2009-12-30 Troubleshooting for Volkswagen

One of the many jobs of Kiwa's automotive group is to do all sorts of tests and research for Volkswagen. A recent problem-solving assignment involved the investigation of a quality issue with Volkswagen's pressure regulators.

Concerned about the failure percentage of pressure regulators in Caddy, Polo and Fox cars produced to run on compressed natural gas, or CNG, Volkswagen required immediate access to a test facility capable of testing under pressures as high as 1200 bar to find out what was causing the problem. Lacking such a facility in-house, Volkswagen called on Kiwa’s Automotive Group to do the job.

Earlier, Kiwa had tested and approved the pressure regulators and Volkswagen was bent on finding out what had gone wrong. The mystery was soon solved. As it turned out, Volkswagen had relocated production of the pressure regulators to another plant and during assembly there too much grease had been added to the car parts, causing in- and outlets to become clogged. Now the CNG-run Caddy, Polo and Fox cars are back on track.

More information:  Meine.de.vries@kiwa.nl