Hi Scotty. I own a 2012 Volkswagen Golf GTI. It has about 110000 km on the odometer. I recently purchased the car and I am the 4th owner. I took the car to a mechanic for an inspection before buying it and he said it was in good condition to buy. A few weeks after buying the car, I noticed it had a rough idle on a cold start. It would sometimes show a check engine light which would go away by itself. I thought it was nothing to worry about and went on driving it. One day, when my fuel was running low (fuel light had just come on), the car stalled at a traffic light. I had to press the gas pedal when starting the car for it to start up. I thought there was something clogging the fuel injectors so I added a can of Liqui-Moly fuel injector cleaner to the next tank of gas I filled up. The car ran smooth for a week or two and then I started facing more stalling problems. It would only stall at low RPMs (less than 1000). After stalling, I would have to force start it by pressing the gas pedal when starting it. The car would then be quite jerky when driving after the stall. I bought an OBD 2 scanning tool (cheap ones on Amazon) and started reading the codes my car was giving. There was constantly a P0172 code (System is rich bank 1). I took the car for a service and had an oil change, oil filter change, air filter change, and spark plugs change (the old spark plugs had severe carbon deposits on them, however it seemed they were in for a long time as the previous owner did not change them at all over more than a year). After the service, the car was still facing the previous issues and the stalls got more severe. I was now having cylinder misfires on cylinder 1 and 4 (P0300, P0301, and P0304 codes). The mechanic I took the car to suggested changing the ignition coils on the misfiring cylinders so I changed the ignition coils 1 and 4. However the car was still stalling at low RPMs, had a rough idle, and would have cylinder misfires when I drove it. There was also a P2015 code (Intake manifold runner position sensor) which would show up and disappear from time to time. The mechanic I took the car to saw this code and insists the issue is there because of a faulty intake manifold. It is quite a costly repair and I do not want to do it unless I am really sure this is the issue. What do you think the issue with my car is and how can I fix it?
If the mixture is too rich that can certainly cause misfires and could ultimately ruin the catalytic converter. What do your fuel trims look like?
See possible causes and diagnostic tips here:
https://www.carparts.com/blog/p0172-code-fuel-system-too-rich-bank-1/
You might want to clean and test your MAF:
https://www.alldata.com/sites/default/files/file-attachments/maf_sensor_testing_110918.pdf
Thanks Chuck.
SHRTFT1 is -18.8%
LONGFT1 is -9.4%
Is that just at idle? Should also be checked with engine running at around 2500 RPM. It does look like it's running too rich. Here's some info on interpreting fuel trims that may help:
https://www.aa1car.com/library/what_is_fuel_trim.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIJdCZgEiys