This is about my fathers 1.9Tdi Skoda Octavia Mk2 Ambiente (with 125K on it at the time) which we had problems with in December and January, and has put us off the 1.9Tdi engine fitted in Skodas and VW's.

 

We were travelling along the M4 the weekend before Christmas when the car started to shudder. On reaching an exit and approaching the roundabout it appeared to be misfiring. On speaking to our Skoda specialist he said it sounded like a failed injector. We managed to get it to my grandparents house approximately 5 miles from the M4 with it misfiring and chucking out quite a lot of smoke, before calling the breakdown service. The car still ran, however we were 100 miles from home although luckily my father has a great breakdown package. They came out, scanned the car and found a misfire on no.2 cylinder. We all thought it must be an injector.

 

The car was taken to our garage (who specialises in Skoda's although is not a dealer). We drove back in a 13 reg Golf which was quite nice!

 

On investigation it turned out the injector had gone, causing a nice hole in one of the exhaust valves and also pitting the camshaft. The turbo was also damaged by the failure. My father had a bill of £2500 and has vowed never to buy another Skoda ever again. This was after I talked him back into them having one again, after he had a bad experience with a Felicia 10 years before getting his Octavia!

 

Anyhow, I have the 1.9Tdi unit too, my sister also has the 1.4Tdi. I have heard these do galatical miles, although maybe they have had many 1000's spent on them to get them there.

 

A couple of people said to contact Skoda about it, myself included. On contacting Skoda they merely said that he should have had it serviced at a Skoda dealer for its whole life. My father is meticulous with servicing / oil changes and maintenance on his car's so he was not happy to hear this. It has always been to a local garage / skoda dealers to be serviced. Needless to say Skoda are not interested at all.

 

Not a good experience of the 1.9Tdi.

Edited 8 March, 201412 yr by richardsfavorit

Injector failures are not particularly common on any of the VAG diesel engines, it's just pure bad luck if it happens. In hindsight, perhaps it would have been better to pull over and stop the engine rather than continue to drive it once it started misfiring. 

 

Any car that has covered 125,000 miles regardless of make, is liable to suffer failures of some sort or other.....unfortunately that's life.    

My sister had a similar problem with her diesel ford focus.

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the 1.9 pd engine is bullet proof , we have ran 4 in the family 1 superb and 3 octavias , all have done 200k only one required an injector at 8k .  All have oil changes at 10k and cambelt and waterpump at 75k . this engine sounds more tractor like than the 1.6 cr or 2.0 cr but is superior in fuel consumption and performance .we now have common rail diesel skodas only because we cannot now get the pd engine in the age of car we need .I think your failure is unfortunate but  rare and should not put you off the1.9 pd engine .    

You shouldn't let one failire put you off. I don't think you can find any engine ever made that is more reliable. I've had two cars with the 1.9 and never had a single blip with the engine of either.

Really surprised. My 07 octavia mk1 380000k my mates has 450000k neither of us have had any problems with the engine.

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You can't judge every 1.9 PD engine and Skoda car by this single bad experience.

Using your logic: problem was caused by a failed Bosch injector so I will never have another Bosch equipped car. So that's you riding a bike then!

Of course Skoda won't pay up. Their out of warranty "gestures" reward loyalty. When you save money by servicing elsewhere you kiss such gestures goodbye.

Thank you for the replies. I thought it would be worth putting up my fathers experiences, as most people think this 1.9TDi engine is indestructible.

 

He doesn't treat his car badly at all, in fact I think he should drive it a bit harder (a few more revs etc), as diesel don't like being driven gently.

 

I personally thought there was no harm in approaching Skoda. Whether or not it is serviced in a Skoda garage or an independant garage shouldn't make a huge amount of difference in regards to this failure, as only the serviceable parts where ever changed by an indy. Any major service work has been done by a dealer or by a Skoda specialist. I think its poor on Skoda's part that they don't even consider any help when faced with a bill of this size, when they and VW have a good reputation with this engine and their current cars.

 

Everyone I speak to is amazed that this model of engine failed in this way. A few of my friends are mechanics and are surprised it went like this! Not just Skoda mechanics, vauxhall, and independent engineers.

 

Anyway its an interesting experience for Skoda owners (not for my father, who I feel very sorry for, and even gave a very small contribution towards the bill) that this engine can fail in this way, as many report it has until now seemed to be bulletproof!

Sorry to hear of your bad experience. It seems to me that if your experience with the 1.9 was common it would have been well documented on this forum by now since all owner forums attract those looking for assistance with faults. In fairness, the engine does suffer from turbo and egr issues but that's common on many marques.

In terms of galactic mileages and lots of work to get there, if someone is prepared to keep a car to big mileages they ain't prepared to spend big money on repairs.

Commiserations again.

Thank you for the comments.

 

I appreciate your points Mike re warranties and claims. I (and a few others) were just thinking along the lines of a good will gesture - even a contribution of £100 / free service wouldn't have been unreasonable in view of the amount of work done. The engine was basically rebuilt. :(

It's never nice hearing of someone suffering major expense with car trouble. Especially in this case, where the failure is, I think, exceptionally bad luck.

 

But I don't realistically think you can expect anything from Skoda (even if it had a full dealer history) when the car has done the equivalent of being driven around the Earth five times!  

Edited 3 April, 201412 yr by booke23

Thanks for your posts.

 

I appreciate your viewpoint Mike, as you say a TV out of of warranty wouldn't carry any weight in this argument.

I don't know exactly how many services were done outside of a Skoda dealer, it was only one or two. More major work as I mentioned was done with a Skoda specialist (who got the car going again) and Skoda dealers.

My father, to be honest, wasn't going to bother approaching Skoda. It was only me and a few friends who suggested it. As some of you say it has done a fair bit of mileage now, so is prehaps unreasonable to expect anything. I didn't think it harmed approaching them to say what had happened.

 

Well fingers crossed mine carries on for a bit! I am taking out the extended warranty again this year to see it through for a bit longer.

Thank you to all those of you who have been supportive. As for the rest of you, I hope you never get a bill of this size whatever mileage your car has done. I have never had a bill like this in over 35 years of car ownership and I think that speaks volumes.

 

As for not using a main dealer, the nearest dealer is 1 hour away and it is far simpler to get the car serviced locally with a garage which, in my experience, has been very good.

I have the 1.9TDI Octavia.. other than changing consumable parts (clutch plate, cam belt, oil and filters) I have spent £0.00 on it and it has covered over 200K miles. It isn't exactly a boy racer type car/engine/gearbox combination but then I'm no boy racer!!!

 

What I can say is that the combination works extremely well... drive at a steady 60ish mph and you'll get remarkable mpg (I'm often averaging 65+/gallon), bury the accelerator pedal into the floor and watch the sad little faces of the hot hatch drivers disappear in your rear view mirror!!!!

 

Of course there are always a few niggles with ALL cars and mine is not without the odd problem or two.... you know, the major things like Rear parking sensors not working, rear washer pipe coming off and leaking screen wash all over the connector tot he rear light clusters.... but lets face it, at 9 years old you have to expect some things to go wrong!

 

As far as dealers go, there are good ones and bad ones..... One such 'Bad one' is in Manchester (I'll leave you to guess which it is LOL) had a little job of replacing the power socket in the central console.... they gave me their 1.6 petrol Octavia as a courtesy car (boy was that a thirsty little weakling).... the car was filthy inside, the engine oil pressure light was on (on account of there being no oil in the sump), the screen wash was empty, the coolant level was low and a whole lot of other 'little problems') you would expect the main dealer to keep on top of.... quite honestly, it took them longer to get the courtesy car ready for me than it would have to sort the power socket out on my own!!!!. Anyway, I eventually got off to work nearly two hours later. I returned the following day to pick up my pride and joy (I'd had it about 3 weeks) and the 'Service Manager' reported that they had carried out a manufacturer's modification behind the dash board because of a rattle in the latest batches received from the factory.....

.... You know what's coming don't you ;-)  Yep, you got it....., I found that I now HAD a rattle behind the dash as well as a very poorly fitted central console to go with the loose power socket!

 

So, I suggest that you should always make sure the dealer you choose to deal with has a very good reputation with it's current and past customers by personal recommendation and NOT from their own publicity pamphlets!..

 

Rant over!!!

My guess is that the camshaft damage happened first and this was the cause of the misfire. Just because you get an injector misfire fault code, doesn't mean the injector was the root cause.

Using the wrong oil in a PD engine causes the lifters to wear excessively and can lead to cam lobe damage. If you have the service receipts, check what oil was used.