Scirocco Central

Hi guys,

I love my 'Roc in Viper Green. First car I've ever loved and first car I've had from new. She's never let me down and, a hair over five years on, she still makes me smile ... Until now

Thursday night I made a short (20 minute) journey home. Noticed nothing unusual.

Friday morning, I started her up and immediately noticed something was wrong. There was a real "judder", most noticeable when at a standstill. It was kind of "chugchugchugchugJUDDERchugchugchugJUDDER" like that. You could feel the whole car shake. The "check catalytic converter" light began flashing, and halfway into work lit up solid. As it was a ten minute journey, I decided to complete it.

I phoned up my local VW garage who service her, described the problem, and got an appointment for Monday morning. The manual states that "driving slowly" should be ok, but I decided to avoid use of my car over the weekend. I collected her from work Sunday night when it was quiet just to minimise the time she was on the road. As I had to drive by my house from work to get to the VW garage anyway, I figured I might as well park at home then drive her in Monday morning.

Monday morning, she wouldn't start. The AA came out and towed me to the garage. Now, until this point, my research had pointed to the coil packs needing replacing.

VW charged £50 for an initial diagnostic look. I spoke to them late on Monday and they said they'd need to completely strip the engine to diagnose the fault. This would take 5 hours at £120/hour. They wouldn't charge me for the initial £50 diagnostic. I was warned that a new engine block might be required. The guy I spoke to believed that VW would cover most of the cost because she was only just over 5 years old, had low mileage (52,000) and has a full VW service history.

Today I have received the update:
"It’s a bit strange" (his words)
"timing chain has slipped, completely damaged the actual valves and the inside of the head itself"
"Split and damaged the engine"
"Needs a complete engine"

Subsequent research points me to this service bulletin which seems relevant:
Service Bulletin Number : TB-15-12-01 Date of Bulletin : JUL 23, 2012
NHTSA Item Number : 10045560
Component : ENGINE
Summary :
VOLKSWAGEN: ALL MODELS EXPERIENCE THE TIMING CHAIN SLIPPING, RATTLING NOISES OF THE ENGINE AFTER STARTING, AND ENGINE FAILS TO START. 2008-13 ALL MODELS. *PE

Further update from VW.

Because she is (three months) over five years old, they aren't willing to pay for it. But, they will pay for half the cost of the engine. A new engine is roughly £6,500.

So, I think I'm currently looking at £600 to strip the engine down plus £3,267 for a new engine giving a total of £3,867.

I'd been managing to stay positive until that last phone call

Does anyone have any tips? Suggestions? Advice? Thoughts? Comments? Spare engines?

Thank you

Stuff like this scares me shitless..

Have a read of this thread: http://www.sciroccocentral.co.uk/forum/ ... =2&t=17438" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This timing chain dilemma is one of the reasons I didn't purchase a 2.0 TFSI...

Nothing is guaranteed with anything you buy, I know that, but a known defect with the tensioner which could go at any moment despite age/mileage/service history would worry me, and I could do without it.

Hope everything works out Tunrip.

dimexi wrote:Stuff like this scares me shitless..

How d'you think I feel

SC0TTRS wrote:Hope everything works out Tunrip.

Cheers

Sales of goods act / take them to court.

Pff what a story, i feel sad for you! But don't get it why you decided to drive it when you hear a strange noise from the engine.
I should put a 2nd hand motor in it by a company that is specialist in vag cars, prices of vw are insane.

Sorry to hear of the issues, sounds like every car enthusiasts dreaded nightmare!

I had an issue with my egr valve earlier in the year and VW tried charging me £1300+, took forever to look at it plus lots of other small issues along the way. VW Support is really good, so as bad as it sounds, kicking off always gets you somewhere.

Take it to social media if you have to, I got £500 off my bill because I complained about the delay (it was a legit complaint) - but they take bad publicity really seriously.

Let us know how you get on - a 5 year old car on just over 50k mileage should not need a new engine!!!! Even if it is just 3 months out of warranty...

Tom

UKtom wrote:Sorry to hear of the issues, sounds like every car enthusiasts dreaded nightmare!

I had an issue with my egr valve earlier in the year and VW tried charging me £1300+, took forever to look at it plus lots of other small issues along the way. VW Support is really good, so as bad as it sounds, kicking off always gets you somewhere.

Take it to social media if you have to, I got £500 off my bill because I complained about the delay (it was a legit complaint) - but they take bad publicity really seriously.

Let us know how you get on - a 5 year old car on just over 50k mileage should not need a new engine!!!! Even if it is just 3 months out of warranty...

Tom

What a waste of money. I have turned off the hp egr valve by software, only given you a filthy intake manifold by Carbon building up. Thats probably why you got the fault codes.

Hi,

Ive had a similar issue with my R, engine blew, VW cannot tell me why! The R has a belt not a chain but sounds very much the same happened. Quoted a grand to strip the engine down, then quoted £7000 for a new engine, got them down to £4000, still to much in my opinion. My car 3 1\2 years old, 59000 miles, these cars should not be needing new engines at these low Milages and ages!! VW reliability??? Customer service are not interested, they say they made the gesture in reducing the price to £4000, I thought that was the dealer!! Not happy with VW, but love the car!! Let me know if you get anywhere with VW, good luck!!

If anyone has bought a car from new and the engine fails within 6 years, with fairly low mileage (ie less than say 80k) you have got grounds to sue them under the sales of goods act - and I can tell you now, if you do your homework on how to take a company to the small claims court and threaten legal action or even start proceedings with a N1 claim - a company as big of VW will collapse like a deck of cards and start offering massive discounts or a free new engine.

Never let any company rip you off - you spend 30k on a car, and you look after it and it blows up in 3.5 years - sue the bas**rds if they don't play ball.
If anything you would also have them under the trade descriptions act - 'if only everything in life was as reliable as a volkswagen'.

Don't be afraid of taking a big company to small claims court (limit of £10,000 now, easily fit an engine in that) - they can almost never get their costs back even if you loose - only a small amount can be claimed at best. And again the bigger the company the more they will fold before it ever sets foot in court - it costs them a fortune to defend in court and it costs you next to nothing, plus they try to avoid the potential bad press of a court case.

I've sued or threatened to sue banks, IT companies, Sky, BT, Virgin, EDF energy and VW - only 1 ever made it to court and they lost (badly!). VW wouldn't repair my DSG gearbox when in extended warranty - a well worded legal letter and not long after i had an apologetic phone call, a tanning of a guys arse in my dealership, an immediate refund of the diagnostic fee and a new mechatronics unit.

Btw i'm not some American like guy who sues if you look at me wrong - I just don't let the big companies get away with screwing me, if you know consumer law well - you actually have an immense amount of power, which when wielded will bring down any goliath!

^^^^^ What a HERO!!! Top advice

Hi all,

Update for you. Following on from the original, I contacted VW customer service directly about it. The dealer gave me the phone number and case reference number.

There was a particular guy at VW handling it, so it was nice to be talking to "someone" rather than a call centre. I complained to him about it, and he said he'd see if he could get my contribution reduced. We spoke on the Thursday, and he didn't expect to be able to give me confirmation until Monday, but he'd try.

After regular updates of "Sorry there's still no news", I've heard back this afternoon. And the news is... They're not changing their offer.

That was a waste of five days!

Hi Tunip,

My experience was exactly as you said, VW customer care very friendly, but in the end gave me nothing, sorry we cannot do anything for you!! I think our options are the small claims court, its worth a try for not much money.

Good luck

B

Thanks bernie.

Agreed, I think the VW customer care guy was gutted to keep calling me back with no news... and then no new offer.

If I go the small claims-style route, I'll probably go ahead with getting them to start fix it.

I'm going to speak to the dealer today and see if there are any other options worth considering. For example, trade in value. (If paying £3267 for a new engine, how much more would it cost for a whole newer car?) (But I think it would still have to be in Viper Green )

YAY I finally got my girl back today, three weeks after problems began.

In the end, the total I paid was £4,108. This included a new clutch & flywheel.

The only trouble I'm going to have now is running the new engine in. It felt a lot easier when she was brand new!

Tunrip wrote:YAY I finally got my girl back today, three weeks after problems began.

In the end, the total I paid was £4,108. This included a new clutch & flywheel.

Nice that you got the old girl back dude

That price!!!