2004 New Beetle shuts off while driving!

sedonasam
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:28:52 +0000
Buying/Selling

My 2004 2.0L beetle has started shutting off when I drive it down to Phoenix. By way of detailed information, I live at 4500 ft and it’s often 10-15 degrees cooler up here than in Phoenix. It takes me approx 2 hours to get to Phoenix and the problem starts with a hesitation just about when I am ready to exit the highway. Btw, speed limit here is 75 and I go 85 with the a/c on. mileage 70K–mostly highway miles.

So, the car starts hesitating when I’m exiting the highway and by the time I’ve made it through a few stop lights, it’s out and out threatening to stall or just shutting off. I’ve had it happen a few times when I was trying to turn left in front of oncoming traffic! Needless to say, this is scary.

It’s been at the dealer now three separate times. The first time the dealer did a fuel injection service and the problem seemed to go away (but I didn’t drive back down to Phoenix until the fall, when it was a bit cooler). The next time (early June), we tried the fuel injection service again and it seemed to work, that is until I drove back down there three weeks later and it did the stalling and shutting off thing again. The dealer has now had the car for over a week and keeps on saying that they cannot duplicate the problem. They’ve been driving it with a fuel pressure gauge and they don’t see anything there.

I need help. I’ve googled this and found that there were many people with this problem, but I don’t see any solutions or even any one answer. So far I’ve seen the following as suggestions (ECM, MAF, cam sensor, ignition coil, fuel pump relay, relay 109, fuel cut relay, engine speed sensor and the overall idea that this car is a lemon).

Does anyone have anything concrete that might help me? I’m a teacher, on a limited budget and very worried.

Thanks,

Samantha

5 posts - 3 participants