VW 2.0 l engine - sudden stoppages, intermittent. Source of problem?

Hello all,

Background - wife's 94 Jetta w/ @ 70k miles is in ok shape. She's had
two recent events where the car will be motoring along, not under a
great deal of stress, but steady speed, when *pow* the engine stutters
and dies.

She had the timing belt break in another car once, and she says this is
similar -- a sudden interruption of power, no warning, no nuthin'...

No unusual engine codes (at least for the first time), and the car
usually starts up again afterwards. Yesterday she re-started it and
made it to a shop to get it looked at. A different shop checked after
the first time but was unable to find anything (could not recreate it).

BTW, it's a 2.slow engine. One tech suggested either the MAF or some
sort of coil...but he could not replicate the problem enough to try to
fix it. Thoughts?

Any thoughts / suggestions on how to fix this? The shop says "drive it
around 'til it conks out more often, then we'll take a look"....

TIA...

Hi,
A thought. We had a similar sounding problem with our '85 Golf.
Driving along, the engine would suddenly quit. The dealership replaced
all the injectors, fuel lines, both fuel pumps, and did a full tune-up.
$$$. But the problem persisted.

Usually the engine would quit after driving for 15-20 minutes. After
sitting a few minutes, the engine would start again and the car would
drive normally for days. The fear was getting rear eneded because there
was no warning when the car would suddenly stop.

Turns out the culprit was the fuel pump relay. No guarantee it's the
same problem on your car, but worth a try and relatively inexpensive to
test compared to letting a shop swap out fuel injection parts in a
trial and error diagonsis.

The fuel pump relay is a little black box about 5 cm long plugged
into your fuse box. If you don't have a Bently manual, try the
following. Find the fuel pump relay by putting your hand on a relay and
turn on the ignition to the run position (not start). The fuel pump
will run for a second or two to pressurize the fuel lines. You'll hear
a buzzing sound from the back of the car. Then the relay kicks out and
the buzzing stops. You'll feel a click when the relay kicks in and cuts
out. Find the fuel pump relay by trial and error. When you think
you've found it, remove it and turn the key to run position again. If
you don't hear the fuel pump running, you've found it.

If you can get another fuel pump relay (buy new or test using one
from a wrecking yard), plug it in and see if the problem disappears.

In my case, to confirm it was the fuel pump relay, I took the cover
off the relay and noted how the relay contact was positioned (closed)
when the engine was running. I drove around until the engine quit. I
noticed that the relay contact was open (ignition was still in the run
position) so that cinched it. The original relay was 15 years old at
that time. When the faulty relay opened, the fuel pump stopped and the
engine starved of fuel.

After replacing the fuel pump relay in 2000, the '85 has been running
fine since.

Good luck.
-Tony

Ignition switch is a possibility.
Ignition coil is another possibility. I only like the ones from the VW
dealer too.
Usually they fail in wet weather, but I have seen them bone dry and fail
too.

I have heard that the Engine Speed Sensor is something that goes out but I
have seen one yet bad on a 2.0 engine.

good luck and wait until it goes out more often. :-(
Too many things could cause this problem.

later,
dave
(One out of many daves)

"JWVariant" > wrote in message
ups.com...
> Hello all,
>
> Background - wife's 94 Jetta w/ @ 70k miles is in ok shape. She's had
> two recent events where the car will be motoring along, not under a
> great deal of stress, but steady speed, when *pow* the engine stutters
> and dies.
>
> She had the timing belt break in another car once, and she says this is
> similar -- a sudden interruption of power, no warning, no nuthin'...
>
> No unusual engine codes (at least for the first time), and the car
> usually starts up again afterwards. Yesterday she re-started it and
> made it to a shop to get it looked at. A different shop checked after
> the first time but was unable to find anything (could not recreate it).
>
> BTW, it's a 2.slow engine. One tech suggested either the MAF or some
> sort of coil...but he could not replicate the problem enough to try to
> fix it. Thoughts?
>
> Any thoughts / suggestions on how to fix this? The shop says "drive it
> around 'til it conks out more often, then we'll take a look"....
>
> TIA...
>