2002 Volkswagen Passat losing power traction control light on vibrating

Car: Volkswagen Passat
Year: 2002
Variant: 2.0 TDI
Categories: Running Rough, Starting & Power Loss
A few months ago my Passat would intermitantly lose power and start vibrating when accelerating and the Traction Light would appear so after pulling over and turning off for a minute I could start again and drive normally only for it to happen again with no warning or reason. I was told many different reasons for this and have changed fuel filter, air filter and MAFM with no fixing of the problem. I then noticed black puffs of smoke from exhaust when is started juddering before totally losing power, I started putting Dipetene in tank when filling up and problem seemed to be getting better. Then as driving at 120 kph for an hour with no problems car just started violently juddering as before and lost power and light on but pulling over and turning off and on light still on and would shudder immediatley on starting and sounding really rough. Had to get recovered home and recovery driver told me sounded like only firing on 3 cylinders which sounds like to me too. Any Ideas as I am totally baffled as to why this is happening?
Posted: Apr 8, 2012 (12 years ago)
Seems like car is going into limp home mode. Need to get it scanned to see what faults show up...
Posted Apr 8, 2012 (12 years ago)

This problem is archived

If you're having a similar problem please click below to re-post this problem, you can then customise it to suit your situation.

Join the community
Got a question? Can you answer other questions here? If so please...
More problems with the 2002 model year Volkswagen Passat

We have 17 problems and solutions in our database for this model year of the car.

View all Volkswagen Passat Problems