99 Manual Petrol Sharan Cutting out problem.

[nicola-bond]

Hiya all.

We hope someone can help as we are now at our wits end and £350 lighter after garage bills with the problem still present.

The car has been cutting out intermittently while driving now for a few weeks. Seems to only happen when the engine has warmed up after driving for a few minutes. The car has had a full service with filters and vaccum pipes changes (no change in problem). Was then taken to our local VW dealer by Green Flag after breaking down again. VW diagnosed a G28 fault - Engine speed sensor. The sensor has been replaced today. We drove away from the garage and almost got home before the car started cutting out again.

When the car starts playing up it is running fine then the revs drop to zero. Sometimes they come back up a couple of times and the car splutters and sometimes the car cuts out completely and wont start. Leave for anything between 5 mins and 30 mins and the car starts again. It only seems to happen once the engine is warming or has warmed up.

When we got home we pulled down the fuse and relay panels, started the engine and waited. After a few minutes the above happened and we could hear a clicking from the area of the relay panels before the car cut out again.

We are thinking relays here but are unsure what numbers are what.
What does anyone else think and can anyone make any suggestions. We are totally stumped and its costing us a fortune. We rely on the car to get both of us to and from work as I work out of town and the wife works night shifts. We have now been without the car for a week and we are really struggling now.

Thanks in advance.

Chris and Nicola

[kenney]

What is the engine code?

[nicola-bond]

Thanks for replying....

ADY - i think (and hope) thats what you mean by the engine code.

its a 99 petrol 2.0 engine.

[kenney]

You have the voltage supply relay for the engine control unit positoned in the lower relay carrier position 27 (marked 30)( right top corner).You have also the fuel pump relay on the same carrier in position 24 just below 27 (marked 410),my money would be on the 30 relay

[nicola-bond]

Thanks so much. We did a bit of research before it went to the dealer and had already asked them to check out the relays; but when they did the diagnostic it came up with the g28 fault code. So they automatically just said the engine speed sensor.

We had already been told about relay 30. (current supply relay?)
We were also advised by someone else to replace the fuel pump relay and ex relief relay? I sent for the fuel pump relay before the diagnostic was done and have just received it from euro parts. Its marked 167. Will this be the correct relay as we cant see it in the carrier? I did give my car reg when we ordered it.

So from this i need to replace relay 30 (i think this is a dealer only part). Should I also replace the fuel pump relay and ex relief, or are they unlikely to be part of the problem.??

The relays I can see in the carriers are 30, 410, 100, 147 & 404.

Thanks for your help - we really appreciate it.

[kenney]

Replacing the G28 is justified if a fault was logged,just hope they used a genuine VAG replacement part.Might be an idea to have a new fault code read,as sometimes the wiring to the sensor can be damaged .How ever 165906381 is the part number for the voltage supply relay (30). 410 is the fuel pump relay, i think i have seen them marked with 167.Do you need a pic of the relay carrier?The x relief relay you can forget about

[nicola-bond]

Yes please if you dont mind. the diagram would be very handy. I will PM you my email address if you want.

I'm going to try to get hold of 30 tomorrow somehow. And i will check out the issue with the 410 or 167 relays with the dealer I think just to be on the safe side.

We will get another fault code reading done but I think we will try these relays first and take it from there. If the relays dont work then we will look into the wiring.

How will I find out if it was a genuine VAG part that was used?? Will that make a difference??

Thanks again.

[nicola-bond]

:confused:You have got us worrying about what type of part they used now....:confused:

[kenney]

Most of the after market electronic spare parts (pirate parts) are crap and cause more problems than you start of with.What makes it more complicated is although it can be faulty G28 doesn't always register a fault code. If the part was replaced in a VAG workshop then it will be a genuine VAG part.

[nicola-bond]

hi kenney, we changed the 30 relay but problem still exists but the relay that has 410 on it was clicking like mad as the car cut out again, when we took the relay out its not the same as the fuel pump relay that we got , we have ordered the relay from the vw dealer so hopefully when it comes tomorrow and we put it on it should stop the problem fingers crossed. once again thanks for your help on the subject.:beerchug:

[nicola-bond]

This may or may not be a daft question for someone but can anyone answer this.

The VW dealers has said that if it isnt the 410 relay then it might be a broken wire somewhere - either from the relays or from the engine speed sensor. But they cant get it booked in there until at least the end of the week and we are now desparate......we have been without the car since last Wednesday and are now really struggling. We thought relay 30 might have been the problem until we actually got at 410 when the cutting out happened.

The relay 410 is clicking away like billio when the car starts to splutter and cut out; but the car only cuts out after a couple of miles when the engine has warmed up and only starts again after between 5 and 20 minutes when everything has cooled down. Try to drive the car again and as the temp rises the problem happens again within a couple of minutes. The car is fine from cold until after a few miles.

If it was a broken wire somewhere wouldnt the problem be slightly less predictable and happen more eratically??

Has anyone else had a problem with relay 410 and what problems did it cause??

[nicola-bond]

UPDATE: - We fitted a brand new relay 410 this morning and took the car for a test drive.

We are now another £56 lighter and It has not cured the problem. The car cut out again after a few miles (a circuit and a half around our estate) once the engine had warmed up to normal temperature.

We are now completely at a loss so we are now waiting for recovery to recover the vehicle to an auto electrician as relay 410 is still clicking away when the car starts to play up and cut out.

[nicola-bond]

:1zhelp:

My husband has just noticed when the car was going onto the recovery vehicle that the Drivers side Rear light unit (flasher unit) is full of condensation!!!!

We have only recently fitted a new light unit because of the same problem. We were told at the time that water had come in through a bulb seal and not to worry about it - but it appears to have happened again!!!!!

Does anyone know if this would this cause a problem????
The Auto electrician doesnt seem to think so but I seem to remember someone mentioning something about this at the garage with a safety cut out with the brakes or something (I could be wrong).

The electrical guy now seems to think we have a bad earth somewhere?? I dont want him to rule out this light problem and spend hours looking elsewhere if there is a possibility it could be causing the fault.

All i know is that I cant keep on paying bills out like this!!!

[kenney]

I very much doubt the light is the reason for the engine stopping.The fuel pump relay receives information from the engine control unit,which in turn receives information from the engine speed sensor G28,so i think you should now get a new fault code read to see if the sensor or wiring is still at fault.One other possibility is the ignition switch which you can bypass to see if the fault goes away

[nicola-bond]

Thanks for the reply.

The auto electical place we have taken it to is a reputable business in the area so i'm just going to have to hope they can trace the problem. It certainly isnt straight forward. Think they were going to do another diagnostic this afternoon and we have to phone in the morning so fingers crossed.

Thanks again for all of your help and we will let you know how we get on.

[matthewgdavies]

SEAT replaced both rear (tailgate) light units on my 2004 Alhambra as they were filling with water and causing all sorts of weird electrical problems - the coloured lenses were not glued to the unit properly - your electrician can check and eliminate this as a possible cause in a few minutes I'm sure

[nicola-bond]

Today's update.


We are still no further forward. The garage thought the problem was the fuel pump and / or sender. But this they have found is not the problem. They have said it is a couple of things it could be but they sound as clueless as us. And i'm too upset to even think about it now. We cant afford to buy another car at the moment so we have to find this problem.

Mentioned your problem with the Seat Alhambra to them this afternoon and the fact that we have already had to replace this light unit once and the problems have happened since just before we discovered and replaced the last light unit. They wont even entertain that it could be causing the problem - dont think they have or will be checking that one out although i am not so sure as I have said before. Not too happy about this as I have heard of a similar problem to this with the water in the lights before from someone who worked for VW - only he asked if it happened when i pressed the brakes and it doesnt. Although come to think of it on some occasions it has happened fairly soon after braking and slowing down in traffic etc - but not always.

I'm totally at a loss and although I'm not doubting the Auto elec garage I think they maybe should at least check out what we are saying...Especially after you have told me this about the Seat..

[kenney]

I tend to agree with the garage, the wiring for the lights has nothing to do with the engine management.Did they have a new fault code read?

[matthewgdavies]

Quite agree that it's highly unlikely to be the cause, I also believe it's highly unlikely I will win the lottery but it (sadly) doesn't stop me trying - the point I was trying to make is that water = corrosion = bad earths and short circuits and general gremlins and for the sake of five minutes to pull the connectors off the lights it might (and I do mean only might) save a fortune replacing components at random. As Kenney says though a new fault readout is the key

[nicola-bond]

Thanks you guys for your help and advice. WE NOW HAVE THE CAUSE!!!

Guess What???

The sensor fitted on Monday is faulty!!!! Hence why the problem has not been rectified. Diagnostic didnt actually throw up a fault this time but they have somehow tested it out and the part isnt putting out any signal (think that is what they said).

The garage who fitted the part and got it for us have said that they will refund the cost of the part to us if we take it back down - and it wasnt a genuine VAG we have discovered. So they damn well should - but i'm furious that I have now ended up with another garage bill for something which is not my fault.

I have looked into this and it looks like if we persue it we do have a case against the garage who in turn have a case against their supplier under the sale of goods act. to be compensated for being supplied with goods that were defective. This is something I may look into as not only have i now to get a new VAG part - I have ended up with a second garage auto electricians bill for a problem which should have been solved on monday!!

Again - thanks for all of your help and at least we now have a cause.

[kenney]

It's a bit late in the day, but you should have taken the vehicle back to the garage that had fitted the sensor,at least then you would not have had the bill from the second garage.I don't know how many times i have experianced similar circumstances,well at least you got it sorted out;)

[nicola-bond]

We tried to. We phoned them back up and said about the relay clicking. They said that they didnt deal with electrical problemsand we would have to take it to an auto electrician.

[marmite123]

Hi Sorry to cut in on your problem.

I am a new user to the site and will like to say Hi to all and a big thank you to the administrators for taking time in setting up this useful resource.

I have an 04 petrol auto sharan and this is doing the same as yours. With the same clicking from under ths dash after its stalled. A few minutes and its fine again. I also get a swishing type sound (like the windscreen wipers but more like a pump.

I wandered how you got on with changing the relay.


Thanks in advance to all.

Harvey

[Dan Stobbart]

Many thanks to Nicola for starting this post.
Ours is a 97 2.0 petrol Sharan ADY engine.. it started as a tiny engine 'blip' or hiccup on the motorway always about 15 mins from home which made me suspect something changing as engine heated up. (plugs / coil / HT leads and distributor head all changed a few months earlier so probably not the problem) Blip slowly got bigger and we could see rev counter jerking , after a year of this the rev counter was dropping for an instant to zero and it felt like complete ignition failure for a microsecond then engine was normal again. Then this started happening repeatedly for 3 mins or so, usually at high speed but also off the motorway, car was jerking with total loss of power for an instant then normal running again , it seemed completely random except that it only happened as engine was warming up and it tended to happen at one point during each journey and then not recur during that journey. In all this time not a single diagnostic code came up... many happy hours on Google found no answer. Only after reading this thread did I change the crank angle / engine speed / G28 sensor. When taking the old one off (it's just under the distributor) I found that the outer plastic cable protection had COMPLETELY corroded and disappeared in several places and the plastic on the inner 3 wires had also disappeared leaving bare wires which I guess were short circuiting to produce the problems. (a torch and an extended allen key and double jointed wrists and elbows are all you need to change it)
New sensor on the internet for just £12.99 (£87 at dealer / £47 at motor factors). I stuck it on and all was fine for 15 mins and then I had total engine cut out when going round the M25. This time the diagnostic code '00513 = G28 sensor' came up. I then broke my piggy bank and replaced it with one for £47 from the factors and everything has been fine since.
Lessons ..1. Don't buy cheap bits on the internet. 2. When installing new sensor I routed the wire 'outside' of the distributor... the factory had put the wire so that it was squeezed in behind the distributor touching the engine block and I guess that the high temperatures may have speeded the disintegration of the plastic cable coverings ?
Hope this helps someone with similar problems.