Can anyone advise how many glow plugs are in my Skoda Fabia Scout  1.6TDI? I am guessing 4, since it has 4 cylinders.

 

Reason i ask is that it was in the garage a couple of months ago and i was charged for replacement of 4 glow plugs. 2 months later the same fault has occured, and i take it to the same garage and the quote is to replace 4 glow plugs.

 

So i am a bit confused, unless there are indeed more than 4 GPs?

Just 4, and if it was only 2 months back it should be a free warranty job IMO.

Possibly a misdiagnosis both times.

38 minutes ago, MarkWW said:

Can anyone advise how many glow plugs are in my Skoda Fabia Scout  1.6TDI? I am guessing 4, since it has 4 cylinders.

 

Reason i ask is that it was in the garage a couple of months ago and i was charged for replacement of 4 glow plugs. 2 months later the same fault has occured, and i take it to the same garage and the quote is to replace 4 glow plugs.

 

So i am a bit confused, unless there are indeed more than 4 GPs?

 

Dig out the invoice and remind them, I just bet it'll turn out to be something else!

Will be covered under warranty for the parts as these plugs have a 12 month warranty, they can however charge you again for labour but most decent garages will carry out the work free of charge to keep customers happy, a good idea would have been to take photos of the original glow plugs  in situ  before taking the car in and then after job was done  to check they had been changed before leaving garage as it has been known to be charged and parts not replaced

Just a note for you a friend had a starting problem from cold, all parts replaced filters glow plugs relays etc after many garage bills had a look at the car for him and out of a problem i had a few years ago i checked the valve clearance.... no gaps at all,  it happens like this sometimes as the valves wear into the head and close the shim gap up not giving the engine full compression when starting from cold, did a total re-shim and brought gaps back to specs and car started from cold every time 

9 hours ago, Murdockman said:

Will be covered under warranty for the parts as these plugs have a 12 month warranty, they can however charge you again for labour but most decent garages will carry out the work free of charge to keep customers happy, a good idea would have been to take photos of the original glow plugs  in situ  before taking the car in and then after job was done  to check they had been changed before leaving garage as it has been known to be charged and parts not replaced

Just a note for you a friend had a starting problem from cold, all parts replaced filters glow plugs relays etc after many garage bills had a look at the car for him and out of a problem i had a few years ago i checked the valve clearance.... no gaps at all,  it happens like this sometimes as the valves wear into the head and close the shim gap up not giving the engine full compression when starting from cold, did a total re-shim and brought gaps back to specs and car started from cold every time 

Thanks Murdockman, yes I will be discussing with the garage on Monday about warranties etc. I don't understand why they seem to want to repeat exactly the same work they charged me for 6 weeks ago. The quote says they did a diagnostic test and i guess this is saying there is a GP problem, but the GPs are new.

I can see from this forum and elsewhere that GP issues with the 1.6TDI Skodas seems to be quite common, but there doesn't seem to be a 2+2=4 solution to the issue. Our Scout was trouble free from 2012 until 2021 and then all of a sudden it got very shuddery in colder weather, which would pass once it warmed up. After the first garage visit the car was great and very smooth, and then after 3 weeks the shudder came back, and it was even worse.

Maybe i should  ask the garage to check the valve clearances as well - thanks for the tip.

 

9 minutes ago, MarkWW said:

I don't understand why they seem to want to repeat exactly the same work they charged me for 6 weeks ago.

 

Easy money. Especially if they think they can just keep billing you for potentially pointless repairs. 

I believe your engine has no such clearances, you have hydraulic 'equalising elements', item 8 here: camshaft, valves - Fabia(FAB) [EUROPA 2012 year] (7zap.com)

58 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

 

Easy money. Especially if they think they can just keep billing you for potentially pointless repairs. 

Aye, th

59 minutes ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

 

Easy money. Especially if they think they can just keep billing you for potentially pointless repairs. 

Aye, that was my first thought, but if that's the game then he must think my head zips up the back. Funny thing is that we've used him before no probs and lots of our friend use him and give glowing reports. So not sure what to think right now. 

1 hour ago, Wino said:

I believe your engine has no such clearances, you have hydraulic 'equalising elements', item 8 here: camshaft, valves - Fabia(FAB) [EUROPA 2012 year] (7zap.com)

Thanks, and this is why i need a mechanic i can trust. 

11 minutes ago, MarkWW said:

Aye, that was my first thought, but if that's the game then he must think my head zips up the back. Funny thing is that we've used him before no probs and lots of our friend use him and give glowing reports. So not sure what to think right now. 

 

Aye, one like that down my way. My best friend gets her car serviced and any work carried out at this guy's garage no bother and we didn't have any problems until my Mum's ailing Toyota came onto the scene and he estimated her £1,500 to get the ECU replaced on the car. Went to another local independent in a village over and he fixed it no bother for a lot less and has carried out all the work (that I haven't done) on my Fabia too.

Edited 13 November, 20214 yr by AnnoyingPentium
Context.

Glowing reports or glowing plugs? 

2 hours ago, Wino said:

I believe your engine has no such clearances, you have hydraulic 'equalising elements', item 8 here: camshaft, valves - Fabia(FAB) [EUROPA 2012 year] (7zap.com)

 

Another example of well meaning but totally out of date (as in at least 30 years) advice.

 

Completely incorrect as well although understandable when dragging back memories from that far back, when valve clearances closed up which in the main was in a narrow period of a few years around 1987 with the removal of leaded petrol, compression loss and valve seat burning occurred on a hot engine and not when cold where a clearance would be present, the temperature coefficient of linear expansion of the valve train components closing up the reduced clearance, much worse on pushrod engines than OHC ones.

 

I was not referring to your advice Wino, I'm sure you realise that but someone else reading may not.

 

To the OP it is inconcievable that 4 glowplugs would have all failed in such a short time, it's a safe bet that the ones that were replaced (if they were actually replaced) were not faulty or not the cause of your problem.

Edited 13 November, 20214 yr by J.R.