My Octavia seems to be very unwell at the moment :(

It started up fine this morning and I drove 10mins or so down the road.

Then when pulling away from a roundabout the whole note of the engine changed. The engine sounds like a Subaru boxer engine, it's got a very deep unwell note. Looking down the engine management light had started to flash.

I pulled over and turned the car off, waited a few minutes and then re-started it. It starts fine but again you could hear in the engine note that it's not right. On pulling away the car shakes quite violently, it's fine when you get upto speed (although that takes a lot of time as the car seems to be in limp mode), but as soon as any throttle is applied the shaking starts again.

It sounds as if the engine is running on three cylinders :eek:

Theres a noticable popping coming from the exhaust even when idleing.

I limped the car home and had a good look around, I can't see any popped boost hoses and coolant and oil levels are fine. The engine doesn't seem to smoke.

Does this sound like a coil pack?

I had one go a few years back but I don't remember violent shaking on applying the throttle, just a rough engine.

Or something more serious? What else should I be checking?

As a side note the battery went flat the other week as the cars not been used for two weeks or so. Could I have an alternator related problem causing rough idleing?

Coil pack.

Just pull one out at a time and see if the engine gets worse.

I would say check and swap before driving again as the unburnt fuel will not do the CAT any favours.

Coil pack.

Just pull one out at a time and see if the engine gets worse.

Here's hoping it's a simple replacement like that

If you do end up putting paid to your cat: Cats 4 Less | Home

£74 quid brand new for the octavia thank you very much I bought one for my old passat 1.8T when it sheared off. i was skeptical because of the price, but flew through the MOT emissions test 3 days after fitting

Just popped the coil packs off one at a time.

Seems like coil pack 4 is at fault, the engine ran beautifully when that was taken off.

Interestingly the three other coil packs were letter L's, the one that seems to be at fault is a J. Off to Skoda tomorrow to pick up a new one. Will see if their still replacing faulty ones for free....

I only drove the car for about two miles yesterday and I have the use of another car for tomorrow so hopefully there will be be no CAT damage. Car has a full Blueflame system too so is running a 100CEL sports CAT.

Just a quick update, new coil pack ordered from Skoda.

Their now on a letter R, priced at £25.32 each.

Just asked the parts man to check with Service to see if their still replacing the older faulty ones with new coils free of charge. Will let you know when I get a response in case in helps others in the future.

yeah, i replaced all four with R versions when two of my J versions went