# EPC light illuminated, engine will not crank



## Apple_Eater (Aug 22, 2007)

Hey all, 
Currently my parents, who borrowed my phaeton, are stranded with an EPC light, no crank (no attempt to crank) and apparently no other symptoms. They are ~100 miles from a VW dealer. If anyone can point me to some common troubleshooting tips, I would be greatly appreciative. 

Phaeton: 
2004 V8, ~80K miles, regularly serviced 
Car has been stored for a few months and rarely driven (bad gas?) 
The transmission needs to have software updates/fluid change (has the shuttering issue)


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## Panther427 (May 20, 2012)

Did the car die on them. Or was this after a long or short manual shutdown for fuel or overnight 
Cori


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

Try the emergency start procedure, turn key right, left, right, from memory.


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## Apple_Eater (Aug 22, 2007)

Had to get it towed to the stealership who wants $400 to replace the cranking battery before they'll even start a proper diag. I'm pretty sure they left the lights on or something, ran the battery down, and now we're getting the business from a dealership that doesn't have the first clue about this car. 

As far as I know, they had no issues with the car, parked it, ate lunch, came back out, then no crank. Sounds like a dead battery to me. I tried to get them to have the tow-truck attempt to jump start before they towed it ~50 miles, but they chose to not follow my advice, so now I'm looking at a $400 job that should never have cost more than $150.


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

With the emergency start procedure, it should start using the comfort battery. The cranking battery is the cheap one, I think including installation I only paid about $150ish. If they're saying it's the battery, I'd have them charge it, get it started, then take it somewhere else.


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## n968412L (Apr 23, 2009)

I hope it's a simple as that... but what's making the EPC light come one.. that doesn't sound like a flat starter battery... and similarly you cannot flatten the starter battery by leaving the lights, or anything else, on. My impression is, as you say, that the dealer who has it hasn't got a clue what he's dealing with. 

Hope I'm wrong. 

M


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## popwarfour (Mar 23, 2014)

Just started having similar issues, didn't know about the emergency start I'll give that a try. Did you ever find out what the issue is here?


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## popwarfour (Mar 23, 2014)

*EPC Light - Now Car Won't Start*

I have a 2004 Phaeton W12 with just over 70k w/ premium gas in the tank. There was a lot of condensation this morning on my windows and the humidity is up around 85% and the temperature is around 40 degrees. I drove my car into work early this morning and about 10 minutes into my drive the car had a abrupt/short loss of power and my rpm's dropped to almost idol (I was only going around 25mph). The EPC light on the dash immediately turned on. As I pulled into my parking space and put it in park I noticed it was idling very strange. It seemed like every once in a while it would just want to putter out and the car would start to shake. I was hesitant to turn it off and leave it in the parking lot so I drove it home. On the drive home I noticed the cruise control was no longer working but other than that every was fine. I went through multiple red lights and stop signs (aside from the strange idol when stopped) I had no other obvious issues. As soon as I got home I turned the car off. I tried to see if it would start again and nothing, no crank just radio and stuff turned on. I plugged my generic bluetooth OBDII module in and using the Torque android app I was able to pull of following error codes.

P0322 - Generic
Type: Powertrain - Ignition System or Misfire - ISO/SAE Controlled
Description: Ignition/Distributor Engine Speed Input Circuit No Signal

P0322 - GM
Type: Powertrain - Ignition System or Misfire - ISO/SAE Controlled
Description: ICM 4X Reference Circuit No Frequency Conditions
Cause: DTC P0340 and P1376 not set, CMP sensor signals received, and the PCM did not detect any 4X fuel control pulses for 4 seconds

I'll have the give the emergency start procedure a try which I just learned about. I'm really wishing I had a VAG-COM right about now. I have a pretty good warranty that should cover a distributor, coils, etc. I'm going to wait a few hours for the day to warm up and hopefully some of a the humidity burn off too see if it will crank (and try the emergency start procedure). If all else fails it looks like I'm getting a tow down to the shop. I hope I didn't leave out anything important. Any input would be great, thanks.

Summary:
Car: North American 04 Phaeton w12 w/ 70k miles
Weather: 85% humidity, 40 degrees f
Symptoms: sudden loss of power and EPC light coming on, P0322 error code shows up, strange idol, no cruise control, car won't crank over after parked.


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## popwarfour (Mar 23, 2014)

After an hour of waiting for the temp to heat up the car starts perfectly and there is no more dash warnings. However, the "pending fault" as I said before is still being returned. Should I clear the ECU of faults and try to rescan?


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## PanEuropean (Nov 3, 2001)

Hi Anders:

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with your proposal to clear past fault codes (save the scans, though, in case you want to review the history later) and re-scan the car.

I'm not sure what the cause is, but I suspect it is NOT humidity related.

Michael


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## popwarfour (Mar 23, 2014)

Thanks for the response and warm welcome Michael! I've been trolling around the forum for a while and only owned the car for a few weeks. I also agree moving my topic to this thread was a better idea


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## invisiblewave (Sep 22, 2008)

Reference or speed sensor problem?


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## jyoung8607 (Feb 14, 2006)

invisiblewave said:


> Reference or speed sensor problem?


Agreed. It would be helpful if you had VCDS rather than a generic OBD2 tool, However, Ross Tech's wiki says P0322 maps to the engine speed/crank position sensor. A failure of that sensor would be consistent with your EPC light and your other symptoms. When they start to die, they often start to flake out intermittently when hot. That might explain why it restarted fine later.

The sensor costs about $150. I don't think it's very hard to replace.

Jason


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## popwarfour (Mar 23, 2014)

jyoung8607 said:


> The sensor costs about $150. I don't think it's very hard to replace.
> 
> Jason


I think it covered under my warranty but for whatever reason if its not can anyone point me in the direction of a tutorial if they know about one? I'm hoping it its not one of those heinous engine out sensors to replace


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## PowerDubs (Jul 22, 2001)

jyoung8607 said:


> Agreed. It would be helpful if you had VCDS rather than a generic OBD2 tool





I had an engine speed sensor fail on my 2.8 24v VR6 and the car would certainly still crank. In fact, if left to cool it would run just fine then act up when warm with misfires and bogging.. but it certainly didn't kill the engine running, much less the starter.

Given the car had 200k miles on it at that time, we opted for a 'generic' off of Ebay or Amazon (forget) for about $45 shipped if I remember correctly.

Car currently has over 225k on it, purring along.


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