and has 175,000 miles. I was driving on the freeway and suddenly I felt a jerky motion and check engine light came on. When I stopped at light the car began to vibrate and when started driving at low speeds it got me home. Admittedly I had put lot of hard miles on the car in past 6 months and I was lazy in getting oil changed in time. It might have been 7000 miles since oil chg. I took the car to local oil change place they did not mention anything about engine but they said my transmission oil was dark and burnt. They said I should flush and replace. I agreed and tech said he had to do second flush as oil was still dark. After second flush, he said its little bit better.
I was hoping this would solve my problem but unfortunately no. Car was still vibrating and when i drove at slow speed it was driving but as soon as I tried to accelerate the car lost power. Check engine light has been on since the incident at freeway, but now check oil light and battery sign came on. The power steering lost power. I had to park the car and restarted, as long as I drove very slowly it would drive but if I tried to accelerate where the rpm went from 1 or to next level car would loose power with warning lights on. I had recently replaced fuel pump, filter and any repair which was suggested to me. Admittedly I have not done timing chain or belt.
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I have a 2011 Toyota tacoma with 35k miles. Yesterday while driving at about 70-75mph on the freeway with no warning the vehicle shut down and the engine light came on. It made a clunk about the the time it shut off, it wasn't very loud but I could feel it. I'n not sure if that noise was just the vehicle powering down or transmission kicking from the change in torque? I pulled off the freeway, there were no fluids leaking, serpentine belt was in place. The truck will turn over but not start. The check engine light flashes rapidly.
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The primary electric fuel pump in the fuel tank of my 2004 W12 failed last month, shortly after I had set out on a cross-Canada trip from Vancouver Island to Toronto. The whole process of diagnosing and identifying the cause of the problem, mitigating it so that I could continue the trip, and finally replacing the fuel pump was kind of complex, so, here's the write-up.
The problem presented itself as a surging of the engine - a momentary loss of power - at normal highway operating speeds. The onset was progressive, but it didn't take very long - only about 60 miles of driving - from the first little cough of the engine until total failure of the pump. The first indication was failure of the car to maintain speed (while on cruise control) when climbing hills. That progressed to failure to maintain speed on flat surfaces, and finally led to the car coasting to a stop, engine stalled, at the side of the road.
I soon learned that if I floored the accelerator pedal and held it against the floor, the car would cough and burp for a few seconds, then take off like a rocket. So, for the next 40 miles, I coaxed the car into the next city by flooring it, accelerating to about 80 MPH, then coasting until the speed dropped to 20 MPH, and flooring it once again and accelerating to 80 MPH. Fortunately, I was on a remote road with few other cars, and no police.
I checked the fuses for the two fuel pumps - fuses 34 and 35 in panel C (above the left battery), and they were both OK.
The next day, I visited a VW dealer in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and together with the parts manager and one of the technicians, we looked at the Self-Study Guides (SSGs) for the Phaeton, and looked at wiring diagrams. Eventually, we came to a tentative conclusion that the primary electric fuel pump in the fuel tank had failed. The SSGs stated that the primary electric fuel pump (the pump on the right side of the car) operates all the time, and the secondary electric fuel pump (the pump on the left side of the car) only operates during starting and during 'periods of high demand'. That made sense to us - the car started fine, and worked OK when the accelerator pedal was held to the floor (high demand). It just didn't work worth a darn at any other time... the engine would stall, or, the car would not accelerate at all.
Here are two illustrations taken from the SSGs that describe how the fuel delivery system works. The first image is taken from the 'Phaeton Overview' SSG, which applies to all vehicles. The second image is taken from the W12 engine SSG. I kind of suspect that all the Phaetons operate in the same way, regardless of engine, because the fuel tank in all the Phaetons has the same shape - two lower lobes, which means two pumps are required.
Descriptions from the SSGs
I think that there may be an error in the description above. My experience suggests that the right hand pump (identified as G6, above) is the primary pump, and the left hand pump (identified as G23) is the one that switches on during starting and periods of high demand. Note also how the identification of G6 and G23 in the illustration above is reversed from what is shown in the illustration below. I believe that the text and illustration below is correct, and the text and illustration above is incorrect.
The 'effects of failure' in the description above would, I believe, make sense if it was the left-hand pump that failed. In my case, the right hand pump failed, and the effects of failure that I experienced were as I set them out in the beginning paragraphs of this post - quite different from the 'effects of failure' of the left hand pump that are described in the SSG above.
After coming to the tentative diagnosis that the primary electric fuel pump (the right hand pump) had failed, we checked the parts stock status in North America. There was one pump in stock, but it was in the United States, and being that it was a Thursday, the pump could not be delivered before the following Tuesday. I didn't want to spend that much time waiting for it, so, we started thinking about other possible solutions.
If we could somehow get the secondary electric fuel pump - the pump on the left side of the car that only operated during starting and heavy demand - to operate, that just might put me back on the road again. So, I removed the plastic cover from the small relay that operates the secondary pump, and wrapped a rubber band around the relay, thus keeping the relay in the closed position. A short test drive proved that this solution worked just fine, the car once again operated normally. The only "problem" was that the last 25% of the fuel in the tank would be unusable, because that fuel would be left behind in the right-hand lobe of the tank - the lobe with the defective primary fuel pump.
Electric Fuel Pump Relays
Here is an illustration from the Phaeton wiring diagrams identifying the various relays above the left battery.
Here you can see the two relays for the electric fuel pumps. They are identical part numbers.
Here you can see the relay for the secondary electric fuel pump, with a rubber band wrapped around it to keep it continually closed.
Aside from the loss of use of the last 25% of the fuel in the fuel tank, the car worked just fine with the secondary electric fuel pump running all the time. There were no problems noted even under heavy acceleration. It was, however, necessary to physically remove the rubber-banded relay from its position in the relay panel whenever the car was shut down for more than half a hour. The power to this relay comes from Terminal 30 (battery direct) - it is not switched on and off with the ignition as Terminal 15 power is. This meant that if the rubber-banded relay was left in position overnight, the left hand battery would totally discharge, because the fuel pump would operate continuously all night. I discovered this the morning after the first night...
So, for the next 8 days, I drove across Canada, removing the relay each night and replacing it each morning. I didn't bother to remove it when I stopped for meals or fuel. The rest of the 3,000 mile trip was uneventful - except once, when I let the fuel tank run down a bit too close to the 1/4 full mark, and the car began surging again because the left hand lobe of the fuel tank (with the functional secondary pump) had emptied out. That was a close call, but I managed to get to a gas station and refuel.
After arriving in Toronto, I called the parts staff at my home VW dealer and ordered a new primary electric fuel pump. I discovered that the left and right hand pumps are slightly different (the various hoses coming out of the pumps are different), and I also discovered that a pump costs about $400. The parts staff suggested I order two seals (one for each side of the tank), because I would have to remove both the right and left fuel tank covers to change the right pump. The seals were not expensive.
Here are two pictures that illustrate where the pumps sit in each lobe of the fuel tank. Note the fuel filler port on the left side of the pictures (as we know, it is on the right side of the car) for orientation.
Phaeton Fuel Tank, showing pumps
Fuel Pump Access Panels
Below is a picture that shows where the access panels to the two fuel pumps are. It's easy to get to these access panels, just remove the carpeted panel from the floor of the trunk.
Here's a close-up of the right side (primary) electric fuel pump access panel.
The instructions (from the VW Repair Manual, or the ELSA / ErWin system) for replacing the fuel pump are quite well written. The repair manual suggests that the fuel tank be drained before replacing a pump. I didn't want to drain the tank, so, I ran the fuel level down as low as I dared (remembering that 1/4 full is effectively 'empty' with a failed primary pump). That proved to be adequate.
There are a heck of a lot of steps involved in disconnecting all the hoses and loosening the various components before the pump can be removed. I strongly suggest that anyone attempting this task have a printed set of instructions before starting disassembly.
The fuel pump has quite a few hoses and connections on it, but fortunately, each connector is unique in design, thus it is not possible to hook things up the wrong way when installing the new pump. It is possible to 'lose' a hose inside the tank... for this reason, I attached a small piece of string to each hose I disconnected from the pump.
The process goes more or less like this:
1) Remove the two 404 relays, to ensure no power is sent to either fuel pump.
2) Lift the rubber cover, and remove the electrical connections from both pumps (left and right).
3) Using a special tool, lift up the three fasteners that hold the cap over top of the access panel (these are NOT threaded fasteners!)
Here is a side view of the three fasteners that hold the plastic cap in place - they are friction fit, not threaded.
4) Now you have a clear view of the access panel. It will probably be dusty and rusty, and should be vacuumed clean before proceeding, to prevent crap from falling into the fuel tank when the cap is removed. The rust is due to condensation forming on the cold metal part whenever the car is filled with cold fuel from an underground storage tank.
5) A special VW tool is used to remove the locking ring from the access panel.
6) After removing the locking ring, I buffed it up with a wire brush to remove surface corrosion.
7) The plastic access cap can now be lifted. There are two electrical connectors on each fuel pump, but three possible fittings on the plastic cap. Fortunately, the three fittings are keyed differently.
8) This is what you see inside the tank after removing the plastic cap.
9) After following all the detailed instructions for disconnecting and stowing hoses, disconnecting the fuel measurement probe from the pump housing, etc., it is possible to lift the pump out. It will be full of fuel.
10) The old and new pumps, side by side. I was very surprised at the amount of crap that was trapped in the filter screen at the bottom of the pump. The car only has 60,000 miles on it, and I have always used premium fuel in it.
11) I was also a bit surprised at the discolouration of the pump components. Below you can see the old and new pumps side by side.
12) It is necessary to get access to the opposite side (in this case, the left side) fuel pump, because hoses from each pump travel horizontally across the tank and connect to the other pump.
13) Here you can see a new hose from the right side pump connecting into a T fitting above the left side pump. It is easy to thread this hose across the top of the inside of the tank.
14) As mentioned earlier, there are three possible fittings on the base of each plastic cap, but only two connectors within the fuel tank. Everything is keyed, thus improper assembly is not possible.
Once the new pump has been installed, the hoses connected, and the fuel measuring probe reset into the side of the new pump, re-assembly of everything is quite straightforward. I replaced the rubber ring around the access panel opening on each side of the tank, and I also buffed up the locking rings using a wire brush (to remove corrosion) on each side.
It was not a pleasant job - your hands get covered in fuel, and there are some hazards associated with working on an open fuel tank with vapour escaping, but it is not a particularly difficult job. It is time-consuming, though.
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I've mentioned in earlier posts that my speedometer has been swinging around wildly off and on, and that on two occasions this has been coupled with a momentary engine stumble. This morning on the way to work it was doing it again but this time the engine stumble happened several times as well. I plan to check the speed sensor, but I wonder how this is also causing the engine stumble?
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Okay, so I was looking for a parking spot and my car just shut down. I didn't think much of this at the time because i was rushing to take a class for school. On my way home I was on the freeway going 75mph and it SHUT down again. So what happened was it was in drive and the the motor just stopped running and I costed in the gore zone. So I tried to start it and it wouldn't, I gave a few seconds and removed the key then tried again and it started. when I got closer to my house it happened again and this time through a CEL and the oils pressure and battery light were flashing and on the screen it said "STOP!" I did the same thing and got it to my house. Whats going on????
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I'm still getting the occasional "slam" as I decelerate from freeway speeds as the trans downshifts from 4-3. Service writer says VW is aware of the problem and are working on a TCM reflash.
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I've got an 03 Passat with 110,000mi on the 2.8L 30v and 01V. I've had this intermittent problem for a while. Occasionally while cruising on the freeway, the car would start to buck, feeling like the trans was slipping in and out of gear, but rpms would stay constant as far as I remember. Also, the ASR light would come on and flash. The car would continue bucking until I pulled over and shut the car off. When I restart, all is fine again.
The dealer pulled codes and only found a EVAP canister purge valve code. They fixed that and said that should take care of the aformentioned problem. I didn't think the code was related to my problem and sure enough, it wasn't. My car still does it, but now there seems to be more related to this problem.
I was driving the other day on the freeway again, this time with my cruise control on. Everything seemed fine until the accelerator pedal dropped to the floor and the car began to accelerate on its own. I quickly switched off the cruise and braked to slow the car down to my original speed, and then the car continued bucking as it always had, now with the ASR light fully on. Pulled over again to restart, problem gone again. What gives? Went to have codes read again and nothing is found.
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I have a 99 passat 1.8t AEB. I currently have the APR 91 Octane chip. However, I now have the "new and improved" EO5 turbo, ported polished head, port matched intake and exhaust manifolds, Forge diverter valve, Apr turbo inlet, K&N drop in filter, N75 valve, ECS lightweight crank pulley.
When first getting to full throttle the car seems to sputter b4 it takes off. The other day it registered a misfire briefly on the freeway. I have some Genesis 380cc injectors on the way but there has to be a software upgrade of some kind to run smoother!
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Okay, So this has happened to me about five times now over the past year or so. I will be driving and my car will literally shut off. yesterday, I was driving on the freeway and was just cruising at 75mph when all of a sudden out of no where my car makes a big jolt and then the rpm's go from around 3k to 0. I have had this in the shop for this problem many times and no one can really seem to figure out what is wrong. when my car shuts off while im driving, the oil light comes on, traction control light comes on, as well as the battery light. What's even more weird about this problem is once the car stops, if i try to start it right away it wont fire up... It will just roll over. But. if I wait for a while the car starts and drives normal with all the lights off. This is not only annoying but very dangerous.
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This morning my brakes seized up on me on the freeway. I noticed it when I pressed the brake pedal and I it would barely go down. Then, I could smell the brakes. I pulled over and there was a strong smell from the brakes and I couldn't press the brake peddle down any. I waited a while and let the brakes cool off and then they were fine. I got the rear brakes replaced at the dealership earlier this year.
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