I have been a car owner for 40 years and never had a HT coil fail.

I have had my Octavia for 8 months and during this time I have two HT powerpack failures, Is this a common problem? the car has only 74,000 miles up now. It is a potentially dangeraous situation to suddenly loose power.

I have lost confidence is this car and I am afraid to take it too far from home, when will the third and fourth fail? This is obviously not detectable from the diagnostic because it was serviced and checked only 500 miles before it failed.

Are they easily fitted if I carry a spare Powerpack? will the ECU reset itself when it is OK?

It may be another make for me.

Edited 20 October, 200817 yr by Roker

lots of threads about coil packs http://briskoda.net/octavia-i/will-coilpack-problem-ever-fully-sorted/76301/2/ not just a problem on the Octy either. they are easy to change and you should keep at least one in your spares kit in the car.

Latest coil pack from Skoda (as of July '08)= 06B905115R @ £25.32 + vat each

not advisable to drive too far with a failed coil as the mixture will be way out and can damage the CAT (hence best to keep one in the boot)

Sometimes just unplug/pull out/push in/replug and they carry on OK for a bit, can be enough to get you where your going. HTH

Oh for goodness sake get a grip!!!! What makes you think coil packs dont fail on other makes of cars? In your forty years of driving, i would be surprised if any of the cars you have had in that time were as reliable as a modern car. Did your crs 30 years ago even last for 74000 miles before the engine or gearbox died? No i didn't think so!!!!!!!!!

Cars have never been so reliable and if regularly serviced will last for decades. Give me a coil pack over a gearbox/engine/alternator/points/starter motor/ ht leads/ condenser failure any day.

If you really want a crap car buy a renault!!!

They are a common problem with the VAG group, and even Watchdog ran a feature on them failing a long while ago, just carry a spare as they are eeeeasy peeesy to change.

Even with their faults they are a lot more relaible than the points, dodgy plug leads and distributors of fourty years ago.

Oh, and yes I am old enough to have been driving before that ice age.

OK, so they are easy to replace. What if it goes on some wet windy night miles from no where? There is no excuse for this type of failure, My 00 Mitsubishi never gave any problem.

How do you tell which coil has gone if you carry a spare?

Sounds like you should have stuck with the mitsubishi,welcome to the magical world of vag coils pack faliures are common as muck across the brands even if you had spent 40k on a audi you would still have to replace a coil pack at some point!!!!!

OK, so they are easy to replace. What if it goes on some wet windy night miles from no where? There is no excuse for this type of failure, My 00 Mitsubishi never gave any problem.

How do you tell which coil has gone if you carry a spare?

Please dont take this the wrong way, but I get the impression that what ever we say, you have lost confidence in the car and want rid of it, and in this case, that might be the best thing to do?

We can tell you how to check which is gone, and that is by changing them, but if on that wet and windy night miles from no where, you have to change the one nearest the battery on an Octy vRS, then I think you will resemble Basil Fourty, and start beating the car with a bush.

Whilst I can see your frustration, perhaps your comments as to build quality would be better directed to Skoda UK.

If one failed why not replace all of them and save the worry? I thought this was only really an issue with some older types pre 52 reg? I've never owned a car in the last 33 years that didn't break down in some way. The only ones that I lost faith are the ones that didn't start or worse still stop!

Thanks all. I think it is good advice to replace them all. This is good business for Skoda though. Why would they want to improve when they charged me €140 to change 1 power pack?, €50 was for diagnostic checks.

I would rather the car did not start than break down in the middle of a long journey.

Eventually I will get another Japanese car, they do not seem to have this problem

I had a Nissan 200sx before the Octy and it cost far more to run. I have a friend who runs a J reg Toyota Carina which costs next to nothing to run , but its still a pile of cr*p. To a large extent you get what you pay for. If you take your car into main dealers for everything it will cost more than diy or smaller garages whatever make. I don't think Skoda's are any worse than any other car really, you just got unlucky.

Thanks all. I think it is good advice to replace them all. This is good business for Skoda though. Why would they want to improve when they charged me €140 to change 1 power pack?, €50 was for diagnostic checks.

I would rather the car did not start than break down in the middle of a long journey.

Eventually I will get another Japanese car, they do not seem to have this problem

Don't blame Skoda, blame Bremi as they supply VAG with the coil packs.

The coil packs have been revised several times since they were first brought out so they should be ok now

Also its not just the VAG range that is affected by the Bremi coil pack problems, a quick search shows some Beemers had problems with Bremi coil packs.

Roker ......is this the only problem you have had so far ???

I also had a problem with the rear passenger door refusing to open. a Headlight dip motor not working. All within 8 months and 74,000 mile. Not a great reliability record

I also had a problem with the rear passenger door refusing to open. a Headlight dip motor not working. All within 8 months and 74,000 mile. Not a great reliability record

Yes, but if the car has done 74,000 miles but you have only had it for eight months, I have to ask what is the year of the car and how many owners before you?

Its hard to believe that you could buy a car of a reasonable age with 74.000 miles on the clock from a person you did not know, and not expect at least something to go wrong with it?

There isnt a car in the world with that type of reliability.

Also what model Octavia is it, and again what year, or is this a new car that is being used as a cab?

It's a 2003 Octavia 1.4 Ambient, bought from a Skoda dealer. and had 63,000 miles on when I bought it. I would have expected better. As regards the HT powerpacks, this could be a potentially dangerous situation if fails for instance overtaking on a motorway, as well as the inconvenience. I cannot believe that people are willing to accept this, like we accept Microsoft crashing. The old distributor system on my old Galant never failed in 190,000 mile

I'm not willing to accept it, it just doesn't happen all the time. You should have had them all replaced when the first one went. I'd also be curious as to whether they were the old type or the later type. I think your main problem is you sound like you've been overcharged! Oh and my Vista and XP have never crashed without an outside cause.

Roker,

Why not replace the other 2 coilpacks and you will be good for another 50000.

You have probably been lucky with other cars. On traditional ignition systems I have had a coil go in which case I lost ALL power.

FYI

Mine are the original items (53 plate so later design) and just shy of 80k and they are working fine.

There are only 4 cylinders... if two have been replaced simple answer is to replace other two then all four are brand new and the later version. Takes no more than 2 mins to change a coil except for the coil on R/H side of engine where you have to remove a little more to gain access to it.

74K on such a tiny 1.4 engine in a big car which will of spent its entire life under stress you would kind of expect things to start failing really.

But its a no brainer situ really... just simply change the other two unchanged ones!

If you only bought the car 8 months ago,you must have got a years warranty with it surely,and the dealer will fix any problems you have.

As regards your Mitsibushi not breaking down,with a 9000 mile service schedule it will never get a chance to break down, it will be in the garage.

wow do they really make a 1.4 Octavia?? Poor little engine must be getting a hard time pulling that around .