No start condition with 1996 2.0 ABA VW Cabrio

Asked by GuruCTMLN Feb 11, 2019 at 08:48 PM about the 1996 Volkswagen Cabrio 2 Dr STD Convertible

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

Car was starting / running fine. Does sit for a week
or two at a time in between being driven. Now it
doesn't start. Battery good, new about 6 months
ago and kept on tender in cold weather when not
driven. Cranks fine. No obvious moisture on
distributor or wiring; wiped them down anyway.
Smells like it is getting gas. Appears to have spark
as inductive timing light on plug wire flashes
strongly when cranked. When you crank and let off
the key, it may sputter once. No change with some
ether starting fluid sprayed in air cleaner  
assembly. Unclipped upper half of timing cover
and observed timing belt moving / looking ok. It is
an OBD-2 car. Did have one code, 16509, coolant
temp sensor low. Cleared it, has not reset.

I'm owned  VW Cabriolet and Cabrios for about 30
years. This one has been basically troublefree
once I did a proper tune up (plugs, wires, cap, rotor,
coil) after I bought it about 8 years / 20k miles ago.
This one has me stumped. I haven't done a more
complete diagnose because it is too cold in the
garage to work right now. I do have the Bentley
shop manual. Don't want to just start running tests
at random. Looking for a good starting point as I
don't see an obvious place to check next

4 Answers
110

VWLuv answered 5 years ago

The ingnition coil gets tiny cracks in it, moisture can get in and cause exact same symptoms you’re describing. Put a hairdryer to it, see what happens. Curious to see if that’s it! It’s stumped many before!

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GuruCTMLN answered 5 years ago

Got it to 38° this afternoon so I tackled it again. Put a hair dryer on the coil while I pulled the distributor cap and rotor again, this time instead if just wiping to look for moisture, I cleaned the cap and rotor with emery paper until the contacts were shiny, reassembled, took the hair dryer off, and it fired right up. Never seen that one in 34 years of VW ownership. Guess I need to order a new coil. Thank you very much for that tip. Since there was enough voltage to trigger the inductive pickup on the timing light, I never would have guessed moisture in the coil was the problem.

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John answered 4 years ago

I put a new coil on it ran for about 2 weeks and then it shut off when I try to start it and won't start it just turns over I sprayed ether in the violets ready to see if I can start it at way see if it was the fuel pump but I hear the fuel pump kick on and when I sprayed it and turn it over it still won't start what could be the problem what more can I check

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