-One of my other cars is a '97 Jetta GLX with the VR6 engine. Fun ride...when it isn't blowing up!
Well, the latest problem with this car is actually a fairly common one, according to the forums over at VWVortex. This particular VR6 has no distributor- it has 3 double coils and a pretty decent motronic system instead. Normally this would be an improvement in long-term reliability, but in this case, it isn't. The coil pack on this engine is mounted at the end of the front cam, and since it is screwed to the block, it is subject to heating/cooling cycles. 11 years down the road...these heating and cooling cycles have added up and something broke the other day.
Last month I started this car one time. I park the thing in Memphis, 800 miles from my house, and use it when I'm up there for work and have to spend the night there, which is fairly rare but still happens. In November, I only started the car one time- I had a cool schedule which precluded me using the thing. Well, it ran on about 5 cylinders, something that bothered me. I figured water in the gas or maybe a fouled plug. The car is old...
Well, Christmas eve I wound up in Memphis and had to drive the 25 miles to the "crash pad" I keep up there, which is 8 guys renting a house. The car ran fine- except for a few moments at 70 mph when it started to miss. I had it all figured out; condensation in the tank = water in the gas. I planned on buying some Christy Dry-Gas, which normally solves this problem quickly.
Spent X-mas day at the pad; chicken on the grill- hell of a holiday meal! Oh well.
Go to drive to the 7-11 for something: the car runs on 5 cylinders. I return to the house, and pull all the spark plugs. Guess what? I'm not driving a 5 cylinder, I'm driving a
four cylinder! Two cylinders aren't firing. I have spare plug wires around, and I change them out. Still the same problem...
And the catalytic converter glows red...
If you have a cat...excessive fuel will burn inside the thing, turning it RED HOT in a hurry. The ceramic structures inside the thing can actually MELT and then it will plug up, destroying the unit and wrecking power and fuel economy.
The VR6 engine has an intake manifold that wraps around the injectors and their rail. You have to do multi-hour surgery on this engine to get at the injectors, so I couldn't pull the connectors on the injectors. That rhymes...
Well, I had to drive the car that night. There were no rental car agencies open, and the 25 mile ride to the airport would have been ridiculously expensive via cab. Since I see [well, hear...] people driving cars with bad misses all the time in Fort Lauderdale, I decided that If I took it easy...considering the cold air, I could probably make it the 25 miles to the airport without
melting the cat internals.
That is my question. What does it take to melt a cat? I drove 25 miles in 35 degree F temperatures at a gentle 55 mph on I-40 and I-240, and when I arrived at the parking lot the catalytic converter glowed as shown below [color is strange- it was more orange than purple].
Q: What is enough to kill a cat?
N
