Good evening all,

 

ive recently (2 months) brought a 2nd hand Octavia vrs diesel estate mk3 dsg from a reputable 2nd hand car dealer. 

 

Since owning the car it’s been fantastic to drive it’s covered 50k  miles and been regularly serviced by main dealer. 

 

Here comes my issue in the short time of having it it’s already been back because of a rattle sound which was the dual mass flywheel which was replaced under warranty while it was there it had the auto gearbox oil change done aswell. 

 

That put to the side I drove the car yesterday and on a dual carriageway and with no warning the car started loosing power quite quickly and the engine management light has come on. Luckily I was less than 5 minutes away from home so managed to “limp” home. 

 

The garage assures me that it should be covered under their warranty. My only concern is about the reliability of these cars? Two issues in two months seems a lot but I love the car to bits.

 

The other issue I’m up against is that the garage 3 month warranty is up next month which then reverts to a RAC warranty which I’m guessing isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

 

im considering getting the car exchanged for a similar car of value to what I paid or shall I stick with the Octavia? 

 

Thanks for reading! And for any replies

Why was the gear oil done at 50k? It should have been done at 40k miles. If it wasn’t done on time it could go some way to explaining the damage to the DSG box. Reliability wise, mine has now done 90k miles and in the last 7 months and 16.5k miles it’s been faultless. The first failure could be a result of stretching the oil change too far or the way the car has previously been driven. The second could be an extension of that or unrelated, it could even be something that wasn’t done properly during that work. It’s impossible to know until the codes are read.

Gear oil wasn’t done by previous owner and as soon as I read up about them I got the garage to do the oil change on it.

 

The car is getting towed/collected and taken to the garage tomorrow so with a bit of luck they might be able to plug it in tomorrow aswell to get some fault codes up.

The reputable 2nd hand car dealer just sells cars they get in, they can not really know how the driver or drivers have been driving the car before they bought it in.

 

Re Regular Service by Main Dealer.

So Oil & Filter,  maybe pollen filter, maybe Air Filter maybe not changed, maybe Brake Fluid, maybe not  & no DSG Oil Change carried out,

maybe a couple of Free Wash and Vacuums.

 

So the 'Full Main Dealer Service History' as many find out means not much done and not to Manufacturers Guidelines so can void a Manufacturers Warranty.  

Edited 24 July, 20187 yr by Offski

Mate has a garage, I pop in for a brew now and then and he does all my servicing.

 

While chatting I often ask why a particular car is in , Iv lost count of the times he has said.."they didn't keep to the service schedule " 

Does the gearbox oil touch the flywheel? It doesn't on a manual box. So basically the car has had a flywheel problem replaced under warranty and has gone into limp mode, I would wait and see what the fault is before doing anything hasty.

I would imagine the issue would be unrelated as the flywheel was replaced a month ago. The second issue only happened two days ago. Will be chatting to the garage either way as a minimum I think they need to extend their warranty. Worst case will book in with main dealer to get a full service and general check over

There is more than the Warranty.  There are consumer rights, and them getting the chance to sort the car out or you handing it back and getting your money back.

Latest fault most likely to be boost pressure sensor.

I know everyone knocks Main Dealers for rip off prices, but if you book online, like I did you can get fixed cost servicing, but the flip side of paying that little extra it is that if it's done by a Skoda dealer and something goes wrong after they've worked on the car and it's something that they've worked on or is related to something that they've worked on then the onus is on them to put it right. 

 

Also they'll have the full service history of that car on file or on the SUK database which they can access, I've had one service done by Lookers at Peasmarsh, the other has been done by Garlands in Aldershot where I got the car, when I took the car to them last time they said it hadn't been serviced since I'd had it, I disagreed and told them that Lookers had done it due to them being fully booked last time, when they did some digging they actually found the record of the previous service on file, so it does have a full service history as per OEM specs.

 

My car's now 26 months old, has just 15k mile OTC, it'll be coming up for changeover in November time, hopefully with such a low mileage I'll get a little extra back because of the low mileage, but I may lose a little due to the poor wheel rims (Thanks to Taxis & Yummy Mummy's in 4x4s).

 

My car has performed pretty much flawlessly, the only little thing is there's a bit of a snatch between 2nd & 3rd when I accelerate away, I don't know why? Other than that I'm very happy owner. 

 

If you ask me will I have another vRS, then I'd like to think that I will, but that will depend on what money I get back for a very low mileage car and what money I have available to put towards the next one.

So garage called me back today and said the auxiliary water pump has failed which is a straight forward job and all under warranty

Water pump failure on Octavia diesel is a common problem at your mileage so it is good that issue has been rectified now.

 

1 hour ago, Gerrycan said:

Water pump failure on Octavia diesel is a common problem at your mileage so it is good that issue has been rectified now.

 

 

The question was how reliable is the VRs? Well if water pump failure a common problem at 50k miles then the answer has to be "not very".

 

Thought cambelt interval on facelift was every 5yr or 140,000 (or could be 120,000) miles, whichever comes first? It's often recommended to change water pump at same time which implies the waterpump should last longer than the timing belt? Failure at 50k  on a mk3? Would either suggest premature failure or the car's had a hard life.

 

Back to the car in question. Was the car advertised with full service history ( I personally wouldn't touch a car like that without one). If it was advertised with FSH then if it had missed a scheduled auto transmission fluid change, that would have been enough to set the alarm bells ringing for me.  At the very least, it would have been the supplying dealer who paid for this work but personally I'd have returned the car for a refund. I'd always be asking myself - If the pervious owner missed that, what else did he or she miss?

 

You also ask "or swapping for another car - what do you think?".  Well that depends what you swap to. You may be swapping to something even less reliable. At that mileage you should always have the car inspected before purchase and to hell with 'reputable 2nd hand car dealer".

Edited 26 July, 20187 yr by Guest

1 hour ago, Scot5 said:

Thought cambelt interval on facelift was every 5yr or 140,000 (or could be 120,000) miles, whichever comes first? It's often recommended to change water pump at same time which implies the waterpump should last longer than the timing belt? Failure at 50k  on a mk3? Would either suggest premature failure or the car's had a hard life.

It is indeed 5 years and 120k miles but premature water pump failiure is not uncommon on the earlier 184 TDi’s especially around 50k miles. Mine is an early ish 184 TDi and it hasn’t been changed yet and I’m on 90k miles so I’m bricking it a bit. It’s going to Skoda for a new belt, water pump and MoT in August when the car turns 4 for my piece of mind and because it’s summer and I’m on holiday, the car will go over to 120k before it’s 5 and probably when I’m not on hols. It’s one of the more common weak points of the TDi engine. I’d be more worried about the missed DSG service myself, it’s very critical to have the oil changed on time and suggests the previous owner wasn't too hot on keeping up with the maintenance schedule.

So full service history which is a mixture of main dealer and Indy vw garages. It’s the auxiliary water pump (electric powered one) not the cambelt one which as said above is due at 5 years old which is in October. So will get that booked in at main dealer  soon. It was serviced at 33k then again at 50k which is when the auto oil was done.

It’s a Q16 service schedule but presumably every year or 10-12k is enough for a service?