Yesterday I passed another 1.9TDI, but on the back his badge was all black, whereas mine and others I've seen has a red DI. It looked a standard Comfort model, but can't remember the age.

Is there a difference to the engine and/or model?

Cheers/.

The red TI designates a pump-injector (PD) engine. All turbo diesel Fabias have these, but some Octavias were built with the older direct injection engines.

The DI on my Octava pd 130ish is red and yes it does go quite well

Now if I paint the T red as well..................................

The red I use to mean the 110bhp apposed to the black 90bhp on the older non PD engines.

all black tdi on fabia means 1.4 tdi pd.

The red DI should mean 130 bhp. My sister's Bora TDI's got 130 (and a red DI)...

The Leon Cupra TDI's got an all-red-backed TDI...

Varies by model I think. Seen some Golfs with red DI which weren't GTI's so can only be 100PS IIRC. Also my Polo 1.4 had silver T and red DI... I'm sure they do it to confuse. Wish they'd badge them TDI 130, TDI 75 etc

Again, Seat have done it with the newer version of the Leon SE TDI (it says TDI 130 on the boot!)

The badge on my engine cover's just silver, too. Perhaps it's fairly random!!

How come the TDI on my engine cover is silver then?

'cos no-one needs to see it there.

For the Mk V Golf, IIRC -

TDI - 90 bhp or later 105 bhp

TDI - 110 bhp or later 115 bhp

TDI - 130 bhp

TDI - 150 bhp

Not sure about other models ?

Depends whether the badge notation of VW, Audi, Seat or Skoda is being discussed, as they all have different ways of marking the same engine and power! For example, the A4 1.9 TDI 130 Sport I drive from time to time, has just a red I on the boot badge.

And when I was on the MK-IVs forum, I think there was thread discussing the badges and one of the VW factories were apparently putting out cars with a mixture of badges for quite some time! Another example, when I was looking to buy a newer car, I went to see a Golf GT TDI 150 - that just had a silver 'GTI' badge on the back!!

Suffice to say, none of it makes any sense! Add to that people buying whichever badge they like from eBay/dealer and whacking that on

Steve