Firstly what a fantastic resource this site is, compliments to the founders/owners/participants, I have had a very enjoyable 24hrs reading many threads of interest.

To the point, I was shown the 07 plate Skoda Octavia Scout by my local s/h dealer as a pretty good replacement vehicle for my 04 plate Navara. I was doing more mileage these days visitng Airsoft (bit like painball but better, lol) sites around the North West of England and needed better econonmy but with 4x4 for the odd muddy lane we have to go down. I immediately fell in love with the car, great interior, loved the outside look of the car and plenty of space for all our kit, it was the perfect car, it must be !

I have now had it for 3 months and suffered my first problem just 4 days ago, and now I am gutted having just returned from the main dealer local to me with some terrible news.

I was on my way to Dumfries on Monday, and driving down a local A road I accelerated, not particularly hard, and the engine just dies in a really sudden way, tried pumping the throttle but nothing no reponse, dipped the clutch and the car revved freely, let the clutch out and away we went, I was checking the dash for a warning light but nothing. Carried on and just 10 mins later it did it again and same time, while under acceleration, got a bit worried and so pulled over and phoned the local main dealer, who said sounds like the pedal has gone faulty bring it in friday and we will replace it, just out of curiosity does it drive ok in cruise control mode ? well considering I took the gamble and drove 380 mile round trip to Dumfries and back mainlky on cruise mode and using the buttons to accelerate and decelerate it was fine. Now I would like to try and describe the issue better for those of you in the know as it may be relative to the problem, lets say you are accelerating steadily to 50 mph and you quickly remove your foot from the pedal, the car gently decelerates, well when experiencing my problem the engine cuts off like its been switched of, quite agressively losing all power. Dip the clucth, free rev and then carry on. Approx 100 miles into the journey we stopped for a brew and upon restarting the car the little engine block symbol came on so looking in the owners book it said something about exhaust emmissions, called the garage and he said if the car is driving fine then it will be ok and sorted when I take it in.

Over the last few days it hasnt done it again, but just been pottering around town, and a few medium journeys, on which we all like to feel a bit of pull when the turbo kicks in so I have driven accordingly, and still its not done it again. I read on here a few things it could be and from brake light switch, to throttle sensor etc.

Anyhow just returned from the dealers, they had it in the workshop for 2 hrs, on the floor, up on the ramps etc etc, mechanic came in and asked me to go through story again because he couldnt find anything wrong. Finally I was called to the desk and given the news....its a black day in Lancashire I can tell you...the warning light logged as overboost and given that my vehicle has had Skoda service for all of its 125k miles they can only deduce that this is because the DPF needs replacing because it is 60% blocked and that its that which is causing the overboost, and when getting this the cars system shuts off the fuel to prevent damage, thus the aggressive halt when it happens. £2109 including fitting. My heart sank, I am gutted, I just cant afford that kind of money at the moment and only having had the damn car 3 months I am just simply gutted. This is a third of what the car cost me !!

I am looking for advice or help from you guys if poss, and a ray of light into this dark day of mine, lol

Read about sticking turbo vanes and the Mr Muscle remedy, could that be the solution ? is it worth trying ?.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Get the DPF gutted and mapped out.

Far far cheaper than a replacement, and you'll have no further problems with it then

I would imagine its time to remove it as that will be massively cheaper (and will save you fuel in the future too).

Sorry to hear about your woes , but as has been suggested , get the dpf removed and mapped to suit. Do a search on this forum as it has been covered many times. It will be a lot cheaper and hopefully worry free from then on. Good luck !

Had the DPF removed from ours early in its life due to issues on a previous car & 80K later its still running fine. Use a reputable company though as the remap has to be done properly to delete all the little dpf checks the ecu carries out.

I used Jabbasport in Peterbourogh, Shark performance also come highl;y recomended. Scroll to the bottom of the front page of briskodas & both are in the section for site sponsors. It will certainly be a fraction of the bill you are looking at

Do a search on here for the opinions of others

The plus is the car runs so much better withoput the dpf & if mapped well can be better by a few mpg when driven normally

Edited 22 February, 201313 yr by Stuart_J

As above the solution is a DPF removal. Had it done to our 4x4 Octy last year due to issues and it's made it a much nicer car to drive and significantly cheaper than a DFP replacement. The car has also easily passed its MOT since so no worries there and obviously with no DPF it won;t happen again.

I used Shark and from memory thier costs for a 4x4 DPF removal are about £500 with no power increase and avout £700 with a Stage 1 map.

Was this car purchased at a main dealer? If so surely you will have a warranty and that this will be covered by it?

Phil

At a guess if it is the DPF full that will be classed as a consumable part.

If the Turbo is over-boosting due to sticky vanes then I'd expect that to be covered.

Paul

I do not like this part: "they can only deduce"

When I had limp mode go on and yellow light the local indie garage was all like - "you know what it could be, don't you ? - we don't want it to be that!"; they really went out of their way to cover everything else and eventually replaced a sensor and only charged me for the 1st diagnostic and the replacement costs (about £140 in total) - they didn't charge for the other 4 visits whilst they reset and tried other things...

I think a main dealer would have the exact opposite approach...

I do not like this part: "they can only deduce"

When I had limp mode go on and yellow light the local indie garage was all like - "you know what it could be, don't you ? - we don't want it to be that!"; they really went out of their way to cover everything else and eventually replaced a sensor and only charged me for the 1st diagnostic and the replacement costs (about £140 in total) - they didn't charge for the other 4 visits whilst they reset and tried other things...

I think a main dealer would have the exact opposite approach...

+1 Start at the dearest solution and work backwards from there whilstever the punter is coughing up.

Yes, this is terrible. I've had a few experiences like this with dealers. They just want to start changing expensive parts just to see if it fixes it. The first time it happened to me, I let them (they said its got to be this), then when nothing changed (new ECU) I went ballistic. I said I will not pay for them to guess what was wrong, they were the bloody main dealer and should know. They tried saying I was authorising the work but I said it was in good faith based on their expert diagnosis and I'm no mechanic and wouldn't have a clue. They had my car for two weeks while we argued, which was not a problem as I could walk to work and the shops. It eventually escalated to regional manager and I got my car back without paying more than half hour labour for them to disconnect the sensor that was flagging the fault - the car drove fine.

Hold on you have had it 3 months???

Do they know the sales of goods act??? its not 6 months since you bought it so its up to them to prove the fault wasnt there when you bought it, if they fail to fix it for free ask for your money under the sales of goods act.

You can also ask for a hire car/vehicle while this is in dispute.

Take it to a decent VAG specialist, they'll have no doubt seen the problem before given they tend to deal more with older higher mileage cars and sort it at more reasonable cost.

Lets face it the car is several years old with above average mileage; it was going to fail at some point like this every car will; try not to lose faith in it too quickly.

As others have said as its most likely a PD engined car at that age continue to leave the DPF in it you are just asking for bother; invest in having it deleted as and when the car is put right; save you a multitude of problems later on. Have also heard that EGR deletion is also a good idea as these can clog up over time and bring about poor running and reduced performance.

What is it with rubbish dealers these days!?

It is quite simple to check if the DPF is full.

When the DPF 'regenerates' it burns off the soot it has collected. A by-product of this process is ash. This ash is stored in the DPF for life. As the ash level increases it covers the particulate filter which then reduces its efficiency. It is the ash level that determines the life of the DPF.

Ask the dealer to hook the car up and check for the Ash MAFF level. I can't remember the percentages (not the soot percentages, the ash level is different) but the dealer should know or at least be able to find out.

The same diagnostic's can be used to check when it last attempted or successfully performed a regeneration which would also give you a hint at if the DPF and all of it's sensors are functioning correctly.

Time to find a better dealer.

Correct me if I am wrong but I did not think the TDI PD 140 had a DPF, I thought only the TDI PD 170 in the vRS did.

The 2.0 TDi PD140 engine in the Scout and 4x4 is different to the rest of the range.

They both have an 8V SOHC instead of the 16V DOHC - and a DPF.

Cheers people some great comments and advice, a couple of points to reply to, the car was bought off a local used car dealer not the Skoda dealership, but seeing as the car has had Skoda dealership service history I decided to keep the trend and took it to the dealership for a service 2 months ago and so they were first point of call for this issue.

@Silver1011 thanks for the info, might make them think a little when I ask the questions regarding the readings and sensors, its funny that I referred to this site when speaking with them this morning regarding some of the solutions I had read, they were very quick to change the subject and talk about something else. I also understand there must be a little bit of look mate we are professionals and you are just reading a forum, leave it to us to sort pls, and I guess many people would just do that, and take the £2k hit on the chin, but sorry guys I can ill afford it and dont want to lose my only means of transport, as a single dad its very important to be mobile, now dont let your bleeding hearts get the better of you (tic) but again thanks for the advice guys and think I will probably drive down to Mansfiled and let the sharks loose on my beloved motor, seems the best bet, sorry to the other guys but Peterborough is just a bit too far.

Any further advice , I am still listening.

cheers again and if anyone has ever any communication problems, mobile phones, two way radio etc then thats my area of specialty for the last 20 years feel free to ask any questions. (my way of trying to put something back in I guess)

Am surprised that no-one has suggested VCDS to confirm/disprove what the dealer has said in the first place.

Could the Ash MAFF levels be read with VCDS?

Personally I'd talk to Shark about DPF removal and remap. £2K vs £700. The removal will stop it from happening again and a remap will make you smile, no, er, more like grin from ear to ear ;)

As others have said, the law gives a 6 month period where faults are presumed to be prexisting unless the seller can prove otherwise. I have successfully used this when a previous second hand car needed £1500 worth of repairs after 4 months of ownership. Its down to the dealer to fix, regardless of the warranty they sold it to you with.

Good luck

My 2008 Scout is at 90k miles thus far trouble free (quickly touches wood) but at the first sign of trouble it will be straight to Shark for DPF off, EGR off ant stage1 map.

A clogged DPF will not cause overboost, it'll cause the engine to not develop enough boost.

IMO, keep looking. They haven't found the problem yet. Overboost is clogged turbo vanes.

The combo of full DPF and clogged turbo vanes suggests the car hasn't been driven only at low load and short trips.

Try the Mr Muscle turbo vane treatment and see how that goes. If if helps, then get out and do fast motorway miles to try to burn the DPF clear. I can't remember how many % clogged is terminal, but mine is only at 8% last time I plugged VCDS in.

I did read about the Mr Muscle tip, and cannot seem to find the instruction thread, can anybody drop me a link to it pls. I am not a spanner man so will have to take it to my local independant garage/mechanic and ask him to do it for me.

I did read about the Mr Muscle tip, and cannot seem to find the instruction thread, can anybody drop me a link to it pls. I am not a spanner man so will have to take it to my local independant garage/mechanic and ask him to do it for me.

It is essentially, unbolt the downpipe, hose oven-cleaner into the turbine housing and work the actuator by hand to free up the vanes.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

LeeR

Skoda dealer aren't helping here.

Sounds like they haven't a clue - Therefore if in doubt just replace stuff.

Firstly this is a fault that can be fixed for a lot less than £2k.

I'd go back to the original supplier first.

Then I'd search Briskoda for the best independents in Lancashire. I only know of Grundys in Penwortham, Preston that has been recommended in here.

This is a comprehensive guide to all things VW and power loss

http://www.myturbodiesel.com/1000q/multi/limp-mode-TDI-fix.htm

Edited 24 February, 201313 yr by Web Ferret

Thanks Kiwibacon.

@ Pete T I bought the car from a car dealer showroom in my local town, do the regulations also apply to those kind of outlets ? I sincerely hope so as spending £6K on a car was quite a big hit for me only for it to want a third of its value spending on it just 3 months later. The DPF light did come on once just after I bought it and I followed the instructions and it went out again... jeez this is a right case of bad luck.

Think I will try and get my local spanner to perform the Mr Muscle trick first, as its the cheapest option.