Hi all

Im now looking for a new car and have had mk4 golfs in the past but am now looking at the mk1 octavia diesel as i need the space.Iv seen a 51 plate octavia tdi with 110 bhp local to me and i was wondering what sort of things to look out for when going to buy one ? The car iv seen has done 88,000 and was serviced and had the cambelt and water pump done at 83,000 so that would be one headache out the way so is there any pointers as to what to look for or any common problems on these and the diesel engines.

Cheers

Gary

there is the sticky turbo problem. Plenty of information on here about that, caused by sticky vanes in the turbo causing the car to go into limp mode (tractor like performance) at about 3000 rpm. Give it some welly when you test drive it and see what happens.

As trundlenut said, the sticky turbo problem can be an issue. It would be good to find out how the car was driven by the previous owner, if they drove it like a granny everywhere and only did short trips then you might find you're landed with a £250 bill to have the turbo taken off and cleaned out.

Other than that the TDIs are pretty reliable. My mate has had a few issues with the cambelt tensioner on his but nothing major.

ahh brilliant not too many headaches then really so when i test drive it if the car takes off and drives fine without any holding back or lack of performance then the sticky turbo problem hasnt reared its head ?

cheers guys

Hi bought one a few weeks ago (L&K 52 plate) -lovely car - BUT check ALL the gizmos - including the rear washer -mine had the pipe off and on the hatchback the join is just above a connector block for the central locking - after trying the rear washer a few times central locking went mad (locking all the time!!!) easy to sort but a pain when it happened in the middle of the night

only negative thing i've found - mpg is as good as the adverts and comfort is better than my old Audi A4 (1.8T ) but don't expect nippy performance!

ps and check the door close microswitches - my drivers door one works sometimes - only a niggle but .....

Check the aircon - search on here for stories of the compressor clutch going when a nut becomes loose. Can be expensive to fix.

My 03 Tdi Ambiente just passed 162,000 miles last week - in January they told me my DMF was on the way out - AFAIK that will be the first clutch change on the car when it does happen.

Can't complain......

Hi bought one a few weeks ago (L&K 52 plate) -lovely car - BUT check ALL the gizmos - including the rear washer -mine had the pipe off and on the hatchback the join is just above a connector block for the central locking - after trying the rear washer a few times central locking went mad (locking all the time!!!) easy to sort but a pain when it happened in the middle of the night

only negative thing i've found - mpg is as good as the adverts and comfort is better than my old Audi A4 (1.8T ) but don't expect nippy performance!

ps and check the door close microswitches - my drivers door one works sometimes - only a niggle but .....

If you want nippy performance , look out for a 130 tdi 6 speed , 2003/2004 year , but not many about .