2004 TD4 - Small Niggles

Hi guys,

Just a couple of little niggles to fix and a couple of questions please.

First up.

Our car is due a service, just to bear that in mind.


Heater.....

Car comes up to temp on the gauge as normal to be honest, sits around half way within 6 miles at most, even on these cold mornings, never goes above half, so pretty normal, however even with the cabin temp set to max the heater feels quite luke warm at best, I never remember the heater being this weak in the past, any ideas ??

Related to above.......the aux heater thingmy, I can hear it and it often is still running when we switch off the car, and often emits smoke from passenger side front wheel arch, something I read before on these forums is normal ?? But what exactly is it supposed to be doing if the heat in the car is luke warm at best anyways ??

O/S Rear Window.......

Seems to have dropped off the runner, is it an easy job ?? guessing just a case of pulling the skin and re-seating it ? how do you stop the window dropping from the runner again tho, is it compressed/crimped ?

Rover Ron Tuning Box - with switch........

I bought this nearly 2 years ago when we got the car, I fitted it and we had some problems, so I pulled it and it has sat gathering dust since, however I have decided to try and take these problems head on, so first problem,

1. Occasionally the car became difficult to start when hot

2. Fuel economy dropped through the floor, we get around 35mpg average without the box fitted, with the box notably less, to an extreme on one occasion.

3. The occasional stutter

4. Fuel gauge seemed to have a mind of its own sometimes

All of the above problems disappeared once the box was removed again, hence we never bothered with it since ??

We had a new genuine MAF, so fairly sure we can rule that one out, still need to do the EGR bypass, and still need to do the crankcase breather upgrade (thats probably desperate actually)

Any help with the above bits much appreciated thanks.

First thoughts are to do the full service, crankcase breather and clean and disable egr or bypass.

Then look into the occasional poor starts, either camshaft sensor or injector leak back.

After that you can look at refitting the tuning box and go from there. FBH issue isn't worth worrying about and may improve anyway once the engine is running more efficiently. Heater may improve with a pollen filter change.

Then look into the occasional poor starts, either camshaft sensor or injector leak back.

Click to expand...

Just to highlight, the occasional poor hot starts only occur with the tuning box plugged in...

Service will come regardless of course

I was wondering if the thermostat was working properly however, all my other cars generally have been up to full operating temp by around 3 miles on the same trip, might explain the poor heater, but it bothered me that those temps are so poor when we are supposed to have a dedicated cold start insta hot air system, will check pollen filter tho, good call

EGR is definately on the list, I did this on my E46 320d with 75k on the clock (the landy has 75k now as well), was filthy filthy dirty, and I gained around 3mpg average with that car plus a little quicker throttle and turbo response !

Phantom_Mark said:

Just to highlight, the occasional poor hot starts only occur with the tuning box plugged in...

Click to expand...

I see so there is nothing to do there then. You should have returned the box to Ron for testing at the time you had the problems. All you can do now is try again and give him a call if the same thing occurs.

I've never thought that Td4s heat up quickly (as is the case with all modern TDIs) and the heaters tend to need to be on the highest setting to be anything like adequate in winter.

I think your Td4 EGR will be well choked after 75k. It'll only take an hour to find out.

Yer, was giving it the eyeball this afternoon, probably fabricate my own bypass pipe this time.

What exactly is the function of the aux heater thing ? I assume it is a heater ? and I assume it is supposed to be a cold weather seperate unit which in theory warms up quicker than a typical system without, much like a lorry cab heater yer ??

Cheers again mate.....

Phantom_Mark said:

Yer, was giving it the eyeball this afternoon, probably fabricate my own bypass pipe this time.

What exactly is the function of the aux heater thing ? I assume it is a heater ? and I assume it is supposed to be a cold weather seperate unit which in theory warms up quicker than a typical system without, much like a lorry cab heater yer ??

Cheers again mate.....

Click to expand...

Exactly, it has its own temp sensor in the casing so responds to coolant temperature in the heater circuit rather than the temperature at the cylinder head as displayed in the instrument cluster. They cut in if the heater circuit falls below 65deg. However bad you feel it is the heater would be worse without it. Something that you may not thought of trying, most find the face level vents give the best flow of warm air.
The FBHs do tend to be a bit smokey when first ignited so don't let that worry you too much.

I find that the temp gauge on our TD4 sits around the halfway as well so I would think your thermostat is OK - they do seem to take a while to heat up and the heater is not the warmest I have experienced - the heated seats have been brilliant in this weather as they provide heat so much more quickly!

Yer, the heated seats have been superb, Only really want proper heat in the cabin for my little girl in the mornings, she is only 2 and sits there saying "cold Daddy" and there is nothing I can do about it, it seems lol.......she has a coat and hat and gloves obviously

Anyone shed any light on how to tackle the rear window runner problem btw ?

Also forgot to ask......

Clutch, ever since we had it, it has been super heavy with not much feel before the bite point, tried another Hippo and the clutch was much lighter.

Could it just been needing a fluid flush and bleed ? or new slave/master maybe ?? dont think we lost any pressure so hoping neither of cylinders........?

Be nice to get rid of that dead feeling super heavy clutch pedal !

window problem is probably a broken cable, try lubricating the clutch cross shaft,

Cable ?

How does that work then ?

I can hear the mechanism going up and down the door skin inside, the problem is the window is no longer connected to the runner somehow ?? If you can explain much appreciated

If anyone can suggest how to tackle the heavy clutch problem described I would be very grateful as well

glass held by two clamps

Agree with the others, do the pollen filter & coolant bleed. It will help a bit.

Cheers guys, are the side windows held with the same style clamps as the tailgate window then ??? just want to be sure and avoid any confusion here ?

rear side windows clamped:doh:

front windows :welcome2:

Awesome thanks buddy, will rip that door skin off with some idea of what I am doing then

Any ideas on my clutch woes btw ??

try lubing arrowed with klubber grease if you have it or silicon spray lube. the clutch is a throw away plastic unit but the Td4 unit does have a bleed nipple

Do you think it could be possible old fluid could be responsible for the mushy hard feeling the pedal has, its not stiff in the sense that the pedal doesn't want to move, only stiff because it's hard and mushy with little feel for whats going on ??? I guess it could simply be the clutch itself ??

I will obviously give some lube as per your suggestion as well

Thanks again.

I recommend you bleed it through to new fluid. In my experience it always give the clutch a bit more clearance and a better feel.