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2016 SportWagen stalling when driving on freeway

5K views 50 replies 14 participants last post by  Dave Weitzenhof 
#1 ·
A few days ago my car (stock 2016 SportWagen with ~18k miles on it) would just stall at 70mph when driving on the highway. First time it happened, the range on the fuel was 25 miles so I figured perhaps it was the low fuel. Engine restarted just fine.

The second time it happened the tank was half full. And then it happened 3 more times on the drive to the service/dealer (VW). They took a look, tested it themselves and reproduced the issue on a test ride ("car rpm was not matching the accelerator and they dropped to zero and the car shut off"). Then they replaced the speed sensor ("Crank Shaft Position Sensor" G28). I paid what $650 for this privilege...

But when I was driving it home after the repair it stalled again! In a relatively scary part of the freeway. The car just slowly rolled to a stop in the middle lane (electronics inside worked out). I managed to bring it back and they said that they are "talking to VW" to figure out what could be wrong, but just wanted to figure out what my options here could be?

The good news is that they are able to consistently reproduce the problem. The bad news is that they still don't know what it is :) (also, it's a couple of weeks out of its powertrain warranty sigh). The very first time I came in, their logs showed that the speed sensor failed so they replaced it but now they are not getting any obvious failures in the logs. So, from what they tell me, they have this complicated back and forth with VW "techline" where the tech line asks them to log some data when bad stuff happens, they analyze and (a day later) suggest things ("try this and see if it works"). Unclear to me what they tried or didn't yet...

Is this a common issue?
 
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#4 ·
Just before: the engine sputters a few times, rpm drops to zero and pushing on the accelerator doesn’t do anything. Radio, lights, etc continue working just fine. To be honest, it’s hard to pay attention to what happens when suddenly you’re surrounded by cars going very fast around you...
 
#6 ·
The powertrain warranty would definitely have covered this. Sorry that yours has just expired, but yeah call VW corporate and tell them what a scary and dangerous issue this is, that should simply not be happening. Hopefully they'll get you some coverage here.

Most unfortunate that the crank position sensor did not fix it, because that would be a prime candidate. My old '04 GTI used to do this sometimes, and a new crank position sensor completely fixed it. But it sounds like an engine sensor issue to me - something is telling the engine to turn off, or losing critical data that it needs to continue running. Other possibilities include a sudden loss of fuel or spark, but those systems are so robust, it's hard to imagine a failure occurring without an ECU code popping up to guide the problem solving.

Good luck.
 
#7 ·
+1 on being surprised it's not the CPS. Sounds quite similar to when that fails. Assuming when the dealer had it they also scanned for codes and didn't just do the test ride?

I'm not entirely sure if these cars have this or not without going to look, so just brainstorming... but I had an A4 that had a bad brake light switch that would result in very similar symptoms. It was a "plunger" switch that would depress when stepping on the brake, causing the brake lights to come on. It began to fail and got sticky so the plunger wouldn't extend back out when the pedal was released... so the car thought the brakes were still applied yet also recognized the throttle input, so it cuts power.
 
#8 ·
+1 on being surprised it's not the CPS. Sounds quite similar to when that fails. Assuming when the dealer had it they also scanned for codes and didn't just do the test ride?
From what I gather they are trying to log codes and any other data before/during/after any stalls. They asked me a few random questions today which maybe hint (to others, not to me..) as to what they are thinking: did this start after I last filled the car with gasoline (nope, just before that)? Have I been using the same gas station (we always use the same 2 stations)?

I don't think it's a coincidence (or if it is, it's amazing): the first and second time the stalling happened, it was on the same stretch of the freeway, where there's a sharp fast bend towards the right.
 
#10 ·
Two questions:
1) Does the engine turn off when this happens? Sounds like you re-started it, but was it actually off?
2) DSG transmission or manual?

We had a 2007 GTI with DSG and on hot days under load (mountain freeway passes, above 80 degrees outside) the car would lose power and throttle response. Very scary in traffic! Especially with a big rig in the rear view mirror. Car never threw a CEL or left any codes, dealer and indy shops never figured out the problem. BUT, we discovered that when it occurred, quickly shifting the DSG into manual mode restored power. We bought the car brand new, and it happened the first summer that we had it, and kept happening for the 11 years that we owned it, until it was totaled by a dump truck while parked on the street, 260,000 miles later...
 
#11 ·
1. Hm, how do you even tell if the engine is on or off if the rpm is zero? The car itself has power when this happens, throttle is simply not doing anything. What would be the appropriate way to restart the engine when it loses power like this? Put into neutral and press the start/stop?
2. DSG transmission. Thanks for the tip re: manual!

Dealer is inclined to believe that the fuel pump is slowly going bad so pending confirmation of VW techline they will be replacing it.
 
#13 ·
My wife's 2015 Golf is presently at the dealer for the exact same thing. Car stalled at a light and never restarted. It cranks fine and fast but won't start. I got errors for stability, tire pressure, and several engine codes that all share the "voltage too low" symptoms. Battery is 3 months old. Had to have the car towed to the dealer.

Looks like a bad relay, ground or bad contact(s) somewhere.

I'll update when I hear back from them.

Dan
 
#15 ·
Hopefully, final update: the dealer believes the crux of the problem was bad fuel that I got at a Chevron station a few weeks ago, days before the first time the stalling happened. After they drained the car completely and put new fuel they weren't able to reproduce the problem anymore. Their suggestion is to avoid that gas station and use 91 octane fuel from now on.

Does this make sense to ppl? I took the car with less than a quarter tank on a 50 mile ride around the freeways here and tried all sorts of things and nothing bad happened... Attaching their notes:




# 2

 
#21 ·
Bad gas can certainly make an engine run poorly. But I am struggling to understand how a uniformly mixed batch of "bad" gas can have your engine running perfectly smooth, and then suddenly stall. Something is either mechanically or electrically shutting your engine down, and poor fuel quality wouldn't do that all of a sudden, randomly.

My concern at this point would be that they did not actually fix the issue, and it could come up again. Good luck.
 
#26 ·
Unless there was a fair amount (more than a pint or so) of water that was in the bad gas that was lying in the bottom of the tank (water tends to separate and lie in the bottom), and was picked up by the pump under specific G-load conditions (the turn where the OP said it happened twice). Back a long time ago when there were a lot of leaky metal gasoline-station tanks, that scenario was fairly common.

In that case, that bad gas would certainly have caused the stalling issues.
 
#24 ·
Don't get me wrong, I think their whole debugging process to be suspicious at best! It's hard for me to believe that the gas is actually at fault here. But it's possible that a combination of their replacing the CPS (which did have a reported problem), them draining out the existing gas (and presumably cleaning something?) and then putting premium gas has fixed the underlying issue (since neither them nor I have been able to reproduce it after ~200 miles). We just don't know what the underlying issue is.

In the meantime, I was quite impressed by the X3 rental that I had while this car was being repaired... ;)
 
#27 ·
i wonder if there was an issue with the evap charcoal system of the tank and it was drawing a bit of a vacuum.

do you top off the tank past the first auto shut off of the fill nozzle?
 
#29 ·
That Chevron that I filled up at, it's attached to a car wash. I did the car wash first, then I filled up (cause discounted gas). Is there some bizarro way in which water/anything else could have gone into the fuel system due to the car wash?!

Wild though!
 
#45 ·
From my experience of trading in, the dealers didn't seem to care about anything you tell them. They just looked at the year and mileage, possible let their mechanic do some checks. If you are worry, take it to the dealer that serviced your car. They are the ones who told you nothing is wrong.
 
#47 ·
dumi - sorry that you're still having this issue. My opinions:

- Even though the tech did hook up a low pressure fuel gauge, your work slip says nothing about the results of it. Did they notice a fuel pressure drop, or not? Even if they had it hooked up during a shut down, they would have to be observing or logging data during that possibly very brief, transient event. It can be very hard to catch. They should probably just replace the fuel pump and fuel filter - use corneringFool's experience as evidence.

- Given the above logic, I don't expect you would have success logging this issue yourself. If you do have VCDS (vag-com) and are proficient using it, by all means pull up the right measuring blocks and let 'er rip... all the time.... :rolleyes:

- You should have no issue with a trade-in, if you stay at the same dealership. They are charging you thousands of dollars to investigate and repair this issue, just barely out of warranty.... they owe you. Either they can find the issue and repair it, or they cant and must say the engine/car is fine. Burden is on them. You still get burned by accepting the standard lowball trade-in value, of course..... sorry. But during the trade-in, I would tell them, or any other dealer, nothing about the car, it's their job to inspect it.
 
#48 ·
An update on this: apparently after a few days of driving around with it, it did stall on them while hooked up to their electronics: "Car needs a fuel pump and module. We are ordering parts, they should be in Monday" said the guy. I guess it's better than suggesting I use premium gas? ;)
 
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