Brucemagoose511

As a previous DSG Fabia owner, I loved it but I wouldn't be revving it heavy in automatic anywhere near 1st gear. My DSG was faultless other than it seemed to sometimes get confused and drop down to 1st with crazy revs if I was driving on the threshold of 1st and 2nd (or downshifted from 3rd approaching a roundabout), and would then get stuck in 1st for a few worryingly high revving seconds. I'd suggest putting the DSG in manual shift, in 2nd gear, around 15mph before flooring it. OR have it in automatic in third gear around 20mph before flooring it. In either of those scenarios my old DSG car would have behaved. I don't know if Sports mode in a DSG overcomes those issues as I never used it!

Thanks, that's all very helpful and allays my concerns about damaging the engine. My usual driving these past two years is two return journeys of around 50miles each per week on very fast country A & B roads (roads I avoid when it is icey as they are less likely to be gritted). I have plenty of steep hill options to get the revs going on and should have the engine nicely warmed up before hitting the hills. If I add a couple of miles to my typical journey I'll take in a more hilly route to the same destination and the journey won't take me any more time. So I think I've plenty options to give the turbo a regular outing as part of my normal activity. I do wonder if my garage experiencing an up-tick of actuator issues is a result of less commuting (home working) and more 20mph limits being rolled out in both urban and rural areas. If these variables are impacting on a driver they'd probably want to consider the implications for their turbo.

Out of warranty now (only 90 days warranty with buying it online). I read elsewhere for the MkI that it starts around 1500rpm and really kicks in around 1900rpm - which is consistent with what you are saying. I presume it is something broadly similar. It gets lots of country drives, but is driven gently in winter. I didn't even notice something was wrong until 5 miles into my journey I started going up a very steep hill that it usually breezes up, and needed to downshift, and I then noticed the light. Could still get it up to 80mph. I guess once a week or so I'll just wait a few seconds longer before shifting up a gear than normal, then maybe once every few weeks give it a proper workout. Hopefully now it's been lubricated a bit it'll start behaving. Had an earlier squeaky clutch issue that unbelievably went away by itself over the course of a month, so maybe I'll get a second miracle.

MkIII TSI. I didn't have the stop/start error, but did get the EPC and engine warning light last week. This was after a period of not taking the car out so much and driving carefully due to winter conditions. A very knowledgeable and trustworthy independent garage said it was likely the Turbo Actuator and they are getting a lot of these for various makes and models. Turned out to be the case and poor mechanic after burning their hands managed to free up the part and get things working fine again since then. If it breaks sounds like it'll be around £250 parts and labour, which I can live with. Mechanic suggested driving the car hard from time to time to get the turbo going (presumably to stop it from seizing up again). Turbo seems to kick in at around 3000rpm in 2nd and 3rd gears, but does anyone have any more precise info on when the turbo kicks in? I don't really want to go revving the heck out of the machine every week or so. I'm hoping an occasional spurt on a straight B road during periods of reduced or gentler usage will be enough to keep the actuator in working order. Cheers.

Thanks again bud, that is perfect detail. Off to try my luck under the warranty.

Top info, thanks. Was this just the clutch pedal you got changed and not the master cylinder? Was the replacement pedal also plastic? Just trying to make sure I can get the right parts ordered by my local garage if, as I suspect, the company that sold me it mess me about with the warranty. If my worst case scenario is a couple of hundred quid I'll be keeping the car.

Does anyone know how much the above repairs (replacement. Master cylinder and clutch pedal) would cost and should it definitely fix the problem or would the replacement parts have to be just as cheaply built? I've just bought a nice enough MkIII TSI 95bhp, but on my first two journeys, after 20 miles the clutch pedal gets super squeaky every time it is pushed and released. I have a 7 day moneyback option and a 3 month warranty but I'm interested to know the possible cost of repairs incase I end up down the line having to get this repaired at an independent garage (as the company I bought the car from are not inspiring confidence).

Well I get a valuation of a over £3.7k on Regit and £2.6k on Evan's Halshaws, so I think it is Parkers that is the outlier (which I've also found when looking at cars to buy) by suggesting £1.9. Glass's used to be very accurate but they don't do free valuations anymore.

Its a 60 plate, 68,000 miles. Surprised by the valuation (for a functioning car obviously) of £3,400 on Webuyanycar (way above the estimated private sale value on Parkers) so I might stick some more money into experimental repairs / investigation. Probably going to have one last conversation with my independent garage to get his thoughts on some of the points raised here (spark plugs, borescope, wiring, coil packs) before I do anything else. Oil consumption has actually been reduced in recent months (it has been fairly thirsty in that regard historically, but nothing crazy). Usually I have to top up every 600 miles, but its 1,000+ miles since the last topup.

They must have done something when they examined it because the car is now undriveable, as weak as a kitten and I barely got it home whereas before it was misfiring a lot but still had oomph. I don't know if a compression test would have done that, but there is no hard feelings from me. The bottom line is I've now had a dealer, a freelance VAG technician and a standard independent garage all tell me they aren't willing or able to get to the bottom of the matter and advising me to keep my money in my pocket rather than pay them to undertake further investigations. So my options appear somewhat limited. I've only had to pay £100 in total on a car valued at £2k to reach this state and any money I don't spend on investigating it goes towards the replacement car. The dealer basically said the spark plugs looked in order, that it was low compression and that previous investigations into that weren't things they could be confident of getting to the bottom of or resolving. I didn't mention the coils because he was so certain it was a compression issue. I'm going to leave the car a week and see if it has a Lazarus-like recovery to the ECP state where I could do 50mph easily enough (sounds mad, but the engine warning lights can disappear after a few days and vehicle performance can change - although I imagine there is a less than 1% chance of that happening here). Then it is either a post on Gumtree for any one looking for VRS parts or getting it taken away to the scrappies. I'll wait and see how the car is performing in a few days before making that decision. Then the Joy's of trying to buy a car with confidence when it's just been announced in Scotland that the 'lockdown' continues for at least another month (so no test drives until at least then from my local Skoda dealers). Thankfully I don't have to drive to get to my work so I've nowhere to drive to at the moment anyway!

If I was in manual 1st or even 2nd and switched to D there was always a risk it would select D1 or even change down to D1, get stuck there and over rev quite badly. Maybe it was just a quirk with mine though but it was never a nice experience!

Quite alright, I should have said it was from a 2010 MkII, so may not be comparing 100% like with like in terms of my preferred driving style with it.

As a MkII VRS DSG user (7 gear) with similar driving habits to the OP I can only enthuse about the DSG. My preferences are: - keep it in D at all times in when you typically expect to be in 1st or 2nd. This prevents near 100% of any instances when the DSGgets a bit confused and puts you in far too low a gear (with very high RPM). - if in dense stop start traffic, I just switch back to D (rather than do any manual shift) and let the DSG take over and do what it thinks is right in response to me braking, cruising at low speed etc. - switch to manual shifting with the stick for gears 3 to 7 (my preference over the VRS tiptronic flaps on steering wheel, unless throwing it around winding country roads and wanting to keep both hands on the wheel). This way you are shifting more intelligently than an auto could ever do (as the auto (without AI self driving) can't possibly anticipate future road and traffic conditions in the way a human being can) - switch to D if you plan an aggressive acceleration. When in manual mode and you floor it the DSG will change your gear and can sometimes give you too high RPM in too low a gear, whereas flooring it in D is a joy to behold and the DSG always makes a wise selection. - for a less aggressive overtake then staying in manual is fine, but requires some experience and judgement to ensure you dont push the DSG into maximum acceleration. Once I learnt these rules I never had a massive over revving or any sort of experience that didnt feel very smooth. Aiming for the DSG in my next used Fabia as love how it works compared to clutch and manual shift and there seems to be no major concerns over DSG reliability.

Took it to dealers after all. Error code is "low compression in cylinder 3" and mechanic consider it needing a replaced engine and not worth trying things with. They said spark plugs were in order and set at an apporpriate position/gap. So I don't see much point in going for speculative repairs but am very grateful for the advice from folks.

Apologies, totally wrong thread. Any mod please feel free to delete!

Error code is "low compression in cylinder 3" and dealers consider it needing a replaced engine. So I don't see much point in going for speculative repairs.

Thanks again guys. From your advice and reading the forum elsewhere, if the latest error codes match the cylinder misfire issues (rather than suggesting anything electrical) my plan is: i) to ask my local garage to fit new spark plugs (specifically Denso Iridium with a 0.6mm gap - interesting reading the experiences of little changes in spark plug type and gap having a big impact) Then if that doesn't work completely or at all: ii) I'd ask to get coil packs replaced for any cylinders that are showing up misfiring (previously 2&3) or if it isn't going to cost that much more, then all the coil packs replaced. Any flaws in this cunning plan as a last roll of the dice on a modest budget? Do I need to be fussy about the type of coil packs or anything?

Apologies, there was no further repairs attempted, so no change to the spark plugs (which reportedly "looked in good condition"). By revving a little whenever stationary and avoiding flooring it I had been able to avoid getting the engine management lights more than handful of times in the last two years. The error codes would skip cylinders (e.g. 'misfire in cylinder 3' one time, 'misfire in cylinder 2' the next time). I suppose you would argue that the spark plugs may have been the issue and deteriorated further and that the central locking is a red herring? I appreciate I am making any investigation far harder due to penny pinching but paying £300 up front to get the dealer to even plug in and check the error code isnt something I can rationalise in the current financial climate. I'd happily throw a couple of hundred at it in a speculative repair, but not £500+ on such an ageing car with known engine faults in the model.

Hi folks. As an update in my MkII Fabia VRS I was able to change my driving style (avoiding low revs) and drive perfectly well (minus flooring it) for a further 2.5yrs and thousands of miles without any further expense and only very occasional appearance of the engine management light. Then on Xmas morning the engine management light came on followed by the dreaded EPC light came on and it appears every time I drive now. The engine misfires quite badly until the EPC comes on but once the EPC light comes on it behaves better, with no limit on revs and accepting speeds of 50mph (but still clearly not running smoothly like it should). The engine management light also never flashes after the EPC comes on. I am fully resigned to the car dying imminently and as it is only worth £2k now it makes no financial sense to me to get the any speculative repairs. However, the only factor complicating things in my mind is I've just today remembered that the EPC light appeared on the same journey as my central locking started locking me in my car as soon as I sit down. I see the central locking can be tied to the battery being low and is almost certainly unrelated, but the fact this happened on the same journey and that both issues now happen every time I drive makes me wonder if the EPC light could somehow be related to the central locking issue (even though the engine is clearly rougher)? Any thoughts? My excellent local independent garage has kindly offered to check the fault codes for me to try and confirm the EPC light is nothing to do with an electrical issue (and is a sign of terminal decline in the engine) but I dont want to waste their time or my money investigating if this is just a hare brained theory on my part. Also, are there safety issues with driving in EPC mode until the either the car becomes undriveable or until car showrooms start opening up again? As I say it is perfectly driveable at present outside of motorways and feels safe (I wouldn't drive if otherwise). Thanks as always for any thoughts and apologies if this post is really dumb!

Sorry, probably misinformed on my part but I'll be aiming more at the mid / lower level of the ranges of Fabia and Swift (aiming for the cheapest 90bhp+ option) and had read that while the 2010-17 baseline Swifts had the punchy engines the later baseline models were more sedate. I could just be talking out of my exhaust pipe and obviously this is not applicable to your Boosterjet or the Sport. I'm not a petrolhead or a driving connoisseur, I just find a minimum bit of oomph very reassuring and allowing decisive manoeuvres when overtaking on country roads or joining motorways. Thanks very much to you both. Decisions, decisions. I think it will just be a coinflip between the two cars depending on what offers are available locally within my sub-£10k price range at the time my VRS gives up the ghost. Second hand the TSI and the Swift seem pretty evenly priced based on age and mileage and the consensus seems to be the Swift edges the fun and handling and the TSI edges the refinement (plus my newly found preference for shifting gears manually, but without a clutch). Both your replies have helped keep both cars on the top of list and given me a bit of reassurance. So mercifully I don't have to go back to the drawing board and cast my net wider. Cheers!

Rather than create a new thread I thought I'd pick this one. I've had the MkI (TDI) and MkII (VRS). Both served me well but I got an engine issue with the VRS a few years ago that was unresolved and is now seemingly fatal or not worth the cost of lengthy investigation and speculative repair. I consider myself lucky I got a further 3 years of near perfect motoring out of it really otherwise it would have been an expensive failure. I'm looking at a petrol MkIII with BHP around 95-110, probably '17 or '18 plate and after my MkII experience and historic headlines around VW group TSIs I'm a bit once bitten, twice shy. So a few questions: - 3 years after this thread is there still optimism around the reliability and performance of the MkIII TSI engines (for the '17-'18 era in particular incase there were any further modifications)? - Any above average rate of issues with the TSI DSG and does it permit manual shifting like the MkII TSI? - my MkII VRS would have max acceleration kick in in normal mode if I floored it. Does the MkIII TSI do the same? - is the general consensus still that the 1.2 TSI has an edge on the 1.0? Any insights gratefully received. My backup plan is a Suzuki Swift from before they phased out the fun engines - are they VW engines too? (VW have 20% stake?)).