Not starting

[BristolAl]

In the middle of a great holiday to Helford last week the California died.

Out for a walk, back to the camper, started, then stalled and never started again. We called out roadside assistance, who couldn’t get it started. The garage; Four Winn’s from Redruth plugged it into their diagnostic at the roadside, the only fault was the manifold sensor. They unplugged it, started with a bit of easy start, action! When the manifold sensor was replaced, died again and never started again.

It was recovered back to Heritage in Bristol, our local home dealer. The service through GreenFlag by our bank was brilliant, we were also provided with a vehicle to get home.

Now the real problems. After 3 hours of diagnosis at £75 an hour; Heritage have provided all the information to VW technical, as they locally can’t diagnose the issue. VW have come back tonight and said (got this second hand from the wife) that the second fuel pump, the one in the engine needs replacing at a cost of £2,000, but they can’t guarantee this’ll fix the issue.

I’m at a bit of a loss, not being at all technical, has anyone had any similar issues?

mods - not sure if this is in the right place?

 

[VW Guru]

Hi @BristolAl it would not be the first time I have seen the high pressure fuel pump fail it’s normally down to either contaminated diesel or a miss fuel at some point. That said it can also be caused by the in tank pump or the pressurization pump in the engine bay failing putting more strain on the high pressure pump and causing it to fail. The problem is if the high pressure pump fails it will contaminate the injectors high pressure/ low pressure lines and the fuel rail with swarf requiring a whole new fuel system at around the £5000 mark.

What does concern me is that the only fault is for the manifold pressure sensor do you know exactly what the fault code said I.e implausible signal or range performance something like that ?

 

[BristolAl]

Thanks @VWGuru for the reply.

They have quoted for the job formally today and its coming out at £2k inc the diagnostics, parts and dread VAT, don't have much choice apart from authorise the work and cross my fingers!

Will update soon.