1.8TSI and 2.0TSI engine failures

[TsvRS]

I cant help feel rightly or wrongly  I am getting shafted by skoda 

Probably. You would be paying 40% of £7,000 which to be clear would be the price of an engine as a spare part to any old Joe who had just walked in off the street rather than to you as an established customer.

How much does the engine really cost? Probably about £1,500 before everybody starts taking their cut.

So when they say goodwill they mean you are being shafted slightly less than usual.

Calling it a stretched timing chain though seems to be some Skoda Newspeak way of avoiding saying it is the timing chain tensioner. Chains don't stretch - they get longer because the pins wear and that is why the chain tensioner needs to adjust itself to maintain the same tension throughout the service life. So the chain getting longer than it was will not cause the teeth to skip until the tensioner fails, the latter being the root of the problem.

You could get an independent assessment which would cost about £150 and provide you with court-admissible evidence. You might consider doing that before taking any further decision?

[m0bov]

Don't just roll over and accept the first offer. Mine went from £2k something or other to 0 just by probing and pursing all avenues.Push for a report, speak to your legal cover on house or motor insurance. Speak to whoever covers your breakdown. Try the press, CAB, fight it!

[cgwtnt]

 

Calling it a stretched timing chain though seems to be some Skoda Newspeak way of avoiding saying it is the timing chain tensioner.

 

I cant help but feel you are right.  the customer service advisor did state that because the dealer stated it was a stretched chain and not the tensioner that was faulty I wasn't entitled to the level of goodwill other have received when the fault was logged as the tensioner 

 

initial offer was 40% then when pressed they upped it to the 60% 

Edited 20 April, 2015 by cgwtnt

[TsvRS]

This looks like a good initiative even on ones own (coming soon to a dealer near me). Just imagine a concerted effort ...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3052043/That-s-one-way-make-point-Unhappy-motorist-plasters-35-000-Audi-A5-slogans-parks-outside-dealership-drinks-litre-oil-time-fills-up.html

[bullett]

Well, Skoda have taken a look at my car and said "it's broken" needs a new engine £6500 please.

No goodwill from Skoda as it's been serviced outside the dealer network.

 

They claim not to have taken the engine to pieces just followed the troubleshooting guide to the point of using an endoscope to look inside and tell me what I already know. When pushed the chap admitted it was probably caused by the timing chain jumping but they couldn't say unless they took the engine apart.

 

Is the cam chain tensioner a service item? if so when?

What is the expected life of one (typically)

 

Cheers

[DGW]

The timing chain tensioner and timing chain are not service items and in an ideal world would be expected to last the life of the engine.

Could you please post details of your car and the mode of failure along the lines of other entries in the first post in this thread so that I can add your car to that list.

[TsvRS]

In the pack I was provided with my car when new there is a detailed Service Schedule. It makes no mention of any check on the timing chain. In fact, somewhere in the Skoda documentation I believe there is specific mention of the timing chain as lasting the life of the vehicle.

Skoda Auto. Simply Stupid.

[bullett]

Thanks, slogging through the  thread surfaced the fact it's a non service item.

 

My car is a 2010 petrol VRS with the CCZA engine code.

65000 miles. I purchased new.

No clues anything was wrong, it was driving fine. Parked up one day and when I came back it didn't start.

My mechanic told me the tensioner chain was slack and that lead me here.

 

Just getting my facts together now before deciding on a plan of action. No goodwill offered so far so probably looking at SOGA.

[TsvRS]

The timing chain tensioner and timing chain are not service items and in an ideal world would be expected to last the life of the engine.

Could you please post details of your car and the mode of failure along the lines of other entries in the first post in this thread so that I can add your car to that list.

Please add mine too. vRS TSI i.e., CCZA engine with 90,000 miles. Unexplained camshaft lubrication failure and engine seizure in November last year. No remedy from dealer and no goodwill from Skoda UK.

Privately repaired with complete new engine.

[stace]

Looks good. Car is a 10 plate. 

 

I also bought a citigo new from the same dealer for our office runabout car. I'm due some love back I reckon 

Will keep you posted with progress

 

After a little persistence,  I paid nothing towards the repair. New engine with two year warranty. I believe the dealer may have come to the party with it too due to me having bought a new Citigo off them for my office. It seems if you want goodwill, it needs to go both ways. Seems fair enough. 

 

For sale now if anyone wants a low mileage car with a brand new engine. 

[TsvRS]

 It seems if you want goodwill, it needs to go both ways. Seems fair enough.

Normally a business treats its customers well so that they might be tempted to come back.

The Skoda version seems to be that if you keep coming back then they might treat you well.

Does that really seem fair?

[FLAPPERJACK7]

Skoda don't have a business if you take your car elsewhere. I see Skoda's point. ..if you have your car serviced elsewhere the garage could be using cooking oil for all Skoda know.

[TsvRS]

Skoda don't have a business if you take your car elsewhere. I see Skoda's point. ..if you have your car serviced elsewhere the garage could be using cooking oil for all Skoda know.

 

Fortunately the European law helps to remove your confusion http://www.theaa.com/motoring_advice/general-advice/right-to-repair-campaign.html i.e., the dealer is prohibited from restricting servicing to the franchise network. Can you imagine how bad things might be were they allowed to do so?

[FLAPPERJACK7]

Well it never helped you did it.

[bullett]

So, update.

 

Been back to the dealer, and they are offering nothing telling me it is a stretched timing chain that caused the problem and that they sometime fail if the chain stretches outside the parameters that the tensioner can support. That would be reasonable if the part had a replacement interval. As it doesn't and should last the life of the engine that looks like a fault to me.

 

Skoda customer service have offered nothing either with the attitude that I'm not a loyal customer. Well, not now I'm not. I was potentially considering a new car soon, my wife has just had a approval for a company car and needs to choose what she wants and I've been a strong advocate of Skoda as a terrific car.

 

I've just written to the head honcho to see if he can work this out without a script or having to take legal action. I've given him a week.

 

Next step is to final a specialist to confirm the fault is what we all think it is. 

[Richf]

Sounds like you are going to have to get legal , how much is the repair likely to cost ?

[bullett]

£6.5k from Skoda for a new engine.

Ballpark £2.5k from an indie for a rebuild.

[marcinp]

on Monday 11th of May I will drop my car witch is octavia vRS 59 2.0 tsi dsg in to Skoda dealer at Ruislip for an investigation I have told them to check it because I can hear some noise on cold start. The service person said they had 3 cars with this problem and all had tensioner replaced. He said that because is still under approved skoda warranty they may pay for this if they find any problems but if not the bill will be £951 with 2 years warranty on new parts. So fingers crossed  will update here what is happening . Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions witch may help.

Thanks

[Onza]

Time for my story.  2010 TSI vRS

 

A very long post if you read the detail, but the summary gives the gist.  Hope its useful.

 

I would just say

to marcinp: please take care, your symptoms sound like mine, which turned out to be oil starvation, not timing chain related.

to everyone else: thank you for this extremely informative thread.

 

Oh, and PS, if anyone wants a 2010 Octy VRS TSI, mine is now a good 'un again...

 

Summary

Owned from new.

FSSH.

Ticking noise at 25,000 miles, bad enough to report at 45,000 miles, became a rattle at 59,000 miles, then loud rattle at 63000 miles, noticeable at start up for a few seconds, finally car cut out during travel (69000 miles)

Very loud, nasty rattle when attempting to restart.

Diagnosed as oil starvation causing camshaft bearing failure.

New engine fitted.  I paid £2000 after Skoda goodwill and quite a lot of arguing

 

Detail

When the car was new it sounded very quiet - a bit too much like a hairdryer for my liking for a sporty car.  But...

Around 25,000 miles I became aware of a ticking noise which I could hear at idle.  It was explained away as some sort of small valve which is involved with emissions control systems.

The engine progressively became noisier until (around 2 years ago; just out of warranty :S  ) I asked the dealer to listen to the noise carefully.

It was still a ticking noise, but was clearly audible inside the car at idle.

"No fault found", says the service invoice.

 

The noise got gradually worse until it could be described as a rattle.  Reported at service ~45000 miles - again "no fault found".

Then, by ~59000 miles, the noise was a rattle, clearly audible inside the car, and was often most pronounced at startup, when it would last for a very short time (estimate 0.5 - 1.5 seconds.)

 

Worrying about the timing chain tensioner reputation, I took the car to local dealer, who has serviced it all  its life, specifically to listen to the noise, in my presence.

They acknowledged it was noisy, but said "they all sound like that" and showed me a scirrocco with the same engine.  To me, the VW sounded quieter than mine (although still more "rattly" than a petrol engine should IMHO), we had a difference of opinion about it and the dealer wanted £75 to put my car on a diagnostics machine.  I didn't feel that the computer would be able to listen to the noise any better than me, so declined the offer, especially given that the dealer assured me that "they all sound like that".

I got them to write on the record that they didn't think there was a fault and left it at that.

 

With hindsight, I should perhaps have taken out a third party warranty at that point...

 

Anyway, I was cruising along at 60mph one morning (@69000 miles)when there was a sudden increase in the noise level, now a harsh clattering.  It sounded like a clutch bearing had gone or something, but I quickly identified the noise as being engine speed rather than road speed related.

The car was driving OK, so I took care to keep control and move progressively to a halt, without sudden manoeuvres.

But the car was ahead of me and cut out.  I dipped the clutch and rolled to a convenient lay-by and awaited my recovery service.

The car did restart, but sounded very clattery and no-one wanted to let it idle in that condition, so it was stopped again.  But, because it had started at all, I figured it probably wasn't catastrophic chain/tensioner failure

The car was recovered to the servicing dealer and dumped in disgrace in their forecourt.

 

After authorising £375 spend for examination of the cylinder head, with endoscope and disassembly, it was found that the timing chain and tensioner was not the issue, but that oil starvation had caused overheating and disintegration of at least one of the camshaft bearings.  Because there were bits of metal in the oil, the dealer could not be sure that there wasn't any metal in the oil galleries and recommended engine change.

 

(interlude: I'd just like to point out that I had not received any low engine oil warnings; I don't believe in economising on stuff like that...)

 

I had many discussions (and one or two arguments) over the ensuing weeks with both the dealer and SUK customer services and knocked the total cost to me (the £375 was waived) down from an initial £2950 to £2000.

 

I discussed SOGA with my local solicitor and he felt there was limited chance of success in court with a car breaking down out of warranty period & out of warranty mileage, but he felt that I may have some comeback against the dealer for negligence given that I had reported the noise on three separate occasions.  TBH, in the end I got fed up with the whole thing and authorised the repair.

 

The car now sounds like a hairdryer again, so I know I was right about there being a fault all along.

 

The car's driving nicely again but I'm very disillusioned with VAG as a result of this experience and will be expecting some very strong persuasion to stay with the brand when the time comes to change.

 

On the bright side, the supercharged, air suspended Jag (105,000 miles) that I was using during the Skoda's downtime worked absolutely perfectly and soothed my ruffled feelings after every single day.  And it was silent at idle, despite also having chain driven cams....(I hear Jaguar learned their hard lesson about timing chain tensioners a while ago)

 

Hope this essay is useful to, erm, someone...

 

Otherwise I just wasted a load of good sleeping time.  Night night.

Edited 3 May, 2015 by Onza

[monkeyalan]

Thanks for this Onza. It's got me thinking. My 2011 TSI has audible ticking on startup / idle when stood outside the car (I can't here it in the cabin). It's done 37,000 miles. I wonder if I ought to take it to my local Skoda to at least register that it may be a concern.

[Onza]

Thank, monkeyalan,

Sorry, I realise I should have pointed out that the new engine is also making the ticking noise.  But I can't really hear it from inside the car.

I'm confident that if the noise is just a light "ticking", then it will be the small valve on the front of the engine and nothing to worry about.

 

Its when it becomes clearly a rattle, and then eventually audible clearly from inside the car that its worth paying attention, from my experience.

[Onza]

Sorry, everyone, I realised my posts are inferring that the "ticking noise" evolved into the "rattling" noise.

I just want to clarify that, in my opinion, the two noises are not related and that the rattle is the one to be wary of.

[monkeyalan]

Thanks Onza, the clarification is helpful!

[Gti Jazz Blue]

What service regime was your car on Onza ?

 

First thing I did with my vRS when it was 1 year old - was the switch to fixed service regime (I bought it at 7 months old with 6.5K on the clock).

 

I'm sure they've done the research/testing (tensioner design anyone) but if I am keeping a car for a while, I prefer a 1 year or 10K service regime.

[simion_levi]

I'd be very grateful if anyone has a copy of TPI 2027920/2 (concerning excessive oil consumption) they could share with me?

 

I have the earlier version 2027920/1 but would like to see the latest information.