My Fabia Elegance 1.9 TDi PD has covered 130,000 miles! Would I be foolish fitting a tuning box/remap? Currently, performance seems as it should - relative to family members VAG TDi's and the car has a FSH.

I keep reading about turbo failures and such like with a sence of impending dread. Would I be right in thinking that the current PD TDi's are much less robust and long lived than previous VAG turbo diesels?

With 130k on the car, I think you might be a pioneer on this site Personally, I'd happily run a tuning box on it ... a remap will actually play about with boost pressures which may shorten the life of the turbo.......

Chris

Would I be right in thinking that the current PD TDi's are much less robust and long lived than previous VAG turbo diesels?

Actually quite the opposite, I change more turbos on older injection pump diesels than newer PD's. Something to consider with the diesel turbo failures is id say about 80% are caused by soot build up due to being pootled about. So if its been driven properly it will be just fine.

... id say about 80% are caused by soot build up due to being pootled about. So if its been driven properly it will be just fine.

So would you recommend giving it a full-throttle blast at least once a week just to clear things out of the system?

Definitely, and I'd say when you are getting stuck in a traffic jam, if possible afterwards give it a little blast (if you do make sure to leave the engine to cool down a little though before turning off the engine)

I used to drive mine regularly to 4000+ rpm and i had absolutely zero problems with soot.... but..... mine did seem to use more oil than many members cars on here, so make sure you check that.

This might not neccesarily be a bad thing however, as it means the engine is receiving fresh oil regularly.

Obviously with 130k miles in 4 years, the car's spent a lot of time on the motorway (vending machine rep), and as far as I can tell - no smoke!

Hopefully then, I might get a few good years more from the car (approx 7k/year now) with a bit of TLC.

Surely there must be some higher mile minicabbed Oktys with the PD TDi out there? Perhaps I'll pop over the fence for a chat with those guys.

I'd have thought there ought to be some