I have a 05 plate Octavia 1.9 TDI estate (95K on the clock). I have been having problems with an intermitant misfire for the last 10 months! It has been into the Skoda dealership a number of times but I'm still having problems. Here is a brief history...

Jan 09 - Car stalls in an automatic car wash. Cannot get it restarted for a few minutes until it dries out.

Feb 09 - Bad misfire with the car eventually stalling. Car would not restart at first but if I left it for 15 minutes or so it would come back to life without misfire. - Crankshaft speed sensor replaced

Car ran okay for 6 months or so

Aug 08 - Very brief period of 'gentle' misfire on very rainy day.

Nov 09 - Car started misfiring whilst going up a steep hill in the rain. Made it to the top but stalled as I slowed down on a flat stretch at the top of the hill whilst slowing down at a junction. Car would not start until rested for 15 minutes. Car runs fine afterward.

Nov 09 - Car suddenly stalls whilst idling at traffic lights (light rain). Car restarts straight away but after a coupe of minutes start misfiring badly - Diagnosed as a broken turbo pipe fixture (replaced). They also say the MAF is out of spec but this may be related to the turbo pipe fixture.

Dec 09 - On dry day head off on short trip with kids to go kiting. Car start misfiring aft 5 minutes. Head to garage but it stalls as I pull up to a busy traffic light. After turning the starter over for about a minute I managed to get the car going again and made it to the garage. - Diagnosed MAF and crankshaft sensor failure (again) - replaced both

Jan 09 - Stalls whilst idling. Car restarts instatly and drives okay (ignition coil light flashing on dash). Try the car next day and it starts misfiring again after about 10 minute of driving. Drop it off at garage - their diagnosis readout says crankshaft speed sensor again. I have left it with them to investigate it further but I am not convinced they know what they are doing anymore.

I thought there was a wet theme coming through but the last couple of ocassions I have had trouble have been dry. I also asked the garage to look into this but they said they found nothing even when they turn a hose on the engine.

The current misfire is is like a brief loss of power followed almost imediately by a burst back into life. It may do this for a few seconds then run okay for a few minutes. In between the spells of misfiring it can run for weeks without a problem

I have done some searching and I have found mention of problems with coils and injector looms on VAG TDIs. Could this be my problem.? Alternatively can any recommend a decent garage in the Bath/Bristol area from whom I may get better service? At the moment I feel the deelership doesn't not have any idea and are experimenting replacing parts (at my expense).

I can't help with the symptoms your car is displaying but I can recommend a very good garage I use in Bradford on Avon just outside Bath.

BRADFORD ON AVON VW AUDI CARS

Unit, Treenwood Industrial Estate, Bradford-on-Avon - 01225 867 708

Speak to Andy. He is a top bloke. I have been going there for about 14 years.

I know how you feel as I've just been through a similar saga with my 2.0TDI. It was misfiring badly and brokedown a

few times.

I was days from trading mine in when a fix was found, it was also the crankshaft sensor that was causing the problems. In the

5 days that I've had it back, its covered 500 misfire free miles and no breakdowns thankfully !! Fingers crossed it remains like that.

An idea would be to have them check the wiring to the crankshaft sensor if its flagging a fault again. It may be a bad connection

to the sensor, rather than the sensor itself. I have heard that looms can be a problem, which would make sense in wet/damp conditions.

I had the AA out to mine when it broke down four times. Every patrol man had a different theory...

Crankshaft sensor - No signal, kills engine I'm told......

Bad injector, would only cause poor running, not a stall.

Injector Loom, would only cause porr running...

EGR valve causing the problem.... would cause heavy black smoke.... no smoke at all from mine !

Mine also threw a tandem pump failure into the works to confuse matters !

Thanks Golf-Fiend and Swil00 for the help.

I have just had a call from the garage. They cleared the error on the crank speed sensor yesterday and have taken it for a number of test runs without the misfire happening again. They are suggesting keeping it for a few days to repeat the test runs or for me to pick it and then returning it when the problem happens again!

I also suspect some kind of bad contact somewhere is causing the problem.

> Crankshaft sensor - No signal, kills engine I'm told......

>

I can classify the stalls in two ways (but maybe they are one in the same):

1, Misfiring starts I slow down and when I reduce the revs then the car stalls

2, Car idling in nuetral then suddenly stalls. The stall is gentle with no juddering or spluttering... the engine simply stops.

> Bad injector, would only cause poor running, not a stall.

>

> Injector Loom, would only cause porr running...

>

I have seen a couple of posts where the loom was suggested in the case of intermittant misfires. If this was the problem I guess it would'nt cause the fault code for the cranks speed sensor though.

> EGR valve causing the problem.... would cause heavy black smoke.... no smoke at all from mine !

I haven't noticed any significant black smoke when the misfire happens. The car does put out some smoke under heavy acceleration. I was putting this down to it having done almost 100K.

I think I'll try taking the car to Andy in Bradford upon Avon to have a look

Thanks

David

Which local Skoda dealer have you been using? Bath or Bristol?

Which local Skoda dealer have you been using? Bath or Bristol?

Bath

Ah!

Edited 24 May, 201115 yr by Golf-Fiend

Mine would misfire, but kept going (just) once I came to a stop it would idle/rev ok, but stall/cut out as soon

as any load was placed on the engine. Car would then restart fine, just couldn't go anywhere.....

I've heard that "car road tested fine" story a number of times now.

UPDATE - A couple of days after getting the car back from the garage it stalled almost imediately after starting. After some vigourous cranking for a few minutes the engine did start up. As it was a Sunday I turned it off and decided to take the car to the garage the next day. I had the same problem getting the car started on the Monday morning but in the end managed to get it moving and dropped it off at the Skoda dealership. The poor starting persisted with the fault code again coming up as a faulty crank speed sensor.

The garage have now had the car for 4 days. At first they believed it must be a wiring/dodgy connection issue. They claim to have tested all electrics with an oscilloscope and they all appear to be fine.

There is some evidence of problems in wet weather so there may be some truth in the theory.

Could water be getting into the air supply somehow and causing the problem?

Hi,

I know its a long shot, but is both your cooling fan and the aircon fan working ok.

Reason I ask my 2.0tdi did the same and eventualy died completly never to start. RAC out twice dealer wanted £1,400 for a ECU.

but help on this forum told me to check out the fan multiplug for corosion, this it would seem sends corupt messeges to the ecu but dosn;t record a fault!!

new fans and the car started perfectly.

I did do the crank sensor myself when i was at the front of the car anyway.

hope this helps

Scott

UPDATE - The garage after keeping the car for a week has found and fixed a frayed wire which they believe was shorting out when it became wet. This would make sense and hope the issue is now finally fixed.

Thanks for all the help.

Good result. I hope this is a final fix for your problems.

Was it Platinum? Any idea which wire it was that was chaffing?

Good result. I hope this is a final fix for your problems.

Was it Platinum? Any idea which wire it was that was chaffing?

Yeah, it'd be good to know what wire they found to be causing it.... Building up a knowledge of things to check for when

things go wrong !

Good result mind, atleast its fixed.

The repair was done by Platinum and at least I got a free courtacy car for the week (an underpowered Renault Clio).

I didn't ask specifically which wire. The report just says the wire between the crank sensor and ground.