angela merkel cars.

it is a silly price.cars today will not have a good lomg term life,cars with good bodies will be scraped after 7 years when the engines lets go ..do You remember 10 years ago cars like a pug 206 the catalizer exhaust cost £900 to replace ,,todat you get the whole lot for £150 ....... so dont buy german cars ,?

 

it is a silly price.cars today will not have a good lomg term life,cars with good bodies will be scraped after 7 years when the engines lets go ..do You remember 10 years ago cars like a pug 206 the catalizer exhaust cost £900 to replace ,,todat you get the whole lot for £150 ....... so dont buy german cars ,?

cars will have just a long a life if ever if not longer. most cars can do far more milage than cars from 20 years ago. they go wrong less often too.

when they do go wrong however, its usually far worse.

OP's issue should be a recall though. inherant design flaw that VAG won't admit too. if only our watchdog was as pro-active as the american one

 

So the weak points on the 2.0TDi engines are fuel injectors, dual mass flywheels and turbo's.

According to the forums these afflict Skoda, and I suspect all marques with these engines.

But my Octavia Scout was perfect for 75k, when I sold it.

 

So the weak points on the 2.0TDi engines are fuel injectors, dual mass flywheels and turbo's.

According to the forums these afflict Skoda, and I suspect all marques with these engines.

But my Octavia Scout was perfect for 75k, when I sold it.

it,s the second had buyer will suffer ,

 

Not a totally bad day - good result for Newcastle

 

A while back VAG recalled all the petrol cars fitted with a certain pencil coil pack.

I spose you can moan but at least they are taking ownership of the faukt and fixing it when it arises or at recall but it still doesnt make you confident in buying one.

Is there any car out there that isnt a ticking time bomb. Time was when you could buy certain brands and know youd got something that you could rely on but these days everyone has a stigma attached to it.

1.6 diesels used by Ford and PSA blow up turbos which CANT be fixed.

All DMF will sell destruct and the dust off them eats starters every 12months.

EVERY new car eats coil packs irrespective of brand.

Day was you only had Rover head gaskets to worry about but all cars seem to have a list of faults these days... what do you do?

 

I got a call from Teesside Audi this morning asking for my consent to do a diagnostics - £75. If its the injector issue then I get the money back, if its something else then I have to pay it. This is despite the fact I have the fault code from the RAC which tells me what the issue is.

Hopefully they will play fair - apparently they will replace all of the old part number injectors with the latest ones even if this isnt the actual problem.

I dont know why they are not recalling the affected models - as far as I'm concerned its dangerous and an accident waiting to happen and their approach so far would suggest that they are trying to do this quietly without making it public. If I had known I would have booked it in for them to be changed before one let go.

It only affects the 170 diesels and not the 140, which the majority of their 2.0 PD engines are so its just the high performance models across the VAG group at risk.

 

They will be avoiding a recall at all costs as its bad publicity and very very expensive.
a stealth campaign works much better providing they are not publicly outed in the motoring press

 

Well, until the problem reaches the all-seeing forums!

 

so,the 170 is not a good engine ,stick to the 140 ,.buy a smaller car with the 140 in,

 

Nah what you want is the Ibiza with the 170... ahhh if only :lol:

Engines are just too complex now, nothing simple about them anymore.

 

Glad you are OK.
My old Passat had design fault shared by A4, Superb and A6 (similar platform). The bulkhead was a double wall affair and it had two drain holes in that blocked up with leaves. It would fill up if not noticed. It would come in through heating duct to the passenger side and damage the comfort module costing upto £800.
It also had in one or two cases I believe seized the brake servo. VAG in the USA recognised it (probably forced to) and recalled. In Europe they started the recall in about 2009/10. The fix was to clean out the holes, the thing we had as owners all been doing (well the enthusiastic ones).

I guess they did own up but it made me smile when all the forum member laughed at Toyota despite me pointing out that at least they acknowledged the problem. Anyone can make mistakes, admitting and fixing them however...

Does the 75 not suffer similar issues to the Passat? German design perhaps? Enough to put me off buying one, my Passat drove me mad instead of there, with it :lol:

 

Glad you are OK.
My old Passat had design fault shared by A4, Superb and A6 (similar platform). The bulkhead was a double wall affair and it had two drain holes in that blocked up with leaves. It would fill up if not noticed. It would come in through heating duct to the passenger side and damage the comfort module costing upto £800.
It also had in one or two cases I believe seized the brake servo. VAG in the USA recognised it (probably forced to) and recalled. In Europe they started the recall in about 2009/10. The fix was to clean out the holes, the thing we had as owners all been doing (well the enthusiastic ones).

I guess they did own up but it made me smile when all the forum member laughed at Toyota despite me pointing out that at least they acknowledged the problem. Anyone can make mistakes, admitting and fixing them however...

Does the 75 not suffer similar issues to the Passat? German design perhaps? Enough to put me off buying one, my Passat drove me mad instead of there, with it :lol:

My previous B6 Audi A4 had a similar issue with the bulkhead filling with water when the drain holes blocked up - it flooded the ECU and caused it to cut out continuously.

I took the battery off, unblocked the drains and drilled some extra holes for good measure!! My aircon failed shortly afterwards and the dual climate control was always a bit iffy in Economy mode and steamed up the car.

It was 8 years old at this point, had done 180,000 miles, needed a cambelt, service and 4 tyres so sold it on - for £2600

 

Just an update - Audi agreed a 100% goodwill repair yesterday for ALL FOUR injectors. One had failed completely causing the breakdown, 2 had bad resistence and not operating correctly and the other was ok. All four now have the new uprated parts so should be ok.

Audi have been great, no dificultly at all - just a straight repair on a 120K car. Car was ready to pick up today but will be tomorrow before I get chance to fetch it. I expect they have been getting worse over time and expect it to be like a rocket now its fixed!

So my faith has been restored - granted that the fault shouldnt have been there in the first place but there are many mainstream manufacturers that wouldnt pay £2K+ to fix a 5 year old 120K car when it breaks down! They have even given it a valet and free winter check up whilst it was there.

Well done Audi

 

Glad it's all been sorted. I guess there is an advantage to having a premium-brand car sometimes as they are willing to offer greater goodwill to maintain their image and customer service.

 

Thank god they fixed it free of charge is all I can say!


Honestly the faults that occur on modern cars these days is unreal. Injector faults, anti-pollution faults etc. they where all unheard of 10 years ago. Infact, some faults have been unheard of throughout the entire motoring industry - right from the first cars, up until today. I mean flywheel failure? Flywheels have done a superb job since they're invention, and have worked brilliantly and faultlessly too, on pretty much every car ever created since 1900 - failures just diddnt happen. They then 'improved' the flywheel by making them dual mass, which has resulted in a torublesome part, costing many hundreds to relplaced - and now every other car has one.

I was going to say the only manufacturer today that makes trouble free cars is Ford - but then I thought of all of the dual mass flywheel, injector and turbo issues etc. the diesel engined larger cars have like the Mondeo etc.

 

Thank god they fixed it free of charge is all I can say!

So am I! I think the bill for that lot would have been nearer £3K thinking about it. The injectors are about £600 and the injector loom was also replaced and not sure how much that was.

I dont know how this kind of thing works but assume the dealer will charge Audi for the labour costs as well.

 

i recon, for every component in a car, modern cars are more reliable and last longer than cars of 10 years ago

but how many more gadgets do they have?

i remember when leccy windows were a luxury, the air con was the luxury, now most cars have climate control as standard

how many bits and bobs are there in that alone.

how many extra filters on an engine. how much higher do some cars rev, how many now run turbo's.

 

^ David, cars today have passed the threshold of reliability vs technology.
They are so full of technology and I don't just mean creature comforts like climate etc, I mean the stuff that keeps the car going, MAF sensors, speed sensors and so on fail/false readings.
My Passat had a engine speed sensor failure and clutch operation sensor. Clutch sensors!! I asked them WTF for?? "In the event that your throttle (fly-by-wire - :doh gets wedged open for instance, if you then press the clutch it enables the ECU to cut the engine" or something along those lines.

 

There are some older cars which are reliable by today's standards and even more reliable than some new cars. Some new cars have some parts that are made of thin material for example, to save weight which breaks and reduces reliability.

 

That's true, but that's also as a result of the branch of science responsible for dealing with those kinds of things having not yet existed at the time older components were "built to last". Materials Science means we can now test any component to the point we have an excellent idea not only the limit it can endure before failure, but also how long it will function under normal conditions - enabling a maintenance plan to be drawn up that schedules that component for replacement before it ever fails.

This leads to lighter components, which require less materials and thus reduce the cost of the total project. SCIENCE!

 

A post above hit the nail on the head : It's always going to be Reliability vs Technology. Working in the aircraft industry, you see it all the time : New components arrive that are 10% lighter, 15% more efficient and last 30% longer than the parts they replace ... But they now require an entirely new support division, with new training and most expensive of all - new experts - to facilitate their introduction.

The simple, hard fact is that a car, an aeroplane or an ocean liner of 2011 is far superior to anything from the 1990s, or the 1970s, where it matters : delivering the most work for the least effort, with the least down time in-between when failures do occur.

Everything else is personal preference; what colour is it, what does it look like but the heart of the matter is as above. Any engineering system, whether it's your car's engine or something else, looks better in hindsight because of the lack of limitations imposed on them back in the day.

Case in point, cars up until very recently (comparatively) could thumb their noses at any idea of being "green" or efficient. That's long since out the window, and now apart from luxury-end models and niche sales, the name of the game is efficiency. Maximising resources for the work done, whether it's local like saving you money in fuel, or wider like conserving world oil supplies.

Furthermore our entire technological base is transitioning from mechanical to electrical : why do things with pulleys, arms, cranks and heavy, heavy metal when you can do the same thing with electronic components that weigh a fraction of the stuff they're replacing, and are far more reliable and efficient?

 

I have to say, I remember at work switching to buying Mondeos (from Rovers) about 15 years ago and having no end of problems, then switching to Vectras and being fine. Since then on to Audi to try to avoid depreciation (who's willing to buy a high-mileage Vectra?) and problems again. If I had to hedge my bets for next time, we'll be going Jaguar

 

Another update!

I picked my car up on Saturday morning and was sat outside the showroom as shiny as a new pin!

I picked up the keys, signed the papers to say I was happy with a goodwill (at 100%? yes!!) and then off I went. It looks like the dealer has done about 20-25 miles in my car which I thought was a bit odd but assume they were just checking the injectors after refitting (although I would have thought it either ran or didnt!)

First impressions are it was obvious something was wrong with the car for many months before it eventually broke down. Its far more responsive at low revs - it used to be rubbish below 1500 but now it files. Again at higher revs its like a flying machine in comparision to what it was before!

For the last month or so I've said to my wife that I thought the exhaust was blowing although it wasnt - now that rough noise has gone too!

Just shows how you get used to something thats not quite right and not really notice! I've done 350 miles this weekend and MPG is showing around 45-46mpg - the best I've seen for about 9 months by 2-3mpg and a lot of that has been A roads rather than constant motorway. Hopefully it will get better!

 

Great news. Glad it's sorted for you.