ANOTHER Dead TDI?? (Jetta No Start After Engine Swap - Part 2) 

"The rear main seal wasn't timed correctly" - something I never thought I'd hear

All the respect for that starter !

I hate it when I forget to time my rear main seal.... VW sure knows how to make something over complicated.

The new rear main seal comes with a removable plastic clip that holds the seal in the correct place for installation . You just have to make sure the engine is at TDC . I would charge the 6 hours spent to diagnose.

If im not familiar with a system. I would of charged what I believe it would have taken if I understood the system going into before hand. In a situation like you were in where you weren’t familiar, i treat it as a learning experience. Yeah, sure im at a loss on that job because of the amount of time, but i learned something, not only will that help me on future diagnostics and to think a little more outside the box when im stuck in some other situation. But me personally i absolutely love the hardest diags to solve. They maybe not the best sometimes for profitability, but i love that feeling after figuring it out.

What a crazy situation. Glad you had access to a community of repair gurus. Thanks for posting your amazing vids.

Mr. Keith the magician came through. This needs to be put on the book of knowledge in RED LETTERS!

The guy who installed it should have known just from looking at the part. Package probably had instructions he never looked at.

Charge accordingly for your time! Do not sell yourself short!

Nice work man! Major kudos for you coming in on the second half of these jobs, not knowing what has been messed with before you even got there. Excellent case study for the old adage of “my labor rate is higher if you worked on it first!” 😂

I checked multiple times awaiting this part 2, you didn’t disappoint me!

You charge for every minute including travel time, period. Don't make client problems your problem.

I think there's a few Japanese engines like that with the rear main seal too. Pretty sure this has been discussed on the Iatn. But once you know, you know. Next time the question will be asked, did you use the required tool to replace that seal? If the answer is no, a lot of time will be saved by everybody involved.

That's INSANE!!! Great diagnosis, Ivan! Glad you called in reinforcements!

Mind blown 🤯 Right now! , I just watched Eric O spend hours on a Mini back up light issue just to find out the car only is made to just have one backup light

Been there for six hours, and that guy STILL hasn't finished mowing the lawn...😆

Another reason not to own a European car.

If you made a special trip just for them, you should have a pre-agreed upon price for that. You spent 6 hours figuring out their problem, charge them for the 6 hours. The bottom line is that the issue is figured out, and they know what needs to be done to get the car to run.

Make sure to time the muffler bearing on your Volkswagen!!!!

Someone said that was the problem in part 1 in the comment section.Hey you can't be expected to fix all situations all of the time you perservered & actually finally found what the problem was albeit with some help from experts. Alot of people would have thrown their hands up & walked away you mate (asI have said previously) the consumate professional Cheers & be proud.

yikes, what a pain..yes in part 1 someone commented on the rear seal timing..glad you solved the puzzle and we got to see the journey..

I figured Keith would have a clue. Bill them for the diag. Not your fault his buddy screwed up.

Another reason a shop needs service info. This all could have been avoided if instructions were read and understood. Also, even a DIY might have looked at that seal and thought this is way different, maybe I better check into this.

The way I look at it is-- How long would this have taken you if you would have known about the terrible "seal/sensor" design? And how long do you think it would take you on the next one with this same issue, now that you know? That's how I would base my price on this-- and the rest, chalk it up to learning costs.

Without seeing her turn over I'm feeling somewhat empty Inside 😞 🥺

You would think by now, diesel fuel would be running out the tail pipe.

Im happy to see that you got some direction from Keith, Chris, and Hans, but if you read the comments from part 1 some of the comments suggested that the rear main was the culprit. A lot of us out here do know a thing or two also, granted we may not have RU-vid channels for whatever reason. And I can assure you, in this trade you have never seen it all, there will always be something to surprise you and to learn by.

Commentors on part 1 nailed it! And they even said it should start with the cam sensor disconnected if the crank sensor was timed correctly. Well it wasn't, and it didn't. Of course you shot parts 1 and 2 at the same time and didn't have the benefit of the comments. Another entertaining detective story from you, Ivan! Thanks!

'How do you charge for this one...?'. Good question. I would say the other guy didn't do his work well when installing the crank sensor. You did what you had to do: find the fault aka the problem. So you did and that 6 hours is what it took. On the other hand, shouldn't you have known before? If so than this looks like a lack of expertise. If you had known the in- and outs then you probably would have found the problem earlier. But! ...there is always a 'but', you were hired to find the problem and you did. The problem and the source of the problem: a wrong installed sensor by an incapable mechanic. ....so now what? Good question! Let the customer complain by his mechanic and see what he says and can do. And with this info you might cut a bit of the bill.

Oh. My. God. Hahaha, what in the actual heck?? This is what one of my shops refers to as "being punchably German." As for what I'd bill, whatever amount would ensure that the shop would never call me again. LOL

Yea if you just googled vw 1.9 tdi timing components or just timing then youd have gotten the whole system and waveform n all..

It is a big ask to expect anyone to pay for 6 hours with no diagnosis. If you cannot find the issue in a reasonable time frame, I would say 1 hour, then the car should be handed back and you charge your 1 hour time spent. It is arguable that as a mechanic/automotive technician, when you take on a job you should be able to fix it, or at least find the issue and if you do not have the means of repairing the issue, then at least refer them on to someone who can, even the dealer if required. I know this can be hard if you are not provided the full story, however it seems this rear main seal is more than a seal and it would be fare to say a mechanic working on this vehicle ought to know about such a critical component. My comments may seem harsh, however a customer goes to a mechanic (AKA the "Expert") for a reason. The other thing to bear in mind is that you and the shop also learnt something, that knowledge is a valuable asset to you when working on other vehicles, in this case another VW product. If you were to attend a class, or seminar or other professional development course/forum, you would have to pay for that with real dollars as well as time spent not in the shop earning an income.

Bingo 😂😂, first time for me with the same issue, was a vw polo 1.4. At that time I worked at the dealership in 2000, i had to replace a engine. Under warranty. A stripped engine without pistons, seals, etc. Crank no start 😂😂, took me a lot of time to figure out what was going on. Good job Iwan! 👌👍

My guess was something with the glow plugs. Boy was I wrong!

You have to have people you can call on! Great find Ivan! Do you have access to the pico library or the IATN waveform library? Good to have access to their libraries of waveforms for times like these! As far as what to bill?…Bill it all out! Travel time too! Shoot, $800-1000 in diagnostic to be spot on the money is oh so often cheaper than the parts cannon! BILL IT OUT! This car may have rotted in the grass if it weren’t for you! And my gosh VW does some weird-ass shiz!😂✌️

The 20psi fuel pressure is not ok, this needs to be resolved also.

Back gear not install the Right way u need A tools for it

Having seen the comments about the rear main seal in part 1 this was extremely frustrating to watch!! If only he unplugged the crank sensor and tried cranking. That would have gotten him on the right track.

Wow, the stuff that throws you. Kinda like those keyless crankshafts and their tricks. Good one Ivan. Thanks!

Just so you know. If you ever work on a 3.0 diesel in a Ram pickup or a jeep that engine has a tone ring behind the flex plate that is just like your seal. Mine a piece of Magnetic Tape broke off and kill that engine dead. For a $25.00 part you have to remove the transmission and buy new flex plate bolts. About 10hrs book time😢

Im still suprized at the guy who instaled the rear main seal,having an electrical connection/marks on the rear main seal did not ring a single bell in him

Is Jans Jorgensen from Utah? Just seeing if it’s the same guy that taught us a couple times in my auto program

Ya charge em for the whole enchiladas it took you many variables to get to the real issue because of a simple mistake when installing that engine by the owner 4 yrs ago.

I'm honestly surprised that the guy that replaced the rear main seal didn't even mention that it had a sensor. I figured that would be a good piece of information to give you. Lol

Fascinating, thank goodness you had the kind of access you did to specialized expertise!

Ivan. I am also blown away by your fix. Who "wodda thunk it!" ha, ha, a. That was certainly weird. Enjoyed it - all the way through. And, yes, "that poor starter." :-)

Excellent job I am proud of you and your work keep going life is short your wife needs a shout-out also thanks to friends that support !!!

Pico 6 baby!! Seriously though, would a relative compression test with a sync on #1 injector show poor injection timing? If so that could have triggered more thought into correlation issues. I would have never suspected a rear main seal for Pete's sake, but I may have chased a correlation issue. Any way hind sight is always 20 20. Thanks for presenting this.!

You really can't charge multiple diagnostic hours caused by your unfamiliarity with this system design. In all things, we learn by failing. This vehicle schooled you. If you EVER encounter another one with same issue, how long will it take you to diagnose that one? Request payment based on that. Then, tell the shop owner how many actual hours you had in and ask him to pay you based on what he thinks is fair. You gained very valuable experience which will pay you in spades in the future if you stay in the business. You'll never get "slid" again by this one. It pays to have a connected Italian friend who "Knows People."

Ivan, I've done dozens of cambelt changes on the 1.9 & 2.0 TDI VAG engines and had to time the injection pump sprocket with the crank and camshaft sprockets especially on the common rail injection systems. I recollect the older 1.9 TDI also had to have the injection pump in time. Put # 1 cylinder on TDC and check that the injection pump is actually in time against VAG assembly instructions. Good luck!

I'm surprised nobody wondered why a rear seal would have wires attached to it. You have to figure it has to do something, but what? Maybe if that one had the little teeth on it, they would have investigated further and discovered why it had to be positioned correctly. Maybe. The, 'I wonder what this does', approach seldom works on that electronic computer controlled stuff. Anything with wires attached to it can give you big problems. I guess the next California warning after the, 'This can cause cancer', one will be, 'The State of California has determined that auto parts can cause emotional distress & mental anguish'. So the engine was doing nothing because the injectors were firing with no compression in the cylinder? No wonder it didn't even pop. Those Germans sure have the starter down!

Just when you thought you couldn't despise an engineer anymore than you already do.

I heard that it was a headache to replace a main seal on one of those engines. I've never done one myself. But wow! What a horrible design that is. This actually reminds me of the modern Ford 2.5L 4 cylinder engine. If you remove the harmonic balancer, you better have the proper tools to reset the timing.

I feel that spark keeping such people out of giving up. Actually I wouldn’t sleep properly when a diagnostic ain’t done. That keeps me thinking over and over until I figure an issue out. It’s kinda an addiction 😁

Let's hope it wasn't the car owner that decided to rudely fire up the lawn mower during the video.

Only worse than VW quality is Audi.. Very pretty & comfy but still junk! VAG engineering really is awful! Overly complex & unreliable vehicles!!

Great perseverance, Ivan! I am very curious how you ended up charging the customer. I think I would split the cost with the customer (3 hours diagnosis, 3 hours "education" for yourself.) Looking forward to possible follow-up! 😊

Surely you'd just charge the whole day and travel expenses. If they want to question that. I would ask how they would EVER have found that issue without your time and effort! You also technically used time and brain power of 2 other highly qualified people that you're not charging for! So they're getting a deal, even at that price!

How to Bill for this???? Easy....Charge your regular rate, per hour. And charge the travel fee. BUT, TO BE REALISTIC, SUBTRACT FROM THE TOTAL, THE COST TO REMOVE AND REPLACE THE STARTER. The Original work on the rear seal was done neither carefully nor correctly......Hard to blame anyone.....Goofy Design.....Sad but true. You are the BEST, because you Never Give In! You are a shining example of how everyone should perform. "Poor Starter" omggg!

Looked to me like it had a busted motor mount or two…shaking all over the place just cranking

Now I know why I will NEVER EVER NEVER own anything made by Zee Germans. This exemplifies how crazy German engineering is. Ivan...you don't work for free. Charge what you feel is fair...you need to earn a paycheck as well. You are not a charity.

What do you mean, "How do you charge for this?" Dude, you are going to need to quit agonizing over charging people. It's simple: 6 x $150.00 plus your windshield time. Don't forget to treat Keith and those other people to a nice dinner. GREAT VIDEO!

As I said. Crankshaft inductor/sealant wheel wast installed properly with special tools and in DTC blocked with special tools 😄😁😂 next time feel free to write me. I working with V.A.G vehicles a lot😉 but great job. 👌🏻👍🏻

It costs to learn. If it didn't cost anything to learn then we would learn very little. Like learning from a mistake on a job. Ivan you have to take a hit on this of about 2-3 hours and that 2-3 hours lost labour is a very cheap lesson. You also need to invest in VCDS as it gives you near dealership access. European cars are far more sophisticated due to the tighter emission rules. It is not going to get easier. Money isn't everything in life.

I have to agree with some of the others: Who disagree with just going along with a "diag" when you don't have the info, so then you just randomly start doing experiments and cranking the starter over and over hoping to stumble across a breakthrough, all while you're racking up hours and hours for the customer to pay for your learning process.. I think once you couldn't find info for the code on aIIdata, and you didn't have a known good waveform-- then you should have cut the diag and move on to something else and give time to think on this, talk to some people and come back to it later. Were you just making assumptions about the notches lining up when adjusting your timing? I thought that maybe you read something about that in service data maybe; But if not, I don't think you can charge for all that trial and error stuff you did through this whole video- personally. It wasn't coming from a place of knowing and applying your expertise--- It was coming from a place of NOT knowing (since there was nothing in aIIdata) and simply trying to stumble onto a discovery. WHich I do get, especially when working on your own stuff; you can get stumped and you're just trying to dig your way out of the problem and learning by DOING things until you make that breakthrough.. But I don't think you can charge a customer for that. 2 hours maybe; but the rest is really your own stubbornness/ persistence in not cutting your loses when you're stuck without access to the correct information, IMO. Or not calling for help earlier. I think you just have to chalk it up to LEARNING COSTS on days like this, at least for some of it. The way I look at it is-- How long would this have taken you if you would have known about the terrible "seal/sensor" design? And how long do you think it would take you on the next one? That's how I would base my price on this-- and the rest, chalk it up to learning costs.

Since your not familiar with vw your first move with the code p0341 it's get a know good wave form , that better for saving a starter! No matter what here was about infos (what been done when they make the swap and knowing all about the timing on 1.9 tdi ) We call that learning & experience .

Leave it up to German technology to screw up a simple way for the crank sensor to pick up the signal! This is why I don't own a German vehicle! Thank you Ivan for this video.

Charge charge charge ! You can't make a living giving your time away because of someone else's oversight.

Hi Ivan, please please put the links to your part vids in your description. Thanks champ.

This car would of been a good car to get ahold of Charles aka The Humble Mechanic. All he does is VW and is extremely knowledgeable about them.

I think you should charge based on your actual time you spend on this car. You knew this car inside and out, but the customer failed to mention everything that they did to the car. Being that they changed the rear main seal, that's a specialty job. You knew this car mostly. It's not that you were incompetent. And you should charge for that time you had to research for the extra work. Maybe the next time you encounter this same problem maybe you could charge less. Sometimes customers either don't mention what other work they did or they outright lie about it. You should charge extra for diagnosing work that THEY knew had been done. Unless its an auction car, they should give you a full history of what they messed in the car. And you should charge extra for these European cars. I do give them a high price for European cars and if they balk at the diagnostic price I WALK. Sometimes people who own these European cars are too cheap. I don't wanna deal with them.

Starting fluid or a sniff of Propane to see if it hits?

For those interested, here is how this seal should be installed. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Lo6wpKdBoUE.html

An add on to my first comment I worked on ONE VW & had to buy a SST just to remove the brake pedal from the booster thats when I decided never again to work on newer VWs.

hrs need to be charged, + drive time ,regardless of the car price or value .im the phone business, and when a company's phones dont work , you do what ever to keep em working and up and time is included in all repairs and the love you in end to keep thep up and running

I will charge full for every hour if car will start after fitting that seal in correct place. You deserve that money. They made mistake and you found it.

Ivan. I'm thinking there is a "polarity problem" - neg should be pos, etc. ?? Cam signal inverted?

I don't blame the 'weird' seal design. I blame the person who installed it. It looks different than any other oil seal that he's ever installed.. having wires on it. When you don't understand what you are working on, you need service data or access to somebody who has dealt with this before. I would charge the length of time you spent and travel time. Should also send some beer money to the others who helped lead you to the problem! It would have been nice if you would have had a list of everything that was touched before you. But unless you knew about the weird oil seal, would you have even thought to look at it?

vw hold my beer! rear main seal timing setup. that is why I'm not interested in vw.

Helo Ivan As you just showed Diagnostics can be very humbling. You stuck with it and appear to have found the probable cause of the no start. Charge accordingly. If the replacement of the rear main seal does not correct the no start condition offer a partial refund. You might want to lower your usual rate a little. When I checked for the P0341 code it came back clearly indicating both Camshaft and Crankshaft position sensors as possible causes.Very interesting case keep the great videos coming. PS. Even with all your diagnostic skill it is nice to have friends and colleagues willing to share their knowledge.

I thought to wonder at the end of the first video if there was even a hint of diesel Smoke while cranking

I would charge full time,, next time you run into one of these and you will, it will be quick and easy. it looks like abt half of the problems you deal with, are the result of work done by other people. if people want to buy exotic cars to flip, and dont know what they are doing, sometimes they have to lose money too

I appears that you need to question everybody involved that worked on the car you are working on. I have worked on the old bug engines but I would have never figured this one out.

Great video hard diagnostic or fix

charge full rate. The resources you obtained are unobtainable by anyone who is not intimately familiar with this issue and the car would be down for another 4 years.

Turning an oil seal into a sensor has a bit of brilliance to it. HOWEVER, the Engineer (and the company) needed to recognize how far out of the norm this is and tag the hell out of the replacement part! Hiding a critical feature in a mundane component guarantees trouble for anyone not specifically trained on that model.

I know I’m the comments people were shouting the rms

Typical set-up for most VW cars have ckp's in the back of crankshaft even on gasoline engines be careful when changing the rear main seals, most of the time you win but once in awhile you take a hit .

Wasted time going the wrong direction because not knowing how the cam and crank signal is synced. Do you actually charge the customer all that time wasted because you don’t know how it’s synced and went on aimlessly adjusting the timing and got the answer from a friend?

I saw that comment yesterday. I discounted it as it seemed ludicrous that a rear main seal was anything but that and had no sway over timing. I am truly astounded. A fing electronic plug on a rear main seal housing. ?? Wow… German engineering is one bizarre experiment.

Even tho you were there for 6 hours, you still properly diagnosed it. Crazy what the issues was lol.

Question: is there a warning notice in the package for the crankshaft seal/sensor? If not, there should be. If there is and someone ignored it...

This is why people should question getting involved with the car repair world. Never in a million years would I ever think a rear main seal would cause an engine to not start. Crazy times indeed.

Well, I admire your persistence Ivan. Euro cars and Japanese cars are getting more and more complicated. All we can hope to do, is to keep learning. You did everything right for a less technical vehicle, but these Euro manufacturers will always throw a spanner in the works. Good to have Euro experts on call, otherwise you may have been stumped, who woulda thunk it, a timed rear main seal LOL. I have a BMW 330D SE 2010 and a glow plug failed, and immediately threw a blocked DPF code, and would not perform a regen. So I replaced the glow plug, but the blocked DPF code persisted, and no regen. I had to buy BMW software to reset the adaptations and reset the DPF fault before a regen could take place. But, even so, I do love my Beemer.Good luck with the knowledge gained.

Amazing find! I would charge travel time plus hours spent. Without your work there is no direction..

I definitely want to know how you would charge for this, I have a similar problem with a Hyundai, the customer never told us the engine was changed.

It may be looking for fuel pressure to turn on the injectors if it's common rail air is impossible to get out of the rail

This is a dumb question. When you get these kind of cars ( with engine swaps ) do they have a common mistake or parts breakage. That is after all your testing and pocking.

Stupid engineering and clueless people working on it. Whoever changed that seal and reconnected the seal retainer either didn't think, can't think and didn't tell Ivan the whole story about the swap and shouldn't be working on cars. For botched jobs like this an appropriate charge would be T&M plus travel time, food and lodging. Although, 6 hours of cranking should have had raw diesel coming out of the tail pipe if the HP injection pump is working and the injectors are opening, or is the rear main seal timing the missing link to the injection pump? Three dead glow plugs isn't promising for a good start either. What about the Thinktool is not the right diag tool for this particular vehicle? Diesels were supposed to be reliable, simple and easy to work on. What a pity, and what has become to Rudolf Diesel wonderful invention?

I'm asking the same question...How do you charge for this non-repair? 6+ hours of diag, but it's still not running.