[rye'n]

Hi everyone.

I bought my 2000 Jetta in 2004 (88,000 km) and has been a bit of a love/hate relationship. I love the fuel economy in the summer but winter driving, carbon build up, and limp mode, have been very frustrating. Car is at 173,000 km now.

Lately I've been getting a cel during heavy acceleration (driving up a hill or reaching highway speed). The car does not go into limp mode and the cel will go out after a few driving cycles.

In 2006 (127,000 km) the engine had really poor acceleration, so I had the intake manifold, and egr de-carboned. Current low end acceleration isn't great, but I'm guessing cel problem might be stuck turbo vanes when the car tries to reach higher rpms.

A code reader would be a big help, but where should I start troubleshooting?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[chittychittybangbang]

By getting the codes. It's much easier to have an idea where to start than just throwing time and money at the problem guessing. Take a look a the low power checklist but first, see what the CEL is trying to tell you.

 

[rye'n]

problem fixed!

First of all, thank you chittychittybangbang and myturbodiesel.com for all the information on this site!

Started a job with highway commuting this year, and almost every time I accelerated up to 100kmh the cel would light up, and the car would go into limp mode. I'm bad for procrastination, (I originally posted about this in July!) but the daily frustration of this problem finally moved me into action.

Found some one with a code reader on kijiji and got the cel code:
17964 - Charge Pressure Control
P1556 - 35-10 - Negative Deviation - Intermittent

Searches on google pointed to boost issues, so I went to check the vnt actuator, still thinking I had stuck turbo vanes. Didn't have a vacuum pump, so I tried moving the rod by hand and found that the actuator had rusted, and the can was split right apart!

Bought a new actuator and when I installed it, I also cleaned the turbo with easy off. Had a frustrating time getting the old actuator out, but when I got everything back together and went for a test drive my effort was well rewarded.

I'm happy to report that the the car has good boost, and pulls nicely through all the gears. My jetta hasn't run this well in years, and has got me thinking about getting a chip and injectors.