1999-2005 VW Jetta, Golf, GTI fuel pump relay

 In this page you will learn how to replace the fuel pump relay on 1999-2005 VW Jetta, Golf  and GTI.

The vehicle we are working on is a 2001 VW Jetta equipped with a 2.0 L engine, the steps shown in this page will apply to the vehicles listed above.

The car was running fine, but one morning it failed to start, the engine was turning over but it wouldn't start.

 

 

 

 When the car came to our shop all we knew was that it wouldn't start, we removed the plastic cover located on top of the engine to gain access to the spark plug wires, we needed to see if the vehicle had spark.














 We removed one spark plug wire using a set of pliers designed for that purpose.


















 Next, we checked for spark using a spark tester, the vehicle had spark, which meant that the problem was not in the ignition system but it was a fuel delivery issue.

 

 

 

 

 

 



 Knowing that our problem was not in the ignition system we moved to the fuel system, we opened the fuel tank door and we removed the gas cap, one of us turned the ignition key on while the other listened for the fuel pump, since there was no sign of fuel pump activity we proceeded to check all the fuses located on the left side of the dash by the door jam as shown in the image.













 Since the fuses tested ok we suspected that the problem was either a bad fuel pump relay or a bad fuel pump, we removed the cover located under th dashboard on the driver's side to gain access to the fuel pump relay.








 The fuel pump relay is shown in this image, it is the 3rd relay from bottom on the far left and it is marked with the number 409 ( see image ), before removing the relay, touch its plastic case while you turn the ignition switch on, if the relay is working you will feel and hear a momentary click on and another off, withing a couple seconds, this is done to pressurize the fuel system before you start the car.

In the vehicle we are working on the relay wasn't working at all, and since we had access to a new relay we chose to swap it to see if that was our problem.







To remove the fuel pump relay just pull it out gently, it should slide off  without excessive efforth, we installed the new fuel pump relay on this vehicle and solved its problem, the fuel pump started working properly, there was no need for us to by-pass the fuel pump relay to send power to the fuel pump, we will illustrate how to by-pass the relay in future pages when we get a vehicle that has a bad fuel pump, in this particular case all the vehicle needed was a new fuel pump relay.