Afternoon All,

 

My car is likely to be recalled next year for the emissions work. I'm considering getting a health check on the engine and DPF before having the work done so that if there are any significant issues post recall I have some grounds to stand on, particually as I've 199k+ on the clock and it would be all to easy for someone to argue it was knackered anyway regardless of me not having any significant issue with it other than the usual turbo actuator issue, and wearing out my cruise control stalk!

 

Are these checks fairly standard? Is there a significant chance that the tests themselves could cause damage? I'm thinking about at least compression test and checking how blocked the DPF is.

 

Thanks,

 

Wesley.

Is there any reason you would put your car into some Dealership to get any checks or Service Actions doing if you are happy with your car and 

how it performs?

I'm guessing this refers to the USian "emissions test defeat code"?

 

If so, then it's not a safety issue, and doesn't actually affect European legality so why bother?

My understanding of the simplest correction for the issue is to use the exhaust gas recirculation more. This reduces NO2 emissions by reducing peak pressures and temperatures. The down side is more particulate emissions, lower power while the valve is open, and poorer efficiency. The soot is captured and reburnt in the DPF. But this can only deal with collecting the soot at a given rate. It's likely the DPF on the engines with the defeat software were never designed to handle the quantity of soot produced if it is forced to run in emissions test mode all the time. In addition to the DPF issue increase in recirculation will increase the rate at which the oil degrades.

 

I would like the health test on the engine to show what state the engine was in before any 'corrections' are applied. This is for my own piece of mind so that if there are difficulties 10k down the road I have some evindence to show the engine was fit before the changes.

 

Aside from emissions issues general health checks on engines are generally recommended amongst most vehicle enthusiast groups. In my situation I have a car thats done lots of miles. I would like to start checking up on things like compression periodically so that I get a bit of warning of some of the portential failure modes before it lets go on a busy motorway somewhere. As far as I can see the health checks like this aren't caried out during a Skoda routine service.

 

Edit... Might have got the wrong end of your post there. I won't be allowing the change on my car until I'm forced to do so, I'm happy that the changes will have little ill effect, or I'm compensated for any ill effect it may have. There was some MPs making noises about changing MOTs to catch people who haven't had the changes after a couple of years. Struggle to see this being possible, but just reading into things before I'm forced to do things quick!

Edited 19 November, 201510 yr by WesBrooks

You'd probably need it done by a proper independent engineering inspector in the same way as you would for taking action against the company.

 

From what I've read there are two ways for them to fix this.

 

1 -  increase the fuel consumption in the cars which raises the temperature and reduces harmful emissions (but ups CO2)

2 -  Add adBlue to the exhaust gasses like the Euro6 cars

 

I doubt either of those are very easy to engineer into an existing engine.

 

I'd be considering the 3rd option. Not get the fix done. If your car passes an MOT now there is little point to it. The MOT doesn't measure CO2 volume.

I'd certainly be holding off on the fix as long as I could and let others go first.

Edited 20 November, 201510 yr by Aspman