How Can I tell if my VW Golf Mk4 TDI is a PD (Pumpe Duse) Diesel?

Is my Golf TDI a PD engine? How can I tell if my VW Golf mk4  TDI is a PD Diesel?

The VW Golf Mk4 came with a wide variety of diesel engines. Although all were 1.9 litre capacity the output of the engines varied from 67bhp with the SDI non turbo engine right up to 150bhp from the TDI PD 150.

As all the diesel engines are the same 1.9 litre size and body badging can vary considerably it isn't very easy to tell from the outside or by looking at the engine which output unit is in your car.

The easiest way to check if your car has the PD (Pumpe Duse) injector engine is to check the engine code. This is recorded on a label beneath the boot floor carpet. Obviously if the car has had a rear accident and the panel replaced then this may not be attached any more - this is another clue to look for when checking for accident damage. When you lift the carpet to the left hand side of the floorpan/ left of the spare wheel you should see a label as below:

VW golf Mk4 Engine & paint code label

 

The coding label on the VW Golf shows the model details, engine output in kW, gearbox gears, engine code and paint code. So in the example below you can see the model is a Golf GTI TDI, 110kW with 6 gears, engine code ARL and paint code LA5G as marked in the red area below.

 



 

VW Golf TDI Engine code check

The diesel engine code can then be looked up in the table below to show which details apply to it. So in the example above the ARL engine is the 150 bhp PD TDI engine which matches the 110kW output shown on the label.

Type	Power/bhp	Torque lb/ft	Torque Nm	kW		Engine	Codes
SDI	67	98	133	50		AGP	AQM
TDI non-PD	90	154	210	66		AGR	ALH
PD TDI	100	176	240	74		ATD	AXR	BEW
TDI non-PD	110	173	235	81		AHF	ASV
PD TDI	115	228	310	85		AJM	AUY
PD TDI	130	228	310	96		ASZ
PD TDI	150	235	320	110		ARL

In more simple terms the early TDI models released from 1998 to 2000 are non PD engines. From 2000 the PD engine gradually replaced the others in the model range, initially starting with the 115bhp PD introduced as the GT model. From 2001 the 130 PD was released and then the 100 PD replaced the 90 and 110 non PD engines so by the time the VW Golf Mk4 was replaced in 2004 all engines were PD Pumpe Duse technology.

You can view this video of how to find the engine code label location on the VW Golf Mk4