We’ve had our Octavia 1.6 Greenline since new in 2012 and done nearly 105,000 miles. We drive a mix of small town and motorway and have found the car great on fuel economy, boot capacity, and comfort. 
With many taxi drivers using this vehicle and reports of lots managing 250,000, it was a shock to learn last week that it has a major fuel pump problem that would take ages to fix and would cost a fortune. It’s our only car. 
The lining of the high pressure fuel pump is disintegrating and swarf is turning up in the filter. 
Our garage, which is a VW specialist has told us that it’s a rare but known problem, definitely not worth fixing. They could not guarantee a repair. 
If it’s known, Skoda should have been looking at a fix. 
This is considered to be the worst time to buy another car. 
But it’s off to a scrap dealer and we’ve a Toyota on order. 

I suspect I'm having the same problem with my 1.6 (swarf in fuel filter, limp mode etc) and it's only at 115,000 miles on the clock. It's incredibly frustrating as you point out just how bad the used car market is right now. Even the bangers cost about a grand!

We didn’t know trouble was brewing when the car went into limp mode a while ago and had to have an injector replaced. It cost about £700 to get it fixed and now all would need replacing as there’s still swarf sloshing about. 

I understand your pain all too well. I just had an injector replaced around Christmas time - I'm gutted the garage didn't take a quick peak in the fuel filter at the time and let me know what was sloshing around in there. I'd have made a more informed decision rather than just replacing the injector.

Spotted this developing on a Yeti with a CAYC last week when doing the fuel filter and he immediately rebooked for a new pump before further failure as he has read about this and understood.

 

 

Edited 20 May, 20224 yr by Crasher

Seen this twice before. Once on my vauxhall common rail. Don't jump to conclusions. I sucked the debris out with a syringe, changed the filter and carried on driving. 100,000 miles later and no more metal has been seen - it's just sh y te from the forecourt pump I think. The high pressure pump is after the filter.

Edited 23 May, 20224 yr by JulianS