118TSI owner

[elche]

Hello All, Long time reader first time poster. Owner of a (very lightweight) Silver, 2009 118TSI comfortline.

[tigger73]

Firstly welcome to the forum.

Second I think you may be missing a few components... There's an engine floating around the parts for sale area if you're interested. Suggest you may be needing one of those.

When you have the opportunity let us know the story of your 118TSI. It won't be the first one to have an engine replaced.



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[Ryan_R]

Welcome

I wonder how many theoretical kW you gained with all that weight saving

[elche]

Mate,
The story behind this motor is a long and twisted one, so let me put it down in bullet-points:
- Purchased at Auctions 2 years ago with 70k on the clock
- Picked car up 1 week after placing the winning bid and it smoked up the car park for a good 10min. You could not see your nose in front of you, that’s how much smoke, and how dense it was.
- With 6 months left on its warranty, it spent a hell of a lot of time at the dealers. They never got to the bottom of the issue. They did update the ECU, and in the end blamed incorrect oil and fuel being used. Car had full service history (just not from VW)
- Did a lot of research on the engine issues. I knew it was a dud. I knew what was wrong with it. I put it to VW, but they just got nasty, so off to VW Australia and ACCC and got nowhere. Just really pissed off with the entire thing.
- By now, car had 85k on the clock and was still running strong. Decided I would try and sell it…
- With life getting in the way, I still had the car, and it now had 100k on the clock.
- Engine was playing up. Loss of power, chewing up huge amounts of oil, and the clutch n flywheel were starting to give up. So I decided to buy a second engine.
- After some research, I found that a late 2010 was the oldest I would go. And that is what I found. Late 2010, with turbo and supercharger attached with 6k on the clock.
- Life, tough as always, meant the car now had 130k on the clock and I still had not changed the engine.
- Trolling the net, I found VW Australia facebook page. Reading all the stories on there from unhappy customers I decided to put my story up. Within 24hrs VW got back to me, and within a few weeks of negotiations, they agreed to install the engine I purchased and cover the labour costs.
- With life getting in the way once more, I told them I would get the car to them in a month or so. During that time, doubt started to creep in. In the end, I just didn’t, and DON’T, trust VW any more.
- We just moved into a new place in the Blue Mountains, and within a week of driving up the mountain the poor little engine died with 143k on the clock. So I decided to replace it myself.
I have researched high and low. (I think) I know what causes these things to die. So I’m replacing a lot of parts. I’m taking several pages from the Greek tuning books. New pistons, conrods, better rings, new Nikasil coating, stronger valve springs etc…
Tuning wise will be APR tune. Depending on delivery costs, bigger supercharger n turbo, CAI.
Most will say why not get rid of it and cut your loses. Well I can’t. The car is leased and interest is paid upfront so the loses are HUGE. I could try and go via insurance, but there are other issues if I take that avenue. So, the cheapest option is to modify the crap out of it. So far it has been a very enjoyable project. Taking the engine out was fairly easy. The replacement engine right now has only the head, timing chain and internals. I’ve taken everything else off. Timing belt will come off tonight if I get time.

I am not a mechanic. I am an IT guy that loves cars. I always tweaked my Alfas. Never to this extent, but I was always doing something with them. I am a pilot too, so have a fairly good idea about internal combustion engines that has helped a bit. But, mainly, I like a challenge J
The Golf 118TSI is a great car. It covered everything I was after in a car, unfortunately VW have just tried to squeeze too much out of this engine.

[tigger73]

118TSI owner

Well that is quite a story. Sorry to hear that you got the run around by VW. Though at least you get to learn all about your car and also build it "properly".

Be interested to hear how you get on as there may be a few others looking to go down a similar path once their VW warranty expires.


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[Ramee]

Yeah! that is one hell of a story and I admire your guts to start rebuilding that engine yourself. Just a suggestion though would it be possible to replace that engine with 2L TSI engine? TSI 2L engines are pretty reliable and if you are thinking going modifying route that would give you more power and reliability. Those 1.4L engines are not that reliable specially when they are tuned and like you said VW asked too much from that engine and when you tuned it you are asking even more! Look in eBay and other places for TSI 2L engines and I have seen Tiguan TSI engines in eBay around 3K mark.

[tigger73]

But then Ramee if he upgrades and tunes a 2L TSI he's going to run into problems with running too much torque through the DQ200 7 speed DSG so he'll need to look at upgrading/replacing this also...

Not knowing the deal with the lease I almost think you would have been better getting VW to replace the engine and then moving it on and copping the loss. At least you could write this off on tax. Sounds like the guy that sold it at auction got out of it for exact same reasons

Though I really do think if the tuning/engine management and DSG software is sorted the 118TSI twin charger could be a really great little car. You just really shouldn't have to go to the extent of fully rebuilding engines to get it there.

Sounds like an awesome project and hope you manage to:

1. finish it
2. not run out of $
3. it's worth it in the end

My main concern with the project is that it's going to cost a lot of $ and at the end you still have a Mk6 118TSI twin charger with 7 speed DSG. You'll have to do a lot of driving on the rebuilt engine to make the investment worthwhile.

Just hope it works out for you. Good luck!

[elche]

Tigger, Half my problems is the replacement engine. Like I said, I purchased it a while back and never got around to inspect the internals. Well, I finally did, and it needs to be taken apart and cleaned. So had I taken it to VW to fit, I doubt it would have lasted a month on the road. With the number of K's on the clock, the age, I would be lucky to get 8 or 9 on a trade in. That's a 10k loss right there. Plus the cost of a new clutch n flywheel, belts and any other bits and pieces it may need. I think I would easy be up for 13k loss and be without a car.

I rather take that 13k and put it towards something I know works.

If you take a look at what VW has done to try and fix these engines, you can see where the issues are..
ECU remap to better suit Aussie fuels and power reduction
Uprated high pressure fuel pump (I have both the old HPFP in the old engine and the uprated HPFP in the replacement engine)
PCV improved
Sparkplug gaps changed
Pistons improved
piston rings improved
and now I just read on here that the Oil squirters have been improved too.

My understanding is the most common cylinder to fail in 2009 models was piston No.4 which is the furthest away from the HPFP. the weak pump struggled to feed sufficient fuel at high loads and in particular when cornering, and uphills. So, add all 3 together (like when entering a short freeway onramp) and you have pinging....

Of course, cylinders 1 to 3 fail too, but number 4 was the most common. The Nikasil coating on the cylinders is too tough for the piston rings VW decided to use. With the added pressure from hot pistons, pinging etc caused by the poor circulation of oil from a failing PCV, poor piston design, and (from what I just read) bad oil squirters, the poor rings don't stand a chance.

By improving fuel supply, oil circulation, ignition, pistons and rings, these engines should last a life time. Everything else that I want to add or improve (from better conrods, supercharger, turbo etc) is purely for performance only. So I could get away without changing any of that.

** RE 2.0 TSI - When I first started looking around for an engine, I was looking for ex GTI engines. When I finally found one, I asked several VDub experts, and they all said NUP. You need to change wiring loom, ECU, FoB etc... So I stayed away from it.

BTW my box is manual. Never liked the DSG.

[someon3]

Subscribed, and I cross my fingers for you .

I have got a 2010 90TSI and I really hope it wouldn't end up like yours 118TSI. Servicing my own car is a huge challenge for me right now (I just started getting into DIY car servicing).

[tigger73]

One of the other things that I believe the engine management does is to run lean in the first minute or so of starting. This is done to heat up the catalytic converter to operating temps and reduce emissions. I would not drive in the first minute if you have a choice or if you are in a real hurry put minimal load on the engine.

This is just my theory and I may be wrong, however I think all the things you are doing sounds like you're on the right track to rebuilding a much more reliable engine.

And manual is a big plus too.


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[Ryan_R]

Yep, notice (especially on cold morning starts) that the engine runs pretty rough for the first minute (even on APR 98RON) and when polling I see 'Mis 4' register a noticeable amount of hits (24-45).

[tigger73]

Yep, notice (especially on cold morning starts) that the engine runs pretty rough for the first minute (even on APR 98RON) and when polling I see 'Mis 4' register a noticeable amount of hits (24-45).

Ok theory confirmed


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[elche]

I wonder if the warm up can be deleted from the ECU and then de-cat the thing? I've seen some nice de-cat 3" pipes for 118TSI that are very tempting! hahaha

Someon3, I think you'll be fine. I haven't heard any issues with the other TSI motors

[hoi polloi]

I like it...

You've got bigger cojones than me that's for sure

[elche]

lol Thanks, but my Mrs tends to think I'm missing a few brain cells instead!

Here's a few pics from today's effort...

I am really glad I didn't give it to WV to install. This is the the replacement engine with the head off!! The rust on the walls was insane!




Bottom end...


Lifters, valves and springs... All this will be replaced too.


End result. Acid bath next. Undecided on what colour to paint the block.