Hi,

 

I've had Octavia diesels for a few years now, Mondeo diesels previously, so it's been a long time since my last petrol car (Cortina mk3 I think).

 

Now I've retired, not doing the mileage, not towing the caravan and I don't want to get stung by 'special' taxes to enter unknown towns and cities when on holiday.

 

My old diesel requires an MOT in September so I have a couple of months to decide on another car or to risk trying to get another year out of the diesel.

 

I'm looking for an Octavia Estate with a petrol engine but I'm confused by all the 'TSi' etc. Also 1.4L seems a bit small for a biggish car.

 

I would appreciate advice on what all these acronyms mean and what I need to look for, manual gearbox only...

 

I've seen a 2010 estate for sale recently around £2500 but with 150k miles on it. Years ago that would have killed a petrol engine but what sort of mileage would people usually get from a modern Skoda petrol?

 

Do the 2010 onwards petrol engines have timing belts or chains as I've seen this mentioned in a few adverts? If they use chains then is there a replacement interval and if so how easy is it as a DIY job?

 

I've done all of my own repairs on a range of cars since 1971 so I have a decent tool kit and a bit of experience...

 

Regards
Peter

 

The 1.4 TSI is turbocharged and is surprisingly fast. Though I'm not sure how it performs with the enlarged estate body.

From around 2013 it seems VAG dropped the chain TSI engine and went belt driven. Yes it comes at a cost to change belts. Far be it for me to speculate but snapped chains have been heard across these cars albeit the high power ones. But even the lowly 122bhp startup noise on our deceased Golf was scary. 

 

Maybe things have changed now. 

Hi Peter, be a little cautious with the older TSI. I think they were called TFSI. The earlier versions had both a turbo AND a supercharger - this engine got rave reviews from the motoring press but suffered very badly from serious reliability issues with certain internal parts, leading to major problems down the line. Look up "Twincharger" in other parts of this forum. The twincharger engine was finally dropped by VAG sometime around 2013 - 2014 I think. 

10 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

Hi Peter, be a little cautious with the older TSI. I think they were called TFSI. The earlier versions had both a turbo AND a supercharger - this engine got rave reviews from the motoring press but suffered very badly from serious reliability issues with certain internal parts, leading to major problems down the line. Look up "Twincharger" in other parts of this forum. The twincharger engine was finally dropped by VAG sometime around 2013 - 2014 I think. 

 

news to me? My 2009 FL is is CCZA TSI and is not a twin charged nor supercharged.  2008/9 is when the TFSI (pre facelift) was phased out and the facelift TSI introduced.

The older (pre 2010) TFSI is built driven, the newer 2010 onwards engine is the TSi and is chain driven, the early 1.8 and 2.0 liter TSi engien suffered with chain tensioner problems (see the sticky at the top of the sub forum,) the 1.8 from around 2010 also suffers high oil consumption problems although this can eased a bit by using the fixed service routine and changing from 5w30 oil to 5w40 oil (both must be fully synthetic)

 

I don't know to much about the 1.2 and 1.4 tsi as i had the same thoughts, but have since driven a 122bhp 1.4 tsi and was surprised by how good it performed, it has enough power and torque for most people to be happy with.

 

My current L&K is a 1.8TSi, it has better power (160bhp) then my old pre fl octy which was a 2.0 PD TDi(148bhp) elegance, but i do miss the low down torque. The MPG isn't too bad around town, although i only do 6 miles a day it's returning about 25mpg, on a long run i have got around 42mpg which is about 12mpg lower then the diesel was getting.

 

Hop this helps.

2 hours ago, planehazza said:

 

news to me? My 2009 FL is is CCZA TSI and is not a twin charged nor supercharged.  2008/9 is when the TFSI (pre facelift) was phased out and the facelift TSI introduced.

I don't think the Octy got the twincharger engine.

^^^

Correct, only the one built to go to Bonneville had a Supercharger and Skoda never bothered much mentioning that when making out it was just a 2.0l Octavia.

51 minutes ago, Ju1ian1001 said:

I don't think the Octy got the twincharger engine.

Correct - I shall agree.

 

I've driven a 1.2 octy estate FL - '09 I think, surprised by it's capability tbh for a relatively big car, was a revy unit but little low down torque, once up to speed a very decent drive, would have thought it was adequate enough,  would take a bit of getting used to coming from an aga fuelled one though ;-) 

Hi all, interesting that it is said that the Octavia was not fitted with the Twincharger - when I was doing my research before buying my MY16 1.4 TSI, a lot of the (admittedly dated) VAG information I saw at the time referred to that particular engine - although I presume that it was referring to the CTHE rather than the CAVE type. 

Hi,

 

thanks for the replies, they've given me some things to think about.

 

What about mileage on these engines though? Would 150k mean an engine is on its last legs or is there a chance it'll run for another 50k miles?

 

I've been spoilt by diesels running for 250k before I need to think about changing the car!

 

Regards

Peter

 

The issues with various camchain driven TSI engines over the last 12 or so years, including some of the 1,4s, is not that the chain breaks. It is usually the chain stretches and or the tensioner fails causing the chain to slip. Chain breakages are very rare AFAIR.  The outcome is almost as bad though, in very mild cases, renew timing chain and tensioner etc. In a mild contact situation, you will need head work and valves. In an extreme collision it will probably be new engine time.  You need to research each particular engine or engine family on it's merits.  The very new 1.4s  have returned to belts though as I understand it and maybe a wise idea.

 

Edit: You can mitigate by preventatively replacing the timing chain and tensioner when purchasing the car but it adds to the outlay significantly especially on an older, well used car.

 

As for total mileage over 150k- I don't really know and have no experience, so best leave to others. 

 

 

 

Edited 7 July, 20178 yr by TheClient

My 06 plate  pre-fl vrs tfsi is currently sitting at 191733 miles. I got it with around 143k start of 2015. No major issues at all.

On 7/7/2017 at 19:44, Peterd51 said:

Hi,

 

thanks for the replies, they've given me some things to think about.

 

What about mileage on these engines though? Would 150k mean an engine is on its last legs or is there a chance it'll run for another 50k miles?

 

I've been spoilt by diesels running for 250k before I need to think about changing the car!

 

Regards

Peter

 

I have a 1.8tsi (owned since new).  It has 180,000km and I can't see any signs of upcoming issues that would kill the engine.  It has had 2 water pumps, an N249 valve and need the inlets cleaned of sludge (did it at the same time as the water pump).  No other problems I can remember.

 

Am about to do a quick trip 2000km trip from Sydney to Brisbane & back and am confident the vehicle will perform faultlessly & average around 7L/100km. (not great but acceptable).

 

I'm a motor mechanic but haven't swung on a spanner professionally since 1990, so maybe I no longer have a clue.