Had the octavia remapped today by the mobile tuner eco power of doncaster. He turned up on time and within the hour the remap was done and ready for me to test drive. I drove to the top of the street and straight onto the dual carraigeway and the power felt in a different league altogether, but i noticed two or three big flat spots in the acceleration. Anyway the car ran ok for another say 20 seconds until the orange engine light came on and a nice burning rubber smell made itself apparent inside the car. The car then proceeded to run like a dog all the way home in which case i drove very slowly and s###ting myself that something major was wrong with it.

The fella who remapped it had a look and said it was either the coil packs or perhaps a leaked hose and did a diagnostic which suggested what he'd said. Im no expert with cars AT ALL so i took his advice and went and bought a new coil pack (bosch) after he had of course remapped it back to standard. I swapped the bosch in place of each pack at a time and after the third attempt the car now runs smoothly with no fault codes (fingers crossed). All in all this has really put me off having it remapped. Are these coil packs a common problem with the mk1 vrs? Would it be wise having any other checks on the car to see if anything else was damaged? And are there any safer ways of attaining an extra 20 - 30 bhp?

Perhaps i could replace all the coil packs with bosch ones and replace some hoses but then its just bumping the cost up.

Anyone had any similar problems?

Coil packs can be replaced free of charge, through your local vag dealer.....

I'd strongly suggest going to a 'proper' tuner!!! There are plenty of really excellent tuners around, do a search (Jabba, Shark etc.) to find out more.

Steve

Coil packs are a common part that fails on the 1.8t cars in the vag group buddy. It is probably just coincidental you had one go whilst mapping was taking place. You should not be put off by this. Although mapping a car does put slightly more stress on car and parts so if a coil pack was on its way out the map would of pushed it further. Most owners carry a spare coil pack on car as they are that common to go. Also as stated you may qualify for a free replacement as even the vag group dealers recognise the early coil packs are suspect. There is a thread on here ref the recall, just phone dealer up with your reg and they will check for you. Also as stated get a recognised mapper to tune your car is best option although in your case not really the mappers fault for a coil pack to go

Most owners carry a spare coil pack on car as they are that common to go.

...or 2 (as it happened to loose 2 of them in a very hot day while driving like an idi0t)