Fuel Leak!

[Mattheboy]

Will do, dealership manager should be contacting me tomorrow, will update then.

[rum4mo]

For me, the strange thing is, if a pin failed on the HPFP then I would have thought that there would not have been an external leakage of petrol - though the engine would probably not start or run due to lack of fuel pressure.

 

When a fuel rail bolt shears the engine continues to run, though maybe roughly and leaks a lot of fuel which runs out from the engine compartment.

 

So either you have a couple of failures or someone is wrong about what the failure was - or the high pressure fuel pump (HPFP) casing has failed and so is leaking low or high pressure petrol out.

 

It would be good, for everyone that has a 1.2TSI 16V engine, to get to know what exactly went wrong if you ever get told that .

Edited 13 February, 2020 by rum4mo

[Mattheboy]

Just letting you know that I have Tweeted the issue with the fabias, will see if we get any response from others with the same issue.

[EzyRyder]

So, my 4 year old Skoda Octavia 1.2l just had a similar problem.

 

Went to start the car, EPC light came up, then the exhaust system light, then the car doesn't start. Green Flag came over and the chap was able to find the fault on the fuel rail that was leaking petrol to the undertray and through the holes. I have been quoted £445 repair by my Skoda garage in (Vindis in Cambridge). I can see other people have had this refunded by Skoda UK. Who should I contact? Should I tell me Skoda garage about this issue and let them handle it? Should I tell Skoda UK? Help is much appreciated, I am a noob on these matters.

[Mattheboy]

My dealership looked at some kind of "Goodwill Matrix" as they called it and knocked 75% off. 

[Mattheboy]

From what they told me if they use this matrix Skoda reimburse them.

[EzyRyder]

Thanks for the above, it is great information.

[Mattheboy]

No problem, good luck.

[rum4mo]

This needs to be taken a bit more seriously by VW Group, it causes inconvenience and worse a dangerous situation in the cases where the engine actually is able to start and run with high pressure petrol running out and down from the front of the engine.

 

Even worse in this current situation where VW Group maybe not have the facilities open to repair these cars - then what?

 

Edit:- 5th instance in this forum over the past year roughly!

Edited 25 March, 2020 by rum4mo

[EzyRyder]

So, had a reply, finally!, from the dealer about this and there is no discount available to me on the goodwill matrix, that is in spite of me taking the car to them for a service last year and doing some work on it, plus refilling the air con.

Now engaged with Skoda UK to see what they say, this is all taking so long and this is our only car 😞

[rum4mo]

I hoped that you mentioned that your car was not the first or only one with this issue with that engine family.

[Eeeekkk]

I took mine to a local garage as it was close and I assumed it would be something easy to fix. When I found out it was a defect and Skoda wouldn't reimburse me, I wrote them a letter before action and they paid up.

[EzyRyder]

It is with their executive office and senior management team at the moment, still without a car after 11 days 😞

[thamestrader]

I think our 2015 1.2  110 bhp TSI Fabia may have just suffered the same failure, fuel spraying out of the No.1 Injector. Partner's car, she drove it home complained of petrol smell, RAC towed it to local garage for investigation. Will report back when I find out what the repair was.

Edited 4 June, 2020 by thamestrader

[rum4mo]

4 hours ago, thamestrader said:

I think our 2015 1.2  110 bhp TSI Fabia may have just suffered the same failure, fuel spraying out of the No.1 Injector. Partner's car, she drove it home complained of petrol smell, RAC towed it to local garage for investigation. Will report back when I find out what the repair was.

 

Maybe I should actually do what I have suggested what I was going to do, which is buy in some M6 X 16mm cap headed  10.8 grade bolts and replace the fuel rail fixing bolts before it happens to my wife's August 2015 VW Polo.

Edited 4 June, 2020 by rum4mo

[thamestrader]

23 hours ago, thamestrader said:

I think our 2015 1.2  110 bhp TSI Fabia may have just suffered the same failure, fuel spraying out of the No.1 Injector. Partner's car, she drove it home complained of petrol smell, RAC towed it to local garage for investigation. Will report back when I find out what the repair was.

Update from the independent garage - the head has sheared off one of the bolts for the injector to No. 1 cylinder, none of the other bolts were tight either. His considered opinion is that the bolts were not tightened fully and the pulsating 'hammer' action of the injectors, because the bolts are fully tightened, is enough to cause the bolt head to shear off. Luckily the remains of the bolt protruded enough to allow it to be removed.

 

A set of new injector seals will be fitted along with new bolts.

[rum4mo]

23 hours ago, thamestrader said:

Update from the independent garage - the head has sheared off one of the bolts for the injector to No. 1 cylinder, none of the other bolts were tight either. His considered opinion is that the bolts were not tightened fully and the pulsating 'hammer' action of the injectors, because the bolts are fully tightened, is enough to cause the bolt head to shear off. Luckily the remains of the bolt protruded enough to allow it to be removed.

 

A set of new injector seals will be fitted along with new bolts.

So you are the 6th briskoda member to have this happen to a 2015/2016 Fabia 1.2TSI, I have not seen any of this happening on same age VW Polo or SEAT Ibiza, and I can’t understand that as a couple of Skoda factorIes built all these engines for all VW Group marques!

 

Edit:- the problem is, for convenience most owners have taken their cars to garages outside the Skoda dealership loop and so not many if any will get seen by Skoda so this might not be getting raised as an issue.

 

The correct torque for that fixing, as per the official workshop manual is only 9Nm, by the way.

Edited 6 June, 2020 by rum4mo

[thamestrader]

I posted this subject on the VW forum as well, to see if VWs were also affected. Interestingly I learnt that the injectors have been revised 3 times between 23 Feb 2015 and 4 Apr 2016, my car was built on Feb 12 2015. Thta does rather suggest the VAG and Skoda do know something about the problem and that its the injector that's the cause. However at £228.77 for each injector plus the labour charge...…….

[AGFalco]

9 minutes ago, thamestrader said:

23 Feb 2015 and 4 Apr 2016

 

Phew, mine was built in May 2016. 🤞

 

Thanks AG Falco

[rum4mo]

Engine build date is more important than car build, I seem to remember that the 1.2TSI 110PS fitted to my wife's July 2015 Polo had been built quite a few months earlier than the car, but there again that Polo was built in South Africa so engines might get shipped a bit earlier than Skoda needs to ship them to their almost local Fabia build factory.

 

@thamestrader Which VW forum did you post this on by the way?

 

Edit:- a bit of guessing on my part but I'd think that these injector issues that lead to these parts being altered would have manifested themselves as rough running etc and not popping the heads of the fuel rail retaining bolts - though it is nothing other than this fuel rails 3 or 4 retaining bolts that keeps these injectors in their holes.

Edited 8 June, 2020 by rum4mo

[thamestrader]

@rum4mo VWFORUM.CO.UK - 

[rum4mo]

1 minute ago, thamestrader said:

@rum4mo VWFORUM.CO.UK - 

 

Thanks for that, I'll have a look on there to see what everyone has been saying about this.

[Breezy_Pete]

On 05/06/2020 at 18:51, thamestrader said:

Update from the independent garage - the head has sheared off one of the bolts for the injector to No. 1 cylinder, none of the other bolts were tight either. His considered opinion is that the bolts were not tightened fully and the pulsating 'hammer' action of the injectors, because the bolts are [not] fully tightened, is enough to cause the bolt head to shear off. Luckily the remains of the bolt protruded enough to allow it to be removed.

 

A set of new injector seals will be fitted along with new bolts.

 

I've added a word in square brackets above, because I'm pretty sure you meant it to be there?

This sounds like a very good analysis of the failure mode. Movement in a bolted joint leads to fatigue failure. Inadequate initial tightening in the factory seems like the simplest explanation; whether by design spec, operator error or tooling (mis)calibration.

[rum4mo]

8 hours ago, Wino said:

 

I've added a word in square brackets above, because I'm pretty sure you meant it to be there?

This sounds like a very good analysis of the failure mode. Movement in a bolted joint leads to fatigue failure. Inadequate initial tightening in the factory seems like the simplest explanation; whether by design spec, operator error or tooling (mis)calibration.

 

Funny that so many people, me included make errors when typing but when others read it their brain corrects things most of the time, I did not notice that typing error at all and just read it as intended.

 

I suspect another "variable/error" will be the "flowing" of the injector>head seal and/or the top fuel seals injector>fuel rail - when or if that flows or changes its characteristics then the load on these bolts will change and allow the injectors to move up and down and so if the bolts are of low quality, and they are only 8.8 then it will not take too much to know a head off eventually.

 

One other thing as I have said earlier, these bolts are one of VW Group "standard parts" - but every where else I've found them used is in a less stressed situation, typical uses include retaining ABS wheel sensors and supporting engined mounted bracketry.

 

For me, the trouble is getting access to these bolts without taking too much off the engine as they hide behind the inlet manifold which has a water charge cooling on it, very annoying situation as when high pressure petrol is escaping down the front of an engine, it is not the best situation to get into, and VW Group seem to be turning a blind eye to it - it does sound like a safety related potential failure to me, and one that I don't want to experience. Surely this means of securing GDI injectors with only the flimsy HP fuel rail has been tried on other engines/marques.

[EzyRyder]

Just to let you all know, Skoda have replied and have offered a free service for my troubles (I think they are worth around £200). Would you take this or fight it further? Next step I need to pay £25 for the Small Claims Court.