Warm or cold engine. light throttle use similar to in town and highway driving conditions any gear (in manual transmission) around 10-40 mph steady speed and when transitioning from acceleration to coast to acceleration, and occasionally under hard acceleration car seems to "hiccup" or lose power and go through a throttle cut and follow on "confused" state (pulsing on and off the throttle) requiring the operator to let off the throttle until it stops being "confused". could cause accident due to inability to accelerate if needed or unexpected "hiccup" causing someone who is being tailgated to be rear ended. through checking publicly available forums i have found several complaints from users with responses indicating owners of this model tdi motor may be experiencing these same symptoms and when taken to vw (according to online forums) can take anywhere from 1 day to 1 month for them to come back with "we don't know what it is". software fixes when done do not seem to fix the issue completely (acording to forums) nor does "purging" soot by doing high rpm (above 4000rpm) appear to fix the issue permanently with the issue coming back afterwards. through commuting in my vehicle ~1500 miles per month i experience the pulsing every day at all speeds from 10-40 mph with low/steady throttle input when maintaining a steady speed. i also experienced the "confused" symptom today after an emergency stop at highway speeds necessitating a hard acceleration afterwards which i could not complete due to the engine cutting and acting "confused" around 3000 rpms in 3rd gear. symptoms do not appear to incapacitate or immobilize the car and appear to be more of an "annoyance" but could effect safety and long term reliability with the constant loading and unloading motion of parts in the drive line. no indicator or alarm lights lit. google tdi hiccup and 2013 tdi hiccup for forums
My wife and her mother were out shopping in san diego. they suddenly experienced engine malfunction and subsequent stall of our 2013 jetta tdi sportwagon. this resulted in our vehicle blocking a two lane busy boulevard. this street is a no stopping anytime roadway clearly marked with signs. my wife christine, pulled to the far right of the shoulder as possible. this was a frightening and dangerous experience for my wife and mother in law. the vw was totally dead and required towing to a vw dealer repair facility. the service rep at vw diagnosed the issue immediately when the details of the malfunction were explained. apparently, this issue has been known and thoroughly investigated. i am shocked to find out the problem is extensive with the tdi engines from volkswagen. how could i have not been notified of this potential dangerous situation?
While driving the vehicle was low on power and the glow plug light was flashing. this was the second time that this exact thing happened. the first time i turned the car off and let it set for a few minutes and it restarted and ran fine. we were on the highway and had to make our way through traffic to the side of the road, luckily it was not busy. on july 31 the same thing happened but this time the car was stopped in the middle of an intersection coming off of the highway. this time the car would not restart and the check engine light along with the glow plug light were on. once we had the vehicle towed to the dealership they proceeded to inform me that the high pressure fuel pump had failed and the entire fuel system minus the tank had to be replaced due to metal shavings being in the fuel system. the only good thing about this issue was that none of my children were in the car when this happened as the car stopped in the middle of an intersection.