[Vwdiesel] Something interesting to share

[Tad]

Hey all - Steve, I'm also in Portland and was pretty lax about taking
precautions, so I was a little nervous but ended up having no problems.  I
have an 01 Golf TDI.

I run biodiesel though so gelling is more of an issue for me.  I probably
had about 1/4 tank of about B60 at the lowest temps and saw no issues.  No
additives.

>From my experience, having a full tank does help in the marginal situations
where the temp only dips too low for a short period (say a few hours during
the night) because there's a lot more mass to cool down.  Also as others
have mentioned you're more likely to have properly winterized fuel and
probably less likely to have water in the system if recently filled.

I have had a few issues in the past where I pushed my luck too far though.
 The most interesting and relevant was very similar to your experience - I
got maybe a mile from the house and started to lose power on acceleration.
 Pulled into the parking lot (still idling) and popped the hood.

My car has a section of clear fuel line going from filter to pump(very
handy for troubleshooting fuel system issues BTW) and I could see that the
pump was pulling mostly air, but as I watched for a moment, whatever was
blocking the line must have melted or cleared, because all of the sudden
the line started flowing mostly fuel again.  I watched it for a while until
I was convinced it had cleared, then carried on to work with no further
issues.

That said I understand the TDIs are more resilient in cold weather because
of the recirculating fuel system, with the thermostatic T fitting in the
top of the filter which recirculates warmed fuel from the pump back into
the filter instead of sending back to the tank - the older diesels don't
have that, right?

On the other hand, on the few occasions that I've actually killed the
engine from gelling, I've totally lost prime on the pump and had a hell of
time restarting - having to crack open injector fittings to bleed.