Fault causing loss of drive!

[daveinbracknell]

Hi All,

Some help is appreciated.

My T5 California broke down. Driving normally exiting a dual carriage way and on the roundabout I lost drive.

Lots of warning lights in addition to those I managed to photo once I came to a stop.

I turned the ignition off, was able to restart and get drive for about 300m until drive went again. Soon, it would see the break peddle and I couldn't restart.

The AA found a massive list of faults. The mechanic spent 20 years at VW and said that the faults were false positives and likely an issue on the canbus.

After being recovered on a truck back home, my ex VW master technician has had a look. By now no faults showing after a reset. Nothing obvious, no visible damaged cables or sensors. No obvious rodent damage.

I have know driven for a test drive 40miles. No issues.

Any ideas? I'm about to head out on a 1000mile road trip, so a bit concerned.

Many thanks

Dave

 

[secret lemonade drinker]

DSG gearbox oil level/ change?

 

[daveinbracknell]

DSG gearbox oil level/ change?

The DSG gearbox was serviced a year ago. But on a couple of occasions I have noticed that a gear change is not smooth.

Any info on how to check the oil level?

 

[ThomasHJ]

Hi All,

Some help is appreciated.

My T5 California broke down. Driving normally exiting a dual carriage way and on the roundabout I lost drive.

Lots of warning lights in addition to those I managed to photo once I came to a stop.

I turned the ignition off, was able to restart and get drive for about 300m until drive went again. Soon, it would see the break peddle and I couldn't restart.

The AA found a massive list of faults. The mechanic spent 20 years at VW and said that the faults were false positives and likely an issue on the canbus.

After being recovered on a truck back home, my ex VW master technician has had a look. By now no faults showing after a reset. Nothing obvious, no visible damaged cables or sensors. No obvious rodent damage.

I have know driven for a test drive 40miles. No issues.

Any ideas? I'm about to head out on a 1000mile road trip, so a bit concerned.

Many thanks

Dave

Hi Dave,

We recently experienced powerloss in our T5 and the coil sign (like in your photo) lit up. For a while I could not drive faster then around 100 km/h. It turned out to be the dreaded EGR-valve. It was replaced soon after and we have not had any problems since. You could consider letting someone check if this is the problem you are experiencing.

 

[KevH]

By ‘lost drive’ do you mean reduced power, as @ThomasHJ describes, or did the engine stall and fail to restart?

 

[daveinbracknell]

Hi Dave,

We recently experienced powerloss in our T5 and the coil sign (like in your photo) lit up. For a while I could not drive faster then around 100 km/h. It turned out to be the dreaded EGR-valve. It was replaced soon after and we have not had any problems since. You could consider letting someone check if this is the problem you are experiencing.

Hi,

My problem was different. I was in D (drive) but no gears. Effectively in neutral whilst actually in drive. The engine would rev ok. There were other messages too that I did not manage to photo. I've added two more photos listing a whole load of faults that have gone and not reoccurred.

 

[Jude]

Hi All,

Some help is appreciated.

My T5 California broke down. Driving normally exiting a dual carriage way and on the roundabout I lost drive.

Lots of warning lights in addition to those I managed to photo once I came to a stop.

I turned the ignition off, was able to restart and get drive for about 300m until drive went again. Soon, it would see the break peddle and I couldn't restart.

The AA found a massive list of faults. The mechanic spent 20 years at VW and said that the faults were false positives and likely an issue on the canbus.

After being recovered on a truck back home, my ex VW master technician has had a look. By now no faults showing after a reset. Nothing obvious, no visible damaged cables or sensors. No obvious rodent damage.

I have know driven for a test drive 40miles. No issues.

Any ideas? I'm about to head out on a 1000mile road trip, so a bit concerned.

Many thanks

Dave

View attachment 135889

Hi, are you recounting my journey? Exact same thing happened to me on a triple lane highway into Tanger, Morocco, in heavy traffic. My Grand California Crafter got taken away by pickup, nothing working with even the wheels locked so that had to place trolleys under the front wheels to haul it up onto the pickup. VW tested everything, no problems and it even started! I had left it without even being able to lock the doors so the contents were vulnerable to theft. VW put in a new AGM engine battery, recalibrated both keys and did a service. That is all. I have driven almost 1000kms since then and no problems.

 

[daveinbracknell]

Hi, are you recounting my journey? Exact same thing happened to me on a triple lane highway into Tanger, Morocco, in heavy traffic. My Grand California Crafter got taken away by pickup, nothing working with even the wheels locked so that had to place trolleys under the front wheels to haul it up onto the pickup. VW tested everything, no problems and it even started! I had left it without even being able to lock the doors so the contents were vulnerable to theft. VW put in a new AGM engine battery, recalibrated both keys and did a service. That is all. I have driven almost 1000kms since then and no problems.

Thanks for the information. I've now had a second VW master mechanic look at the camper. Still nothing found. I got him to change the gearbox oil to ensure that the level was correct. I'll change the battery next. I've since driven 400 miles and no repeat. He did say that should it happen again, check the fault codes using my own OBDII, but then disconnect the battery and earth wire so that whatever module is at fault is reset, then reconnect and try again. Basically until a module develops a permanent fault there's not a lot to be done. Since then I've heard of an Audi Q7 and Skoda Superb (all VAG Group), both doing weird stuff. Both reset, both haven't had the issue return. I'll feedback anything new that is a solution if one arises.

 

[gatvol]

Corroded battery terminals/ bad earth connection on the battery terminal ? Worth a look as it can cause all manner of random havoc in the electronic systems.

 

[Perfectos]

Could possibly be corrosion to one of the PCBs, dry joint or corroded wiring, bad earth etc.

The chances of you establishing the intermittent nature of such a fault are minimal.

You could try to establish which faults are direct attributable to which particular Controller: Can Bus, BCM, ECU , etc, that would possibly indicate where to start to look for the fault.

A regular scan of faults may show up a trend developing