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My 2015 CD went into limp mode on the way home from Christmas Eve church service last week. After no power for about a mile, it died. I limped it into a business and it would not re-fire. Long-story, Porsche paid to tow it to my closest dealer (about 60 miles away) thinking it was a HPFP failure. Got the call today from the dealer. Water in the fuel. They have not gotten far enough to diagnose any other components, such as the pumps and injectors. But, he did let me know that a HPFP is $1800 and six injectors are also $1800 - uninstalled. So, I could be looking at $5000+ for repair.
The last fill-up was two days before at a Buck-ees in Robertsdale, AL (first Buck-ees outside of Texas), which should have very high fuel turnover. I've contacted them, but have not received any response. Fill-up prior to that was a couple weeks ago. The Buck-ees fil-up was following a trip from Pensacola to New Orleans and back through Alabama, with no problems what so ever.
Anyone faced this issue? I'm looking for any guidance on obtaining compensation from Buck-ees, and how to prevent this in the future. Thanks in advance.
Pictures are directly from the dealer service advisor obtained from the fuel tank.
If your fill up actually put the water in your tank, you would not have gone that far before issues. Water sinks rapidly to the bottom of the tank and does not mix with fuel at all. Being winter, have you been using any fuel additives to prevent fuel gelling and icing? Is there any chance that someone dumped water into your tank, as an act of vandalism?
Per my Porsche advisor, he says the timing and mileage between fill-up and failure is very plausible. There is no other path for water to enter the tank except during fill-up. The vehicle barely moved in the couple days between fill-up (Sunday) and failure (Tuesday/Christmas Eve) other than the drive home. I leave the vehicle locked at all time when outside my garage. And since I've had a vehicle broken into (despite living in a gate controlled golf course community) right beside my garage in the driveway, I've very consistent to keep it locked.
The water in the fuel was emulsified - very stable. I actually held the above sample in my hand the day after the above photos were taken and all the water was still in suspension. Still single-phase. Meaning it had to have some significant mechanical agitation that it just can't get inside the vehicle.
The dealer finally began digging into the issue further today. They found metal flakes in and on the fuel filter indicating a failure of the high pressure fuel pump. Further concern, and now expectation, is metal in the injectors. They haven't given me a number, but $6-8k would seem to fit based on some individual numbers they've thrown out. At their recommendation, I have just spoken with my insurance company who is supposed to have an adjustor call me in the next day.
Just as a bonus, i'm at home sick as a dog. Feel like I've been drug behind a truck. I'm really hoping 2020 improves!
As I claw through the repair and payment issues of the vehicle, my next concern is how do I prevent this from happening again? Seems a bit of Russion Roulette that our vehciles (diesels) are not set-up to deal with aside from having a very expensive come apart!
Their phone number refers you to their website. So I submitted concern to them. They responded by emailing me a form to fill out with incident specifics. Now that the dealer is actually looking at the car, I can supply some specifics. I also stopped in on New Year’s Day and spoke to the manager on duty. He said they have lots of sensors and checked their log. No alarms that day.
the name is a bit odd, but Buc-ee’s is a Texas chain of mammoth gas stations. This particular location is the first outside Texas. I think this one has 96 pumps. They don’t accept truckers, but you can’t spit down here without hitting a diesel pickup truck. Even the Porsche service writer said Buc-ee’s is about the best place around to get fuel due to the turnover.
im hoping to recoup my insurance deductible. But we’ll see.
To be honest, I didn’t think of insurance. It was suggested by the Porsche service writer. So far the insurance is playing along but I’ll believe it when they issue the check.
I looked at the procedure for replacing the hpfp(I figure that's the next thing to die on my 3.0 v6 tdi). It looks complicated. So, run of the mill comprehensive car insurance will pay for something like this?
Mine is pretty run of the mill. Expensive. But run of the mill.
the key here is that someone’s negligence resulted in damage to the vehicle. It’s not merely that a part just broke one day, ie maintenance issue. per the Porsche rep, the water in the fuel reduced the lubricity of the fuel in the high pressure pump, resulting in metal piston on metal cylinder contact and destruction.
Ironically, being a diesel, had the HP pump just died, it would have been covered under the extended diesel warranty.
12-30-2019, 09:02 PM
CD quit - water in fuel
