1.8TSI and 2.0TSI engine failures

[DGW]

Ring up your nearest TPS with your VIN and they may be willing to give you part numbers and prices. If not, try another one.

[Chew182]

Another engine failure victim here 

 

2010 Octavia VRs

 

Done 41k miles

 

Engine warning light came on, didn't even have time to get to a garage before it went. Turned over but no response.

Engine had locked up causing the cylinder head to drop off causing piston to crack and engine to fail!! (according to the description on the invoice  )

 

Brand new engine and turbo replacement by Skoda :( 

 

They offered me a goodwill payment of 20% as I was never notified of a recall for the tensioner!! Will be seeking full payment refund from Skoda UK!

 

Just glad to have my car back for now!

[DICKEAST]

I read a copy of WHICH yesterday, and the Octavia was up in the top few for reliability with cost per repair at a very low level!! :p

I think that none of us are subscribers/ involved in their stats!!

 

@chew --- definately press for more than 20%, they are having a laugh.

Edited 15 August, 2014 by DICKEAST

[DGW]

They offered me a goodwill payment of 20% as I was never notified of a recall for the tensioner!! Will be seeking full payment refund from Skoda UK!

Very sorry to hear about your engine failure. Unfortunately for us 1.8/2.0TSI owners, there has NOT been a recall for the timing chain tensioner although it has now been revised 3 times.  How much have you been billed for the engine and turbo replacement?

[MadHATR]

As I posted earlier I had the car booked in for work.

 

Well I got it back today I've had the chain, tensioner, guides, oil seals etc replaced and car serviced at the garage. They reckon I had chain damage to the inside of the timing chain cover - so tensioner on the way out !

 

I've had 5 rattly starts, then it went quiet for 2 starts, when the garage started it to drive in they had a rattly start.

 

My car has done 36,000 miles - if you want my opinion it's simple, if you have a vRS 2.0 then change the bloody chain assembly or wait till it fails  - my last car - a UK built Honda Accord Type R did 180,000 miles and only a few problems once it cleared 170,000 miles - this Skoda is my first and last VAG product - they clearly know they have an issue and couldn't care less.

 

Final exact cost - £465

 

One point, it seems the US cars fail at 70k miles on 10k service intervals, UK cars fail as low as 40k on 20k service intervals - I'll be changing oil at 10k from now on

 

Cheers for all the help and advice.

 

MadHATR

[butchvrs]

I'm looking at buying a 2.0 Tsi FL octavia Vrs, (I have a 52 plate MK1 Vrs atm) and kind of put off after reading some of this post.

 

Is it a simple job of replacing just the tensioner on say a 30-40K mile engine to prevent the engine destroying itself, or does the whole chain/tensioner assembly need to be changed as a precaution? 

[DGW]

The latest version of the timing chain tensioner has not been in use long enough to know whether or not it too might fail but I would hope that VAG have finally got on top of the problem at their 4th attempt. When I eventually decide to have that tensioner replaced on my car - which has the second version - I will have the timing chain and timing chain cover replaced at the same time. The latest version of the former is less prone to stretching and the latter can be damaged during removal.

I would guess that the cost will be around the same as what I paid to have the cambelt and water pump changed twice during my previous ownership of a 2002 Octavia 1.8T 4X4.

[DGW]

Final exact cost - £465

That is an amazingly low price to have paid for all that work. Lucky you! Which branch of The Lion Garage did you use, and can you please ask them if they had to remove the sump to then remove the oil pump drive chain which has to come off to allow the timing chain to be replaced?

[MadHATR]

I'm looking at buying a 2.0 Tsi FL octavia Vrs, (I have a 52 plate MK1 Vrs atm) and kind of put off after reading some of this post.

 

Is it a simple job of replacing just the tensioner on say a 30-40K mile engine to prevent the engine destroying itself, or does the whole chain/tensioner assembly need to be changed as a precaution? 

 

As I posted I got the job done for £465, but I paid for new chain, tensioner and guides and oil and filter change for me that would the minimum - but I'm kinda old school, I only swop tyres, brakes, dampers, road springs etc in axle sets, the parts cost nothing compared to the time taken and cost of failure, for me it's a no brainer - I also figure come resale time having the receipt showing new bits would help. The guy at the garage had swapped just the tensioner on some cars, I suppose it comes down to how you value the feeling of flipping a coin when you turn the key.

 

That is an amazingly low price to have paid for all that work. Lucky you! Which branch of The Lion Garage did you use, and can you please ask them if they had to remove the sump to then remove the oil pump drive chain which has to come off to allow the timing chain to be replaced?

 

I'll ask tomorrow, one thing he did say was he thought the tensioner was the issue, it collapses back over time, the new tensioner has a peg that you put through it once installed to stop it collapsing back.

 

For that price if I have the car in 40k miles I'm going swap the lot again - probably buy a new cover as well.

[DGW]

I asked one of the Skoda dealers local to me for a quote this morning for replacing the timing chain tensioner and timing chain. The quote included replacing additional parts as recommended by Skoda UK - ie timing chain cover, rails, seals, bolts - which, with sealant, totalled in excess of £250. (I can't remember if the figure was £257, 267 or £276.) With 5.5 hours labour, the job would cost £820.

[MadHATR]

I asked one of the Skoda dealers local to me for a quote this morning for replacing the timing chain tensioner and timing chain. The quote included replacing additional parts as recommended by Skoda UK - ie timing chain cover, rails, seals, bolts - which, with sealant, totalled in excess of £250. (I can't remember if the figure was £257, 267 or £276.) With 5.5 hours labour, the job would cost £820.

Hourly rate = £100, if they are like Honda, they charge for the whole tube of sealant, not the bit they actually use.

 

I haven't had chance to ring Hinckley branch of Lion today, I've got an old Rover V8 Vitesse I'm trying to get back on the road and just ran out of time, but I will ring this week (hoping to get the Rover MOT'd for the first time since 2001!) but Lion charged me for 4 hours work.

 

I tried to get the car in at the Tamworth centre, but they couldn't do it until the 20th, but that would have been slightly cheaper as they have lower rates.

 

Maybe you should book it in up here then either spend the 4 hours at the Snowdome skiing or have a day around Tamworth or Birmingham shopping !

 

You must have a VAG specialist somewhere near you, I found Lion on the WWW and just rang them up, they seemed ok on the phone, straight and honest so I took a punt.

[MadHATR]

That is an amazingly low price to have paid for all that work. Lucky you! Which branch of The Lion Garage did you use, and can you please ask them if they had to remove the sump to then remove the oil pump drive chain which has to come off to allow the timing chain to be replaced?

Just rang him and, no they didn't have to remove the oil pump drive chain, they worked around it.

[DGW]

That is good news. Another Skoda dealer reckoned that the sump had to be removed to allow removal of that chain...

[N7EJA]

Hi just read this thread from start to finish. I have a 2009 limited edition vRS TSI. It's done 33,000miles. I've only had it for 8months and it's been rediculously heavy on oil with a few small oil seal leaks having crank seals replaced. Just wondering if I'm going down the road to a failure ? I've topped up with about 10 litres of oil in this 8months. Only done 2000-3000miles ! Reading this thread has scared the **** out of me. Car can sometimes sound a bit Ticky on idle but nothing un-normal.

[mikey vrs]

10 litres of oil in 3000 miles................. :S  somethings not right with your engine. 

[N7EJA]

Not sure if it's a using it or loosing it problem. Doesn't seem to be using it and no oil patches on the drive

[blackspaven]

10 litres of oil in 3000 miles................. :S  somethings not right with your engine. 

I think Skoda allow 1l per 1000 miles.

[N7EJA]

Ye that's what I've read for the TSI

[vRSrod]

I was down at my local skoda garage today. Was in there for something else but I thought I'd ask how many tensioner failure they've replaced on vrs. To which he replied the 59 plate black vrs parked in front of me had its tensioner failed is the first one they'd seen and would require a new engine. Just wondering if the car belongs to a member here and whether it was the same car for sale in that garage 4 weeks ago. The garage is Preston motors in forest gate east London.

Edited 27 August, 2014 by vRSrod

[swany]

well tha'ts me, after just about 11 years of driving a vrs i have changed to another brand of car completely not sure if im ok with my desicion or not. lost faith in my car after breaking down 3 month out of warranty, injector and coil packs changed and still not 100% and this after the problems i had with my vrs diesel( not running properly after injector recall and rust on 3 doors). maybe i shall rejoin the skoda family further down the road if they get their act together, in my eyes i have only had a 33% success rate with skoda after only  1 of my 3 vrs cars being trouble free.

[Mikufi]

Lets add another "failed" TSI on the list from the North of Europe.

 

2010 Octavia II 1.8TSI DSG ~120000km/74500miles

 

I bought the car at the end of the year 2013 and drove it for about 2000km after which the engine oil level light went on. I topped up the oil and drove for another ~2000km and the same thing happened. After this I took the car to maintenance and oil consumption tests were carried out and the outcome was that the car ate about 0,54dl / 1000km (621miles) of oil.

 

Luckily I had an extra insurance on the car because this meant that the engine needed some serious fixing that costed over 4k€!. Now after having the engine redo done, the guys at the shop said that the piston oil rings were totally filled up with crust letting the oil from the engine to the combustion space thus burning it away. Also the timing belt guide attached to cylinder head casting had cracked but still in place, which might have led to major damage in the engine if the belt would have jumped. So I should be happy that I took the car in early enough… :/ On top of there minor faults, all four cylinder had scratch marks on them so they needed to be honed out.

 

All the parts that were replaced are newer, better? ones, like pistons, cranks and oil rings that should be larger than the old ones, timing belt, + tons of other little things.

 

It really seems that VAG failed miserably with the TSI engines.

 

BTW. The same shop had fixed couple of Audi TSFI engines recently which are “sisters” with the TSI.

[Norco]

Not to be pedantic but this ^ doesn't look like a tensioner failure?

[jmf]

Is there any information about tensioner failures on the ea888 unit of the mk3 vrs? (checked that particular subforum, but didn't see a similar thread)

[Stevery]

My 59 plate vrs tsi suffered a tensioner failure on Wednesday. 43k miles. Knew what it was when it happened, just didn't think it would happen to me! Extended my warranty last month, car currently with the dealer being stripped prior to submitting the claim to Skoda uk. Hopefully the costs covered by the warranty but won't find out until next week.

Steve

[DGW]

I am sorry to hear that bad news and will add details of the failure to the growing list in the first post. Could you please post the age of your car (month and year), how the failure occurred (eg on startup), whether or not there had been any prior timing chain rattle, whether full Skoda service history or otherwise, variable or fixed servicing, and which warranty company covers your car? Also have you been advised of any fault codes logged? Car Care Plan were excellent recently in covering my claim in full for a replacement final drive for my Octavia II 1.8TSI 4X4.