............Just got the verdict today from the garage that the head gasket is gone. :( The car is only 6 months old with ~ 23000 km on the clock!! I dont really drive the car hard!! :confused:

Has anyone else come across this premature failure??? Skoda have said they haven't seen this problem before, but I know someone out there must have seen it!!?? was the performance / reliability of the car the same when repaired??

I suspect my car may have this problem (July 2005 2.0 TDi 140bhp with DSG with only 14,000 miles currently) - I have to add around half a pint of coolant every 4-500 miles (and have done almost since I bought it from Winchester Skoda on 3rd Jan this year)plus it also keeps going into limp home mode and recently the exhaust system warning light has come on....just waiting until I have time to get it to the garage for them to have another look - they had it for a day about 4 weeks ago and couldn't find the cause that time (pressure test was OK apparently and there doesn't seem to be any water/oil emulsion anywhere)

:confused:

Sounds like it, they pressure tested the circuit, it was OK, - they tested the oil, came clean! Went back to the garage, they pressure tested it again while running, yes this is apparently unusual as with temperature there there is expansion, etc. anywho the test was carried out over time (a few hours!!!), seemed OK but when they revved the engine, white smoke (steam) came from the exhaust!! This is the tell tale signs!! The coolant leak is very slow, and is being burned (evaporated) in the cylinder, so very hard to find!!...I just hope when it is repaired all will be like it never happened.!!!

I recently had the head gasket replaced but only because they had to take the head off to cure a problem of oil getting into the coolant system. The coolant warning light had been coming on intermittantly for nearly two years from new and the dealership couldn't find the problem until recently. Anyway, it's all fixed now, under warranty, and the performance of the car is as good as before.

My car went into Winchester Skoda on Wednesday, they confirmed that the coolant was being lost somewhere and there were no external leaks... I suggested that as I'd said before, it was the head gasket, their reply was "we need to book it in to take the head off to investigate" :confused: well, you'll be replacing the gasket then anyway so that'll fix it....

They couldn't let me have a loan car for 3 weeks and apparently needed my car for three days so it was booked in for 23rd April.....

This Friday afternoon (ie just 2 days and 200 miles later) the head gasket blew quite spectacularly - luckily at only 40mph on a country lane as the steam/smoke filled the whole road for a couple of hundred yards!

So, Skoda Assist have recovered it to Winchester and I got a loan car straight away and hopefully now it'll be fixed and running properly in time for Easter

Pourus heads and leaking EGR coolers have been attributed to coolant loss.

I keep an eye on the oil level (know from my ex O2 the appetit)

& the other on the coolant levet from now

Thanks!

Guys, still waiting for the part to come in, apparently my garage has not seen this problem before!!? Anyway they said it was OK to drive the car, which I have been doing, - I keep a couple of 2 litre bottles of water in the boot to top up the coolant whenever the light comes on. Could I be damaging the engine, exhaust sensors or anything else?

Last Friday at 40mph along a country lane the engine coughed and filled the entire road with white smoke for about 1/4 mile! I switched off and coasted to a halt and phoned Skoda Assist (run by the RAC now) who very promptly came and collected the car and took it to Winchester Skoda where I had bought it. We went down on Saturday afternoon to collect a long term loan car from them and awaited a phone call to say the head gasket had failed and the car would be ready in a couple of days...

I just got off the phone to the service department - he said the coolant leak is the least of their worries now as the turbo has failed catastrophically sucking all the oil out of the engine and ingesting bits of itself into the intercooler, the exhaust system and therefore presumably all the cylinders as well

Forecast is for at least 2 weeks to repair depending on parts availability so I'm to keep the Octavia loan car as long as it takes and it'll all be covered by the cars warranty so my credit cards can breathe a sigh of relief

Sounds like you need a new engine with a failure like that.

yep, that's what the guy in service thinks but wouldn't commit to it until they've had the head off and seen the insides

Another failed turbo on a PD140. :eek:

Makes you wonder?

Makes you wonder?

Dunno about wonder, certainly makes me worry!:eek:

Yeah but what comes first?

Turbo or oil pressure?

Yeah but what comes first?

Turbo or oil pressure?

Well, all I can say is that because of the coolant loss that my car was suffering from, I had become quite fastidious about checking coolant and oil levels, mainly to check for cross contamination that would indicate a head gasket failure...

I had checked them only a day or two before (certainly less than 400 miles) and, in fact, my car was in Winchester Skoda for diagnosis of a potential problem only 48 hours before the turbo collapsed so I would like to think they'd have checked fluid levels etc at the time as well as part of the investigation. I do know for certain that they pressure tested the coolant system at least.

I had no warning lights come on even AFTER the turbo failed resulting in clouds of white smoke although the garage reported that there was virtually no oil left in the engine by the time it was recovered to them.

I guess it's possible the oil pump failed shortly beforehand but surely that would have set off the oil pressure warning light?

I guess it's possible the oil pump failed shortly beforehand but surely that would have set off the oil pressure warning light?

Dont count on it, Ive had several go and not one pressure warning in sight.

Well, after almost a month I've finally got my car back - it's had a new turbo, intercooler, full exhaust system and the top end of the engine rebuilt (not a new engine as apparently there was very little damage if at all to the cylinders/head etc), just 'tested' it up the M3 from Winchester to Basingstoke and it's running fine so far, only slight quibble is that the coolant header tank bottle is almost black inside now and there are globules of oil on the surface of the coolant :thumbdwn:

I'll be ringing the dealer firest thing but shouldn't they have flushed the system thoroughly and cleaned the header tank so it's 'clear' now? otherwise any future owner is going to query a head gasket problem and it looks horrible....

edited as having rechecked the coolant level it is OK.

It will take ages to get rid of the oil residue

Well;.........just got the car back yesterday after being in the garage for 2 weeks!!! The initial diagnosis was the head gasket leaking internally, the gasket was fine and the head was pressure tested, it was fine too. It was then discovered that the leak was caused from the exhaust gas heat exchanger, this was replaced. But while the engine was stripped, they discovered a pulley that was about to fail, this too was replaced.

I had the car back briefly but it wouldn't even pull you out of bed! Very disappointed that a car would be given back like this, - needless to say I dropped it straight back to them, -- the mass air flow meter had failed! This was replaced straight away, -the car seems to run perfectly again.

Here

My 2.0TDi in tomorrow to investigate my recent low coolant level.

The cars now on 6,500 miles and was way below min.

I'm look forward to having a manual 1.2 fabia for the day, to then enjoy returning to my own car.

Well after being without my car for a month, after just three days and less than 180 miles my car is back at Winchester Skoda as it's still losing coolant :(

I've told them to keep it until it's fixed this time as I don't want to have to keep bringing it back I was hoping after the turbo blow up that this would be fixed but as I didn't get a new engine, just a top end rebuild, it seems the problem is still there...so it wasn't the head gasket then

I was told it had a new turbo, intercooler and full exhaust system plus new head gasket/dowels etc but don't know if that included the EGR? so I guess it's either that, a cracked/porous cylinder head or a cracked block :eek:

Winchester Skoda have now spoken to Skoda UK who have told them to crack/pressure test the cylinder head and if that is OK then to do the same with the block :eek: why they can't just slap a whole new engine in there beats me, after all they've had to replace the turbo, intercooler and full exhaust system AND rebuilt the head with new gasket/dowels etc it would have been easier to fit a new engine at the time than deprive me of the car for a further 2-3 weeks while they (Skoda UK) faff about testing stuff - I can't praise the Winchester dealer enough though, through all this they've tried their best to sort my car out whilst I'm busily racking up hundreds of miles on their long term courtesy car at least it's not costing me anything

Gosh, has it really only been 6 weeks since my car went back into the dealer - got a call from them yesterday, "we've had the cylinder head checked and it's OK, we replaced a few bits (EGR again plus some other stuff apparently) and it's not losing coolant anymore er, but it's now smoking like buggery :eek: :thumbdwn: anyway, we've spoken to Skoda and they've told us to put a short block in it"

after all this time when both the service guy there and I thought it needed a new engine, it's finally getting one oh well, at least I've put 2000 miles on their car not mine

after another 10 days (making 12 weeks exactly since the turbo disintegrated) and I've finally got my car back with new short engine fitted (the final worksheet I was given just says "after extensive testing we rebuilt cylinder head, replaced the turbo, EGR, intercooler, full exhaust, short engine and everything else.....)

and all seems well so far, I'll run it gently for the first few hundred miles to let it all bed in and then go back to my normal style of driving :eek: