Adz_VRS

Have you checked over and cleaned out your breather system. Ive had terrible mpg for a while now, actually struggling to achieve 25 mpg....... just this weekend i have cleaned all my breather system out as it was clogged badly, i actually replaced the rocker cover too in fear the main breather was blocked on that too. All sensors have been cleaned or replaced including injectors. Ive replaced the thermostat and carried out a general service. Im very pleased to as that to my surprise my 1.8t is now running alot smoother and has returned thus far an average 42 mpg! This is the highest it has ever been during my ownership.

Everything up and running again. Car sits comfortably at a firm 90 degrees. Going to check breather system closely the next few days. Cleaned all electrical connections, the inlet air temp sensor was shocking! The throttle body did need a good clean too. The car seems to be uber smooth now whilst driving but i have noticed that it tends to hunt slighyly on idle ( i put this down to me removing the battery whilst removing the alternator/throttle body). I have seen that the car is running slightly lean too. When replacing the plugs the tips of the electrodes were white :( so need to sort this issue out too. My catch tank is now visibly venting to atmosphere via a filter element too so early signs are good. Thanks for the help guys

I had this issue for quite some time. Tye car was worse to start on cold mornings and actually got to the point where it wouls misfire until warm. I always carried out general maintenance i.e oil, filters, plugs and even coil packs. What actually sorted my hesitation in the end was the replacement of my fuel pressure regulator. This cured all my rough idling, pedal hesitation and cold start misfiring. I hope this helps.

Yeah Leeboy thats what the aim of this weekend was about. Fix all the little niggles of the car and see where it takes me. The purpose of the post was to see if i was missing anything that i havent thought about. Im hoping that the rocker cover swap has helped the main breather to relieve vapour to the catch tank (or heat it up to optimal temp as you suggest). Fingers crossed the wynns engine flush has done its job and moved/flushed any residual gunk from the engine (yet to be seen/believed). Im hoping that i dont have to go tonyhe extent of removing the sump and oil pump again for inspection but maybe its wise to do so....... pain in the ass of a job to do when your on your back. I have already in the past replaced the coolant temp switch to the newer green version, done a whole load of simplification mods to vac and boost lines; in the past 5 weeks its had a full turbo back system, new primary and secondary lambda, Bosch MAF, N75 valve, plugs, ultrasonically Cleaned injectors and new 3 bar fuel pressure reg ( car has suffered hesitation issues ever sinse i purchased it some 5 years ago). It just seems you fix one thing then create another issue with these engines. Got to love VAG cars. My Fabia VRS is exactly the same! That bugger ended up with another engine in it and a garret turbo. Money pits these Skodas like haha Will update this thread with my findings after i get the car up and running again. Thanks for all the advice guys

I suppose for me its the time scale since the last clean out i find hard to believe the car doesnt have a bigger issue :(

Thanks bigjohn. Albeit i understand your theory and yes the car has always had a build up of gunk; noted when originally fitting the catch tank system. Why would all of a sudden the issue get so much worse than ever before? The fact that in a weeks driving the entire breather system has clogged again after a complete flush and pipe clean is crazy to think it it merely condensation causing this issue. I do accept condensation will always eventually begin to clog the pipes but to the extent to fully clog the pipes within 150 miles of driving. I left the engine running for 20minutes whilst running an engine flush today, drained the oil and removed the breather pipes merely for easy access to the coolant system; only to find the pupes werent condensed, but actually full of water! This was whilst running an atmospheric setup so the condensation should have evaporated out of my breather filter and not consensed as much to acumulate so much water. Im not over exaggerating regards the water,as soon as i removed the jubilee clip from the upper crank case water just flowed out :( I suppose the only other aspect to consider would be that the vapour (s) cannot exit the oil catch tank and that the catch tank itself is the source of the issue. If that is blocked then condensation will not pass through to the aymosphere to evapourate and therefore accumulate in the tank. My confusion arrises because the can is open to dump all condensed vapours at all times as so not to fill up. But obviously after todays findings all breather pipes are still full of water and the catch tank is empty :/ i just cant get my head around the huge amount of condensation/ water present when it should just vent off or condense in the catch tank and drain..... (oh btw i have a used coke bottle sitting below the catch tank drain outlet to stop everything dripping into the moving parts of my car/the road). Baring in mind my breather set up to atmosphere, im also surprised to find that whilst my car idled to flush the oil, if i opened the oil cap and restes it in position, the pressure build up behind it would rattle the cap around instead of it sitting still. Does this indicate that the main crank case breather is/was blocked? Bare in mind no pcv valve or hockey puck is present......

Oh and as far as weathers concerned, yes it has got worse thanks to the cooler season

Hey bigjohn Thanks for that. The venting to atmosphere was only for test purposes whilst the issue is to be solved. Apparently this should have helped reduce water build up whilst resolving the issue however it hasnt. Itll be reversed to PCV this weekend as the car has ran that set up for the past few years with no issue (s)..... No preasure test yet, just a fume test. Was hoping that removing the rocker cover would shed more light on the issue however it hasnt been as enlightening as i hoped. If when the car is back together the issue persists then i will have to pursue this or other means of testing. Just trying to do everything i can that im able to without taking it into a garage. Im just mostly concered about the modine breather and what may well be residing in there seeming how that 90degree elbow is the one mostly effected by the mayo build up.

Tbh i carry out a 10 mile commute to work and back 5 days a week however most my mileage is covered going here and yhere over the weekend. My temp sits low and i have a new thermostat to fit tomorrow too. It'll get upto 90 but only in traffic then dye down to roughly 60/70 degrees whilst driving freely all other times.

Not a great deal tbh somewhere between 130 to 170 miles a week.

Hey guys. Just want to pick your brains. Ive been having major issues with my vrs. The most recent is an obserd amount of water present in my breather system. Ive fitted a samuchi catch tank, simplifying and deleting the pvc. This has been a closed loop system thats been present on the car for a good couple of years with little issue. On a routine service/maintainance a few month back i noticed evidence of what i thought to be head gasket failure. Typical moose like gunk under the oil cap. A quick check enlightened me to a full catch tank. So that was emptied and hey hoe.... the issue went away, no more gunk. So i upped my catch tank emptying routine to once a week. This alarmed me as the can would be quite full of just water..... very little in the way of gunk at all. Anyway the head gasket symptoms are back, gunk under the oil cap pretty much every day. Ive had a good check of my coolant levels and that never changes and a sniff test was negative to fumes so one can only presume the excessive breather vapour is filling the catch can and back syphoning into the head and down to the oil modine breather. Last week i completely stripped the breather system. To my horror all pipes were full of mayo. The lower oil modine breather was completely blocked all together. Absolutely full of mayo a good 3 to 4 inches up the pipe work. All over pipes were just very clotted but still open. I cleaned everything out. All pipes were flushed and the modine/crank case breathers were cleaned out and the catch can itself was flushed. After reading a few forums from the US; i converted to an open system and deleted the PCV valve and vented the catch can to atmosphere. Aparently this would dramatically reduce the build up of water vapour and reduce the chance of water build up in thenpipe work again. Needless to say i checked it again 2 days after performing this and the catch tank was full of water again! So ive left the can open to drain at all times and also venting to atmosphere. Ive ran like this for the past week Today i removed the rocker cover and replaced it with a perfect donor item. My original was absolutely minging! So looks like it may well have been blocked. But to my disgust i found that all my breather pipes were all gunked up again! Less than a weeks work of driving to be honest has resulted in a completely blocked modine breather again and mayo everywhere. Does anyone have any idea what could be going on here as this car just seems to want to go to the knackers yard. Its just ticked past 130k and its always been ran on 5w30 castrol magnetec. I actually replaced the oil pick up pipe alone with the oil pump last year so cant imagibe thats got anything to do with it. Just wobdering if theres anything else to check before i put the car back together again in the morning. Cheers guys and sorry for the rant.

Well looks like ive sorted my issue. Took inlet mani off today and removed injectors. They were absolutely caked in crud. Cleaned injector cups and added some low mileage BAM injectors with a new 3 bar fuel pressure reg. Oil change tomorrow but thankfully no more boost surge and the car drives like a dream! Woo hoo

Ive been chasing the source of my boost surging for years now. Without spend too much money replcing this, that and the other. Ive carried out a boost leak test numerous times, if leaks are found i replace hoses. To simplify the problem i deleted the N112 and N249, secondary air pump, fuel carbon canister and added the popular oil catch tank upgrade. All helps bit still the issue is there. My car is mapped, running a 2.75" straight through system, decatted, Forge FMDV008 with yellow spring and cold air intake, egr delete and TIP. Ive replaced oil pumps and updated the coolant temp sensor. Yesterday i bit the bullet and purchased a genuine Bosch MAF and brand new N75E valve from an S3 ( due to map and decat went to higher spike valve). Neither of these cured my issue but has made the car alot smoother to drive. But WOT causes a horrible 'hold back' feel. Car doesnt misfire just feels as if its hitting some sort of 'safe' map. For me i think its a fueling issue. I do have slightly leaking injectors as the tops of the cups that sit in ths inlet mani are moist and golden. Also all my spark plugs are actually white. Indicating the car is running lean (not good). My point is, check everything you can your self for the cheapest answer before throwing money at it. Cleaning the MAF never actually worked for me unfortunately. Hopefully you find a simple vac line split

Now you mention it the car does have leaky injector cups. I get a lovely golden stain around the base of the injectors that i clean regularly to see how bad they are. But my local skoda dealer will only sell me an injector and not the plastic cup it sits in :/ This is on all 4 injectors too.

Nope doesnt seem too. If anything the car is actually using a bit of oil. Not an alarming amount. Im running a full vacuum and breather simplification with oil catch tank. Im just wondering if this is an early sign of a bigger issue(s)

Hi guys. Been battling with this car mk1 vrs for some 5 yr now to get it to run right. But to no avail! Id actually doing my head in but the car doesnt really cause me a great deal of grief and ita worth fook all (previous write off for rear quater panel damage). Ive always checked my oil regularly and kept to servicing schedules using castrol edge 5w30 (i believe this is correct as cant bring to mind - own other cars too). Now recently i have noticed a pronounced smell of fuel when removing the dip stick. Smelling the oil confirms theres fuel present there. Does anyone have an opinion as to what is the cause? I may have a weeping rocker cover (cleaned off area today and will check over the next couple of day to confirm if it is); but other than that i cant see much as a give away. Any help or guidence is appreciated. Cheers

Do you have inlet mani, injectors n112 and 249 and the carbon canister system? Cheets5

Cheers guys. I dont have a viable laptop (its bloody rubbish) so thought this might be the best alternative route to vagcom. Im just sick of this car not running right. Tipical boost surges, miss fire, running lean ect...... just board of replacing parts in hope of a solution.

I might be wrong here but im sure different codes had different breather systems so you might find if its not an AUQ you might have to mod the oil breather system to suit. Someone here will know for sure though.

Hi guys just wondering whats the best app to run pn my android phone whilst trying to diagnose issues? Ive heard good things about Torque but are there any others to help me fault find? Cheers guys

Hi im interested but could you tell me more about the coilovers? What age/mileage have they covered? Did you purchade them new or second hand? Thanks

Oh and if it helps the turbo doesn't seem to have collapsed but I have by passed the turbo inlet by removing the top boost hose and starting the car that way. This seemed to work everytime for me until today where the car was just no having any of it; I get the typical compression "putt" but no ignition spluttering or anything resembling a start. Cheers

Oh I forgot to mention that the lift pump seems to work fine. Can hear it with ignition and I checked this when priming my new fuel filter.

Hi guys! I've owned my Fabs for approx 8 months now and it really hasn't been happy sailing. Everytime I think the cars OK, something else happens and it's to the point now that I hate the thing. I've spent so much money on it that it's now not feasible for me to get rid. Now I've had the head gasket done (not without its issues afterwards) but we managed to get roughly 3 months happy motoring from the car. It cracked it's intercooler end cap so replaced that. Finally started to feel like a brisk car after that then I suddenly started to loose coolant! Again the head gasket saga! Nope. No oil under oil cap, no exhaust gasses in header tank but could I heck find the leak. In the end it was the aluminium coolant pipes leading into the heater matrix. Couldn't see the leak as the sound deadening felt on the bulk head was covering it. Well same day that was sorted I was out in the car and boom, the dreaded siren turbo noise. Since then the car has randomly decided to just not start. It'll turn over but nothing. The AA hooked it up to a jumper, kept turning it over and boom, it eventually fired up. It also kept running OK for a few days after that. However it's happened again and since only got worse to the point of it won't start everytime now. I suspected the tumble pump as it's looked ropey for a while so I took it off, checked it over and replaced the gasket. No difference at all however now the car will start with the first then of the key but then immediately die! I can get it going if hooked up to another motor so I don't deaden the battery. This is annoying though for obvious reasons. Today I decided to replace the fuel filter ans all went straight forward. I primed the filter and checked everything over. Making sure the return valve arrows followed the same as the flow print on the pipes. However I just can't get the car to start at all now. Nothing won't even attempt to splutter. I'm convinced you can only fit the non return valve one way on the filter housing but I can't think what's wrong. I even took off the fuel line leading out of the filter and by Christ was it pressurised. So I know there's plenty of fuel going round the injectors.I've tried now for over an hour to get the car started but nothing. I'm just wondering if anyone could shed some light on this or maybes help me look at it from another angle? I don't get lights on the dash after the preheat goes out. I only get the low oil pressure warning light after cranking for 10 seconds or so then when the battery looses juice all lights come on. Thanks guys and sorry for the war and piece

Hi silky, do you still have the intercooler? Cheers