Injector Failures - Possible recall

[1947mike]

2006 VW Passat 2.0 SE TDI 140 AUTO (85K)
On the 20th July 2011 towing a 1500kg caravan, my wife and I left the Channel Tunnel en-route to Germany and the South of France on an extended 6 week holiday. I was taking a route through Belgium, Luxembourg and then into Germany. I arrived on a very busy “Brussels Ring Road” about 10:45am and was travelling at around 60mph when without any pre-warning the engine just cut out leaving me without power steering or power assistance to the brakes. I managed to steer the car and caravan to safety onto the hard shoulder and amazingly managed to stop just short of a busy on-slip which was full of traffic entering the motorway.

Fortunately I had only just moved into the inside lane and was able to take this evasive action without a serous accident occurring. However, only seconds before I had been overtaking a convoy of very slow lorries which were nose to tail for several hundred yards. Had this fault occurred whilst I was overtaking this convoy I would not have had the momentum to get past them and into the inside lane. I would also doubt that the lorry drivers would have understood what was happening or been able to create enough room for me to have got through on to the hard shoulder in the seconds available. This would have left me fully exposed and unable to get to a place of safety without severe risk to life by having to cross a very busy motorway at a peak time.

Just to contextualise the situation - this road handles all the local traffic around Brussels and also significant volumes of traffic from the Chanel Ports, Holland, Germany and much of northern Europe so the road is full of light traffic and HGV’s and very, very busy most of the day. Had we have tried to cross the carriageway to get to the hard shoulder and safety, I’m sure one of us would not be here now and I strongly believe that sooner or later this fault will cause a serious, if not, fatal accident.

This is the email that I sent to VOSA as soon as I returned to the UK to illustrate how dangerous this fault could be. I got the reply below within 24 hours similar to the one posted by James_Tiger_Woo. I then telephoned VW customer services and after a case manager was appointed, she agreed to reimburse the 840 euros I paid in Belgium to a non-VW garage and to replace the three remaining injectors and the wiring loom. I'm also pushing them for the campsite charges we had to pay in Belgium but they agreed to "consider" it. At no time was I asked when the car was last serviced or by whome but it does have a full service history although not 100% VW. I wasn't even asked the mileage.

If anybody else has an injector go PLEASE report it to VOSA as we are very close to getting a recall. VW said that it wasn't considered a safety issue. Well it is certainly with a 1500 kg caravan in tow. I'm sure VW would have repaired it, charged me and said nothing about doing it free of charge if I hadn't complained or reported it to VOSA.

eMail from VOSA

VW PASSAT - FUEL INJECTOR FAILURE

Thank you for notifying Vehicle & Operator Services Agency (VOSA) of the problems experienced with your vehicle. I can confirm the investigation into this fault is now completed.

Following detailed negotiations between VOSA and the vehicle manufacturer, it has been agreed VW-Audi Group will:

1. <LI value=1>Contact you personally to arrange for all your vehicle’s remaining injectors to be replaced and ensure you are 100% satisfied.
2. Reimburse customers who have paid for new injectors even if the work was completed outside of their authorised network.

If you have any concerns or questions about this matter, you should contact the Customer Service Centre. If necessary, they will arrange to have your vehicle inspected at an authorised repairer free of charge. The contact telephone number is 0800 0833914 and the best person to ask for is either Jenny Boyd or Lorraine Brown.

VOSA will continue to work closely with the VW-Audi Group to ensure that this issue is concluded as swiftly as possible.

Thank you for taking the time to bring this matter to our attention.

Please do not hesitate to contact me on the above telephone number if there are any further points you wish to discuss.

Yours sincerely



John Fitch
Automotive Engineer (Defects Investigations)


Vehicle Safety Branch
VOSA
Berkeley House
Bristol
BS50DA
Tel : 0117 954 2526
e-mail John.Fitch@vosa.gsi.gov.uk

After receiving the above from VOSA I sent this:-

Mr Parry, Thank you for the good news and for the work your department have obviously done to get VAG to swallow the costs of this repair. You didn't however say whether there was going to be a re-call because someone is going to get seriously injured or killed because of this fault, if they haven't already.

I'm not sure if you have read my full account of the incident in a separate email I sent yesterday. This illustrates better what the situation was at the time of the incident and the opportunity there was for things to turn out completely differently. This is obviously a serious design fault where the ECU completely shuts down the engine without any pre-warning and I would have thought a good enough reason for VAG to issue a re-call of all affected vehicles.

and got the following reply:-

Thank you for your e-mail.
　
　
The VW Group are working hard to resolve this problem. The fuel injection system on these vehicles is no longer used on current production vehicles.
this is not due to the injectors but a complete change of the design for the fuel system to meet more stringent European emissions regulations.
They are now having to up the production on the modified injectors to be able to meet the demand. They are now changing all four injectors and harnesses for anyone who has concerns. They are currently 　in the process of preparing a more customer friendly solution, 　and therefore are 　trying 　to build sufficient parts stock.
I hope that this goes some way to answer your questions
Regards
　
John Fitch
Vehicle Safety Branch
VOSA
Berkeley House
Bristol
BS50DA
Tel : 0117 954 2526
Fax : 0117 954 3328
Mobile 07803020909

[DSG4ME]

I suspect they will be reconditioning the old injectors as they arrive back and then sending them back out to create a chain of operation, iirc the real issue is a seal in the unit that allows fuel to seep by then I would assume VW will have to re-rubber each unit, clean the nozzle and test it before returning it out again, so just hope you don't get someones 140k units sent back for fitting to your car.

[PatMcCoy]

Read my earlier post
Vosa said all new not recondition

[Stuart W2]

They are currently in the process of preparing a more customer friendly solution, and therefore are trying to build sufficient parts stock.
　
John Fitch
Vehicle Safety Branch
VOSA

In other words if you're not in the loop - for example, reading this forum - then you'll be driving around in your Passat blisfully unaware that there's a potential problem.

By "preparing a more customer-friendly solution" Mr Fitch at VOSA probably means that there'll be something more pro-active in terms of VW contacting all affected cars or even a formal recall, at least once the supply problem has been rectified.

[Stuart W2]

All injectors and loom replaced at a cost of £2121! all detailed on the receipt I received.

odd When i rang up earlier in the year was quoted when i had a injector go 1170+ vat plus 180+vat for a loom

There's probably a lot of labour involved in replacing a single injector which won't be repeated if replacing all four at once.

Thus the cost of replacing all four won't simply be four times the cost of replacing one.

[1947mike]

One thing that did come as a supprise was that the address that I was given to return the invoices to for payment, and where I think Lorraine Brown is based, I don't think is Volkeswagen. It is an outsourcing company called VENTURA (the postcode is S97 3ZU, check it out on Google Maps street view). Makes you wonder if VW are taking this problem very seriously at all if they are pushing the management of it to a third party.

[jimgironde]

got my promised call from VW customer services this morning asking me to go into dealers for FOC check and if the injectors are from the batch they will replace all four.

Went into dealer and it is booked in for tomorrow PM for the check. As it is a 57 plate with BKP engine it falls into the category.

HOWEVER, my dealer tells me that even if they are within the batch they will not be replaced unless they also have a unique marking along the side.

Has anybody come across this criteria?

As the car is 4 years old next week I will also have the cambelt, water pump done at the same time.

[Quatrelle]

I think another call to VW customer services would be a good idea.

[jimgironde]

Quatrelle

VW customer services are going to ring me after the dealer does the check to see if I am happy.
If it is from the batch but the dealer says it doesn't have the markings then I will obviously discuss with VW when I get the call. VW are being very proactive once you are in the system and it cannot be long before a recall is announced.
Presumably if there is a recall then VW France will have to look for you, although I guess they are not bound by VW UK. One would think that VOSA would have something to say on that?

[daveo138]

Wasn't this issue being raised with BBC Watchdog, I seem to recall?

Surely they would show a bit more interest in it now that VW are admitting that there is a problem.