[ba] OFF-TOPIC - 2008 Jetta SE P0455 Evap leak

[robert weinberg]

okay, boring topic and off topic, but maybe y''all can help me out. our 2008 Jetta SE 2.5L threw a P0455 evap system - large leak code a few weeks ago.

the service station up the street from us reset the code when they did the oil change, hoping it was some random false code cars like to throw form time to time.

CEL light came back on. they ran the smoke test and there is NO LEAK. BUT the computer kept throwing the code. they ended up replacing the evap pump and the purge valve. a week later... code came back on.

the service station is usually pretty decent. the mechanic said "these things drive me F'ing insane!" he said it could be anything. the car will run fine... but being you have to smog it in a month, we need to figure this out.

he understands not wanting to "go down the rabbit hole" cost-wise with this thing. 

the car has 75,000 on the clock. we bought it with 34,000 in January 2011. this is it's first non-maintenance repair.

any ideas on what could be wrong? i could just replace the gas cap and hope for the best.. but the mechanic said there is NO evap leak. he used a smoke test.

isn't there some "evap sensor" to replace? also, would vag com give a more in depth error code?

thanks,
Robby