2010 Volkswagen Golf Fuel System Problems

Mileage when the problem started

• Under 25k
  1448%
• 25k–50k
  1034%
• 50k–75k
  27%
• 75k–100k
  00%
• 100k–150k
  310%
• 150k+
  00%

Owner reports

Selected complaints filed with NHTSA by 2010 Volkswagen Golf owners, lightly cleaned up (personal details are redacted by NHTSA).

I filed a vehicle buyback with volkswagens vehicle buyback program in February of 2016. I waited and called back and forth trying to find out about my vehicle and if it was going to get bought back. Volkswagen kept telling me my documents were invalid and I had to re-do them each time and send them back and wait longer for a response. On 08/23/2017, they made me reset my claim because they supposedly "filed me in the wrong category". After that, all my documents finally got accepted, and have been "under review" for the past 9 months. They have been reviewing my documents and haven't been moving forward with my case for almost 2 years and my car has been sitting in my driveway waiting to be turned in. …

While driving the vehicle simply shut off. I turned on hazzards, put car into park, restarted, put car back into drive and drove away. This was on the I-35 frontage road and I could have easily been rearended / killed. Happened one other time on the bqe in new york several months prior. After the first incident I was told by the authorized service dept. "probably a glitch, won't happen again." waiting for a third incident where I'm not so lucky.

2010 vw Golf tdi 2dr, 6 speed manual: loss of power occurs on occasion, typically under hard acceleration after shifting from 1st into 2nd and pushing down accelerator, car will lose all power, but not stall, for 2-5 seconds followed by regaining power. When it regains power there is a huge plume of white smoke out the tail pipe that quickly dissipates, leading me to believe fuel or water. Car also done exactly same even while attempting to pass a car: downshifting from 5th to 3rd gear, hitting the accelerator and exact same lag/loss of power. Car now has 15K miles and I have experienced this about 6-10 times over the past 6 months. Dealership mechanics claim they can not replicate or find any error codes plus claiming they've never heard of this type of complaint, also they claim/suggest this could be a poor fuel issue, suggesting going to another gas station. …

Since I first bought the tdi Golf it has been easy to stall, sometimes stalling while still in motion going down the road. At approximately 20K miles stalling became sometimes unavoidable no matter how much gas you gave it from a stop. This caused the car to pull out into traffic and stall, leaving me dead in the water in dangerous traffic!! No matter how much gas I gave the car or how much I slipped the clutch it would still sometimes stall after propelling me into oncoming traffic. I have driven a manual transmission my entire life and I know how to work a clutch... This problem is not normal and many friends who I have had drive the car agree with me. At approximately 19,000 miles the glow plug light illuminated and blinked after starting the engine. The car wouldn't go above 20mph. I turned off the ignition and restarted with no further problem. At approx. …

I have a 2010 vw Golf tdi. I was driving along at 25 MPH when my glow plug & check engine lights started flashing, and my tachometer dropped to zero, indicating a stall. The power steering also started to cut out, but I was able to safely pull over. Tried starting the car again and got nothing. The car was towed to a vw dealership down the street, and on Monday 11/19 they informed me that my high-pressure fuel pump failed and sent metal fragments through the entire fuel system. The car is currently being repaired under warranty, but I was told that the bill would be at least $5,000 for this kind of fix. Oh yeah, this also completely ruined my travel plans for thanksgiving, as vw refused to give me a loaner car while this documented warranty issue was being dealt with. …

Immediately after the 40K service on my 2010 vw Golf tdi with 39,300 miles, the diesel glow plug warning light came on and the engine started running roughly. Approximately 10 seconds later, the engine stalled. The car would not restart and had to be towed to the dealership. The dealership found fragments of metal in the fuel system and replaced the entire fuel system (approximately $5000 in parts not including labor). Vw agreed to pay for the repair but there is no guarantee they will pay for this repair if it happens again. Also, vw was unable to tell me if the replacement high pressure fuel pump is the same design as the original one that failed. I am concerned the fuel pump could fail again and this time cause an accident it the car were to stall on the interstate. …

After leasing a brand new car for 2 days (with only 221 miles on the odometer) the car engine suddenly died in the middle of the road and would not start, leading to very dangerous for life and stressful(I had two final exams coming up within 2 days coming got)situation. After the car got towed to the official vw dealership at fladeboe on June 3rd, it took them 5 days to diagnose and repair the car. There was no injector pulse and engine control module was replaced. Also, the car got scratched while in repair.I was given a rental car, and although I was told by the vw stuff that the cover all the costs, I ended up paying $63 for renting out a Toyota from "enterprise rent-a-car". …

Upon making a lane change to merge into a faster moving traffic lane, the vehicle accelerated normally for one second then lost all engine power leaving me in a dangerous position. Upon depressing the clutch, the engine stalled. I was able to restart the engine after which it worked normally. This has happened approximately 20 times since. It usually creates a dangerous situation such as leaving the car without power in an oncoming traffic lane during a left turn or moving too slowly in a merging maneuver. Sometimes the check engine light will also come on and the glow plug warning light starts flashing. Clouds of white smoke always appear at the tail pipe during the power loss. The dealer has replaced a sensor 4 times which makes the warning lights go out, but the engine cutting out problem is never addressed. Vw simply state "cannot reproduce problem" and return the vehicle. …

I'm a vw Golf tdi canadian customer who suffered a hpfp failure in the us on sept 22nd, 2011. The car stalled at 35mph, was towed to a dealership in tewksbury, ma who claimed I had contaminated diesel fuel in my car and that was the cause of the pump failure. The car was towed to montreal, Canada at the local dealership and arrived on sept 30th. Fuel lab test results did not confirm any type of fuel contamination, vw Canada might cover the repairs under warranty but would like to know why the pump failed if the fuel was okay as I consider this a huge safety issue. I'd like to mentioned I only fueled from shell while traveling in the us. It looks like there were over 170 other complaints including some misfueling events and it seems that the us quality of diesel and/or poor pump design (by Bosch) might be the cause.

I was stopped at a red light preparing to make a left hand turn when I noticed that the engine started making a rattling noise. After the light turned green, I proceeded to make my turn and after exiting the intersection the vehicle started to hesitate and eventually stalled. I pulled to the side of the road safely and tried to restart the vehicle but it would not start. I called aaa and my local vw dealer and had the car towed there for repair. I was told that the high pressure diesel fuel pump failed and that it would be replaced as a "goodwill" by vw since my car was just out of the 5 year 60K warranty. To my knowledge, the entire fuel system was replaced with the exception of the fuel tank itself which was cleaned. Everything was taken care of by vw with no charge to me, and a loaner car was provided.

Related recalls

NHTSA investigations

Fuel System complaints in other Golf years