Hello, I've been a forum reader for a while, but I'm having a problem with my wife's Fabia and wanted to ask for advice.

 

A year ago, fed up with her 12y/o Renault Scenic continuous breakdowns, we bought a Fabia 1.0TSI 110 DSG (she needs an automatic). The car was used but it was only one year old and had 16.000km. It currently has 20.000km as my wife only uses it for short trips (he works 4km away). Yesterday we went to have dinner with some friends and drove there with the Fabia. It worked as well as always during the 30km highway trip. I parked the car and we went to the restaurant.

 

When we came back to the car to get home, I started it up as usual but the EPC light didn't turn off, and it also showed "start-stop failure" on the display. I turned it off and on again several times to no avail. Since it was getting late and everything else seemed ok, I decided to drive home anyway and get it checked next monday. As I exited the parking, the "check engine" light came on and the car lost almost all power. With the accelerator pedal pressed to the floor, it was unable to shift to 2nd or go faster than 20km/h on flat ground. I stopped and turned it off and on again, and the "check engine" light kept off, but the rest of symptoms were still there and the engine vibrated a lot and made a noise like a tractor, especially on idle. Accelerating on neutral, it climbed to 3000rpm and instantly came down under 2000rpm. I moved the car at a really slow place to a parking spot, since I was stopped in the middle of a road, left the car there, and called road assistance who picked the car up and is going to bring it to the mechanic on monday.

 

Someone here has an idea of what it might be? I'm inclined to think it's something spark-plug or ignition coil related since it's clear that one of the cylinders is not working. The problem is that my idea was to keep this car for at least 10 years, in which it would drive probably less than 60.000km, so I thought we shouldn't have any problem with it, and now my confidence in Skoda is at an all time low. I've never had a car that failed at such a low mileage. And I've had some pretty crappy cars.

 

Thanks!!

Seeing as no one has jumped in, I'll guess that you are correct and something has happened to stop one cylinder firing/running, time will tell and hopefully this investigation/repair will return your car to its previous running state.

8 hours ago, rum4mo said:

Seeing as no one has jumped in, I'll guess that you are correct and something has happened to stop one cylinder firing/running, time will tell and hopefully this investigation/repair will return your car to its previous running state.

 

Yesterday I called the dealer to ask. They told me the throttle body failed.

 

They cleaned it and its running OK now, but they want to replace the part just to be sure it doesn't happen again. Since they are the ones who are going to pay, I guess that's good. Hope it doesn't happen out of warranty, since the repair is 430€. I still can't understand how a car can fail at such low mileage.

 

I've read a similar case on another forum with an Ateca and an Ibiza, both with the same 1.0 TSI engine and really low mileage too.

That is good that they know what the problem was and are replacing that part.  I've not read anything about Throttle Bodies failing at an early point in a VW Group's car life, so hopefully this is a "one off" event.

 

So maybe, as you have now discovered, this is a new issue with that engine.

 

Good to hear that you are not paying for this!

TBH I've never owned a car where something didn't break. It's part of ownership.

Reliability is not about working all the time, that's impossible. It's about being less unreliable.

 

39 minutes ago, abaxas said:

TBH I've never owned a car where something didn't break. It's part of ownership.

Reliability is not about working all the time, that's impossible. It's about being less unreliable.

 

 

Things break. But nothing significant should break at 20.000km and 2y/o IMHO. Maybe I've been really unlucky, who knows.

 

Anyway, they told me the new throttle body will arrive today or wednesday. I hope to be able to pick up the car wednesday or thursday. So far, I'm happy that they decided to replace the part even if they managed to get it to run with the existing one. They could have given me the car with the old part and hope that it lasted one more year until warranty expired (I know more than one mechanic that would have done that), so at least, they seem honest and willing to have the car not having future issues.

Not true.

Most products break more often early due to manufacturing issues, then break more often later due to wear and tear.

The 'bathtub curve'

Had the same issue on my car at 2.5 years old had the throttle body replaced under warranty all good now.