nola mike
Vice Admiral
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2009
- Messages
- 5,362
TL;DR: Car dealerships suck, and this is why I do my own work
Background: Wife's 2017 VW Golf sportwagen starts stumbling. She pulls into the garage and notices gas pouring from the rear of the car. Takes a video. I come home, yup, gas. Car is idling, then stalls and takes a bit to restart, and eventually runs at 2k rpm before running normally.
No codes.
Next day I restart to look for the leak. Don't see anything. Hmm.
There's a recall on the car from february that I knew about, but is listed as "no fix available".
Suction jet pump in the evap system has a bad check valve which if it fails causes fuel to get sucked into the charcoal canister and overflow it. Known problem on earlier gen cars as well.
10 days before dealer can look at the car, and we haven't been driving it.
Drop it off yesterday, tech calls today and tells us that there isn't a leak, and that it was probably water draining from the sunroof.
me: "My 11 year old knew it was gas. My wife smelled gas in the garage, and that's why she checked it out. I saw it was gas. It wasn't raining and we were in a garage. Where was the water coming from, and which of us can't tell the difference between gas and water?"
"Well, we looked everywhere and couldn't see evidence of a prior leak"
M: "Hasn't been driven in 10 days...what does evaporated gas look like?"
He was being super condescending, which pis*ed me off. I asked him if he made sure that the evap system had cycled, since that would be when it leaked. Won't happen on a cold car driving around the block. "When does it happen?". Either when you cycle it with your software, or when VW's ECU decides it should happen.
He says they'll take it for an extended drive. OK. So is it more likely that a known safety issue/recall that causes identical symptoms is the issue, or that I don't know leaking gas when I see it?
Sorry about the rant. I guess my next step is to call VWoA and talk to them. And then send letters to the dealer, VWoA and NHTSA reiterating my concern that gas is leaking, and that my safety concerns were being blown off, and that it would be a damn shame if something were to happen after they've been alerted of this problem and did nothing to remedy it.
Background: Wife's 2017 VW Golf sportwagen starts stumbling. She pulls into the garage and notices gas pouring from the rear of the car. Takes a video. I come home, yup, gas. Car is idling, then stalls and takes a bit to restart, and eventually runs at 2k rpm before running normally.
No codes.
Next day I restart to look for the leak. Don't see anything. Hmm.
There's a recall on the car from february that I knew about, but is listed as "no fix available".
Suction jet pump in the evap system has a bad check valve which if it fails causes fuel to get sucked into the charcoal canister and overflow it. Known problem on earlier gen cars as well.
10 days before dealer can look at the car, and we haven't been driving it.
Drop it off yesterday, tech calls today and tells us that there isn't a leak, and that it was probably water draining from the sunroof.
me: "My 11 year old knew it was gas. My wife smelled gas in the garage, and that's why she checked it out. I saw it was gas. It wasn't raining and we were in a garage. Where was the water coming from, and which of us can't tell the difference between gas and water?"
"Well, we looked everywhere and couldn't see evidence of a prior leak"
M: "Hasn't been driven in 10 days...what does evaporated gas look like?"
He was being super condescending, which pis*ed me off. I asked him if he made sure that the evap system had cycled, since that would be when it leaked. Won't happen on a cold car driving around the block. "When does it happen?". Either when you cycle it with your software, or when VW's ECU decides it should happen.
He says they'll take it for an extended drive. OK. So is it more likely that a known safety issue/recall that causes identical symptoms is the issue, or that I don't know leaking gas when I see it?
Sorry about the rant. I guess my next step is to call VWoA and talk to them. And then send letters to the dealer, VWoA and NHTSA reiterating my concern that gas is leaking, and that my safety concerns were being blown off, and that it would be a damn shame if something were to happen after they've been alerted of this problem and did nothing to remedy it.
