I've been a keen follower of this forum for a while now has I've owned 3 Octavia's in the past 8 years with very little mechanical issues. However, I am now hoping I might be able to get some advise? 

I currently have 2 Octavia MkII's on a 05 plate and couple of days before Christmas on my way to pick the kids the trusty old 1.9tdi Ambiente (122,000 miles) started misfiring, or at least felt like it, leaving me to limp off the M3, switch off and await help. 

The recovery guy couldn't get it to misfire again, nor did it do it on my, escorted, return journey home so I booked it in a main dealer garage for a major service and diagnosis. Needless to say I have had a very long list of advisable's but the main thing was that the diagnosis showed that one injector and all 4 glow plugs were faulty. The guy was pretty confident that a faulty injector would cause the engine to run on a few cylinders, and do so ad hoc and therefore a replacement would fix the problem. I have been quoted £1000 to get this work done. 

So I guess my question is, is this a common problem for a car of this age and mileage. If so, has anyone else had this problem and had the same work done? If so did it fix the problem. And lastly is £1000 expensive. It doesn't feel cheap at this time of year, what does? I'd rather not be ripped off by my local main 'stealership', particularly as the value of the car is not great so I would be very grateful for any thoughts or help. 

Edited 29 December, 20178 yr by Ru Butler

Personally I’d recommend getting an independent garage to do the work with the aim of getting a company such as city diesels to test all 4 injectors and potentially repair. Glow plugs wouldn’t cause a misfire, however worth keeping in mind if you plan to keep the car. Not a hard job to do if you’re technically able.

By the year it should be a PD engine ? and they are known to have problems with the wiring loom to the injectors or the lobes on the camshaft

The injectors are a common problem on them.

However, if you havent had a problem again after that, it could have just been something stuck in the fuel line. 

£1,000 is too much to replace the injector. The injectors arent really that difficult to change either. You can probably pick up a used injector for around £40.

38 minutes ago, Toxicvrs said:

Personally I’d recommend getting an independent garage to do the work with the aim of getting a company such as city diesels to test all 4 injectors and potentially repair. Glow plugs wouldn’t cause a misfire, however worth keeping in mind if you plan to keep the car. Not a hard job to do if you’re technically able.

 

Thanks Toxicvrs. Worth a look at another company, just not sure of an equivalent of City Diesels near Winchester.  

To be fair the guy did say I didn't need to do both glow plugs and injector to fix the problem but if he is going to do the injector the cost of replacing the glow plugs, which needed doing, would be less than doing them later.  

 

 

 

32 minutes ago, nige8021 said:

By the year it should be a PD engine ? and they are known to have problems with the wiring loom to the injectors or the lobes on the camshaft

 

Hmm, ok thank you Nigel.

 

I have seen on here that the PD engine has been known to have the odd faulty injector but maybe its the loom rather than the injector itself i.e. electrical issue which was reset after the ignition was restarted. However it had happened a couple of times previously but very minor splutters on my daily 30 minute commute. 

There’s plenty of electro diesel firms out there that recon. I normally try to put a loom on when I do a set of injectors, just gives piece of mind for sake of the price. Used is an unknown quantity but is still an option 

16 minutes ago, mk2octavia said:

The injectors are a common problem on them.

However, if you havent had a problem again after that, it could have just been something stuck in the fuel line. 

£1,000 is too much to replace the injector. The injectors arent really that difficult to change either. You can probably pick up a used injector for around £40.

 

Thanks mk2octavia, good to know. 

I am pretty certain it has happened a few times prior to last time which felt like I was driving an old tank. the diagnosis did show up faults on the injector and glow plugs so I recon these should be done anyway. 

Injector alone, parts and £100 per hour labour was quoted around £700 and £300 for plugs.

Thanks guys, I will get back on here to let everyone know what I end up doing and the end result. 

I also have other advisories listed below which I feel I can get done by an independent garage. 

 

Split front outer CV Boot
Seals around boost hose into either side of intercooler

Seal around boost hose into turbo
Wishbone rear console bushes are splitting on both sides of car 

Rear brake callipers appear to be sticking but pads and disks need doing for sure

 

Told you is was a painful list to have around Christmas. 
 

I had a injector going  on No 4 cylinder but it had done 300000+ miles. I had the job done by Lion Garage in Leicester .

The cost was about £350 and this was done during this month.

The engine is PD 1.9

52 minutes ago, mb09 said:

I had a injector going  on No 4 cylinder but it had done 300000+ miles. I had the job done by Lion Garage in Leicester .

The cost was about £350 and this was done during this month.

The engine is PD 1.9

 Thanks Briskodian.

 

As your comments have highlighted the cost seems a little step so I thought it wise to get another quote.

 

To be fair, I got another from a different main dealer and they quoted £600 to do the same job i.e. glow plugs and injector (3 hours labour and parts). 

 

Speaking to a friend who works on his own car glow plugs seem a simple job to swap out and each unit costs around £25 so maybe I should give this a go.

 

Thanks again Briskodian.

Edited 30 December, 20178 yr by Ru Butler

For future reference I thought it would be useful to note down a few points on the cost estimate I've had from second main dealer (Skoda Sparshatts, Botley http://www.sparshattsgroup.co.uk/skoda/)

 

Glow plug replacement roughly £200 (parts x4 plugs = £96 + labour 1 hour = £100)

 

No. 1 Injector replacement roughly £400 ( parts x1 injector £195-ish + 2 hours labour £200)

 

Interestingly the helpful Technician giving the quote also mentioned that if I had the recall done for the glow plugs and the injectors (was not aware of this) I could have had all this done for free as part of the 2 year warranty. Obviously the original parts weren't up to scratch anyway. 

 

1 hour ago, mb09 said:

I had a injector going  on No 4 cylinder but it had done 300000+ miles. I had the job done by Lion Garage in Leicester .

The cost was about £350 and this was done during this month.

The engine is PD 1.9

 

Brilliant, thank you mb09. 

 

I have had another quote which is similar, £400.

 

I have rung the 1st garage and the guy I spoke to couldn't tell me how my £1000 quote was put together which I thought somewhat odd. He suggested I call back on first thing on Tuesday to talk to the guy that did the quote. Interesting. 

 

Thanks again.  

 

The knacked injector wiring is a known problem, however I'd tip a full bottle of diesel injector cleaner in half a tank of diesel and drive it like you stole it for a couple of hundred miles and see if it runs any smoother.

 

It's the cheapest/easiest step forward.

Injector and glow plugs replaced, 500 miles on and the engine still seems to be running ok. On this occasion it seems the diagnostic proved to be correct.  

 

Now to sort out my other issues. Rear brakes binding and CV Boot replacement. 

 

Thanks all. 

Slightly a different enquiry, Would the petrol 1.6 fsi have a more time consuming job to replace injectors?. is there position difficult to access in comparison to 1.9pd?