Volf's Darkside Octavia Mk2 - End of the road *Stripping for parts!*

[Gissin]

On ‎20‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 12:30, Volf said:

Yep, ECU snuffed it. Water ingress.

 

Have a matching unit in the post, Just the ballache of getting it coded and then getting the map back on it. Not really what I need right now, starting a new job Monday in Gatwick and clearly, Need the car.

yeah thought as much, how did that happen? I've not heard of water ingress knackering up a ECU since Passat b5's pollen filter seals

[Volf]

6 hours ago, Gissin said:

yeah thought as much, how did that happen? I've not heard of water ingress knackering up a ECU since Passat b5's pollen filter seals

Before visiting Narco for a custom map, I had to go to another garage to have the ECU unlocked. Narco didn't have the means to do so at the time. So it was opened up, put on a bench and worked on. Then put back into the car. Would appear they failed to put all six screws back in and seal the unit correctly. Was the massive downpour a few days ago, me parked up a hill which appeared to be enough to pool into the ECUs lid.

[Volf]

So I got a replacement ECU off eBay. Package the new and the dead one together to ship to Narco. Shipped Monday for next day delivery as I wanted to get it done as soon as possible.

Parcel Force has only gone and lost it.

Pi**ed off doesn't quite cover it.  I'm utterly fuming.

[Wardy]

FFS. Parcel Farce's reputation strikes again.

[Volf]

Parcel Force found it in the end. Didn't tell me where.

Narco now has them both... Time will tell!

(Don't think I can face another drive in my mums golf SOMEONE SAVE ME FROM THE TAPE DECK OF DOOM

[Volf]

Whilst I wait for my ECU to return, Very sudden crash diet in wake of new plans...

 

 

 

 

 

[Volf]

Two more days = Week five of no car.

 

/Huff/  

 

[Volf]

Spare ECU shipped to Cartech Electronics to have the immo removed.

Then a short drive to Narco.

[Volf]

Shocker.

- Packed and shipped via UPS yesterday (Not using ParcelFarce anymore, damn the expense)
- Got to CarTech this morning just after 9.
- Had an email a while ago to say "Been decoded, Packed and shipped back to you today"

[Volf]

The moment of truth...
 

 

[Volf]

I swear to god, there must be SOMETHING that doesn't want me to drive this car.

ECU in, Ready for Narco on Thursday. So I go to move it up onto my ramps to install a new sump guard which I brought almost two months ago. Only to find someone has dropped it in transit and one of the edges are bent. So one hammer and heat session later, it's looking "Better". So on to moving! Flick the wipers and only one wipes... The other some how found it self jammed and has rounded off the splines as smooth as a babys bum... J-O-Y.

Not even driven it yet and it still won't let me...

[Volf]

It's either the depression, or I'm genuinely fed up with the car, But seriously thinking about stripping it down and selling the good bits off to fund something else.

 

Was out to get an MOT the other day, but after a mix up of times and dates, turns out I wasn't even booked yet. A waste of a day. Turns out that this was probably the last thing on top of many other things going on right now, which has lead me to the point that I think I've had enough and want to move on from this car. I would take a step back from it and do something else, but there isn't anything else I can do in the mean time...

I know many don't really want to hear it, but this depression has been nothing but a struggle for so long that it totally saps all the enjoyment out of things I loved doing. Art work, charity work, car, job, friends, family and the whole sense of 'what is my existence for?' keeps looming up from time to time. Whilst I am on medication and seeing a private therapist, some days it helps, but on the whole I am really starting to question it's effectiveness.

[stuart vrs]

Just read this thread and simply awesome, there is light at the end of the tunnel butty, keep going. 

[Volf]

If you where snarled up along the M23, Southbound near Gatwick, around 6AM this morning.

That was me.

 

 

 

And back home. Again...

[Volf]

 

Driving to work Monday morning around 530am. Car starts to run rough. It sounds like an injector has failed. Had it before a few years ago. So I nurse it to work as that's already near enough to get to rather than turn around and head home. Just as I get to the slip road to pull to Gatwick, It dies. Just straight out dead. No warning, Just the battery warning light and nothing more. Try starting, turns and turns and turns. Try again, same thing. So I'm stuck on the slip road, with no where to go. I can't push it by myself, it's up hill and there's no hard shoulder to roll back to. Not that I could roll back anyway with all the traffic backing up. So on the phone to the RAC and about 5 mins later, Traffic officers showed up. Nicely they gave me a tow and put me on the hard shoulder just before Gatwick.

An hour later, the RAC guy came out and spent all of 5 minutes looking at it and did nothing. Then justed called for a third party tow to take me home. Thanks for the help and the positive attitude(!). So spent another hour sitting around. What was more annoying is that I was no less than two miles away from work. Could of walked it, but this is Gatwick. Police soon picked me up as well, checked things were okay and that was that, off they go. Soon, my towing party comes along, jumps out, has a quick look and spots the airlift system in the boot.

"Is that the V2 system?" He's installed a V3 system in a friends car not so long ago, it turns out the guy is quite a petrol head himself. So we're chatting away, getting on quite well. The tow home for the hour and a half blew by I didn't even notice we were talking so much. So the guy gives me a hand to get it back on the drive and then really starts to look over the engine to see whats up. Pulls his own tools out and we're both looking at it. Narrowed it down to the tandem pump. I mention I've replaced this before once a few years back, maybe it's the same thing. Unfortunately, Whilst waiting at the side of the road, I had ordered a set of used injectors and a tandem pump at the lovely cost of about £400 thinking it was that. So anyway : We chat a bit more, hops in his van and off he goes back down south towards Brighton. (Later on, he sends a friend request over on Facebook Haha)

 

I borrow mums car and head back to work, again.

 

Tuesday : Injectors came, but no sign of the pump yet so I made a start on taking the tandem pump off. Done it before and forgot what a hassle it was with pipes in the way. Soon it's off and out of interest, I strip it down to see how it works inside. I've always been taking things apart when I was younger to see how things worked. Maybe I could find the issue with this pump. So now it's in bits all over the floor. I can't see anything wrong, things seem to move like they should. So, I put it all back together again and put it back on the car. Plug everything in, turn the key.

Starts. 

 

Okay starts and idles rough. So I switch off, checked everything over again and started it. Quick blip on the loud pedal, idles fine.

Left it running for a bit whilst I cleared up, Still fine. Took it down the road, still okay. Ran it up and down the local bypass with tool kit in the back, Fine.

So I'm stumped. 

 

No idea what it was. So now I have a set of injectors and a tandem pump I didn't need and £400 out of pocket. Still, I could hold on to them for a while and then sell them off on eBay again later on and hope I don't lose too much on the resale. Having explained what happened, anyone got any ideas to what it could of been? 

 

Oh, you'll like this : Went to see the boyfriend last night, borrowing mums golf. I go to go home ... and the Golf wont start  I tell you, I could have my own comedy show at this rate...

Got it working again, HT leads are shot. Bit of sand paper and swearing.

[Volf]

Right, so, where to start...

Skoda still sat on the drive way looking sorry for itself. Bumper off and dumped in the boot. Having replaced if not most/all of the fuel system and still not getting anywhere, myself and friends suspect the ECU is to blame. Having had it returned from CarTech unlocked and running fine before the map, It can only be that. But as the symptoms where fuel related, I only guessed it was something else along those lines.

 

So new pick up pump, relay, tandem pump, lines, filters and a set of injectors I didn't need (To which I sent back and the seller accuses me of sending the wrong ones back to pull a fast one on them.  Got eBay on the case and funny enough, got refunded )

Got it running again *Yay!* Head off the next day to get my MOT done as it ran out a while ago. I get half way there and guess what. Dies again. On the phone to a friend and we both agree it can only be the ECU. Either a bad flash, wrong map or /something/.

 

So, I've packed the original dead ECU and another spare unit and shipped them both to CarTech. If they can recover the map from the dead one, I'll be forever impressed. Then it *should* be a simple case of just putting the spare ECU with the original mapped file, back in and all should be well... He says... Fingers crossed, lucky charms in hand, rabbits with feet and all that.

Not saving any money going to and from work in mums THIRSTY mk3 Golf 8v "fuel to noise converter" GTi, but thankful all the same I can still go to work!

Edited 4 October, 2017 by Volf

[Volf]

Well I sent away the (I quote) "Dead" ECU and a spare, off to CarTech : https://www.cartechelectronics.com/

 

Asking if they could work their magic on them both, by recovering the original map data off the dead unit and put it all onto the spare one.

... They've only gone and done it  But unfortunately, I can't fully test this one as the MOT ran out last week. So rather than wait to be caught out by some jobs worth whilst on a test run, I've having to save myself for Thursday when I can get the MOT booked. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I *should* of just gone to them in the first place with the water damaged ECU and could of saved all this hassle.  Then again, Had TRP done a good job, None of this would ever of happened... Live and learn.

[Jonny5ive]

Onwards! Too much work done not to have this back on the road.

[Volf]

MOT time tomorrow.

 

It's the moment of truth if CarTech's magic has worked.

[Volf]

Same again. Died on its arse.

 

Running from cold, it's fine. But when its warmed up and you give it some, it then splutters a bit and then stalls when you slow down.

 

Joy.

 

Ordered injector loom. Replaced another temperature sensor (Didn't even know there were two of them, down the front and one on the side under the tandem pump)

[AdamJonezy]

21 hours ago, Volf said:

Same again. Died on its arse.

 

Running from cold, it's fine. But when its warmed up and you give it some, it then splutters a bit and then stalls when you slow down.

 

Joy.

 

Ordered injector loom. Replaced another temperature sensor (Didn't even know there were two of them, down the front and one on the side under the tandem pump)

 

Such a shame, was hoping you had finally got it sorted. I feel your pain, really hope you manage to get it fixed soon. Such a nice looking Octy. 

[Volf]

Right, I gave up. 

 

Did everything I could do but it wasn't enough. I'm out of ideas now and out of time.

 

So bit the bullet and booked it into a local garage. Can only guess how much of a hit the wallet is going to get...

 

[Wardy]

Sad to hear of the continual problems. Has there been any progress via the local garage?

[Volf]

8 hours ago, Wardy said:

Sad to hear of the continual problems. Has there been any progress via the local garage?

 

Not yet no, Failed to mention it doesn't go in until the 8th  Garage was quite booked up.

 

Hopefully good news shouldn't be too far away. Knowing my luck, it will go in and a day later "Oh we changed one sensor and it works now"  But more than likely a sensor I can't get to!

[Volf]

Vass-Tech called to say that the Skoda is running again. They got it started and it's started every time they've turned the key. Ran up to temperature and it's ran okay. They've not driven it as it doesn't have an MOT currently. So they're going to do that for me. Should hopefully have it back some time next week before the weekend. Then I can drive it up to temperature and see what it does.

 

As my memory is poor, I can't recall the full details to what was wrong, other than it just wasn't getting enough fuel. So I think more than likely the pick up pump is to blame again (Wasn't a brand new unit, I brought used) Might give them a call later just to ask what has been done again as I can't remember and if the pump was replaced. Once I have it back however, Will be giving it a run near home with a tow on standby just in case the problem isn't solved. I really hope it is.