Golf 118 TSI Engine Failures and Service Campaign 24S4

[ope126]

Great to hear mate!!!

[BurnedbyVW]

TSI118 Engine Blown

I bought a used 2010 TSI118 1.4 Golf with 100,000km, full VW service history for $9000 last December.

I had a engine rattling incident within a few weeks of driving and the car had never ran really well. I had put that down to reviews saying the car will be uneasy in city driving.

I took the car for a service a few weeks ago and it turns out the engine has blown, cylinder 3 is cracked. I tried for a goodwill fix but after stripping the engine down they found evidence of a previous replaced head gasket and will not provide any goodwill. I've raised with VW customer service and management there are "firm" and "adamant" that no support will be given to me.

I contacted the previous owner who has been responsive and genuinely concerned. They only ever had the car worked on by an authorised repairer and I contacted the repairer to hear a list of minor things done to the car including sump gasket but no replaced head gasket. I've since found out that the authorised repairer doesn't mean anything in terms of VW accepting the cars history.

I am left with the decision to repair the vehicle at a cost of $7400, $660 of which is already due for stripping the engine or scrapping the vehicle and starting again.

I've been really surprised by how common this issue appears to be, how uncaring VW have been and the poor quality of a car produced by a brand I held in high regard.

I'd be really interested in opinions on whether to repair/scrap/other. Of course my main concern with repair is throwing good money after bad.

[Golfception]

Hi.
I am considering buying my sister in laws 118TSI 2009 Golf from her as she is looking to upgrade it.
It had the gearbox shudder fixed and shim packs added back in 2013 and since then it has been trouble free other than scheduled services.
She will be offering it to me for trade in price once she decides what she wants to buy in the next month or two. So it will be a cheap purchase.

I'm also just wondering how "common" is this issue when you still see 100's of Mk6 golf on the road everyday. If you know what I mean.

[brad]

I'd be really interested in opinions on whether to repair/scrap/other. Of course my main concern with repair is throwing good money after bad.

Your next line of enquiry should be to the ACCC regarding your statutory warranty rights.

[brad]

Hi.
I am considering buying my sister in laws 118TSI 2009 Golf from her as she is looking to upgrade it.
It had the gearbox shudder fixed and shim packs added back in 2013 and since then it has been trouble free other than scheduled services.
She will be offering it to me for trade in price once she decides what she wants to buy in the next month or two. So it will be a cheap purchase.

I'm also just wondering how "common" is this issue when you still see 100's of Mk6 golf on the road everyday. If you know what I mean.

You see 100s of Mk6 Golfs but they aren't all 118tsi.

Her trade-in will either be low as the dealers know about these cars or it will be artificially inflated due to the "fat" inbuilt into the RRP of the vehicle. Your SIL should be asking what the wholesale price is rather than the trade-in...

The 118tsi is a lucky dip. Some people have a good run, others a disaster. Personally, I'd look for a diesel or a GTI.

[Golfception]

You see 100s of Mk6 Golfs but they aren't all 118tsi.

Her trade-in will either be low as the dealers know about these cars or it will be artificially inflated due to the "fat" inbuilt into the RRP of the vehicle. Your SIL should be asking what the wholesale price is rather than the trade-in...

The 118tsi is a lucky dip. Some people have a good run, others a disaster. Personally, I'd look for a diesel or a GTI.

Thanks for the reply. I guess it would be hard to tell the % of those cars I see which are 118tsi. Other then the red letters 😂

I would probably never buy one from a yard or carsales/gumtree but knowing the cars history for atleast the last 4/5years would that make anyone else more comfortable buying or would you still avoid?

How much difference can there be between trade in vs wholesale price as a guess?

[brad]

Thanks for the reply. I guess it would be hard to tell the % of those cars I see which are 118tsi. Other then the red letters ��

I would probably never buy one from a yard or carsales/gumtree but knowing the cars history for atleast the last 4/5years would that make anyone else more comfortable buying or would you still avoid?

How much difference can there be between trade in vs wholesale price as a guess?

A gut call and also your own resources if it goes pear-shaped. Is it cheap enough that a $5k engine failure won't be too much of an impost?

When I bought my Octavia I traded a MK3.5 Golf Cabrio that was worth about $9-10k wholesale. They gave me $12.5k for it as there was plenty of fat at the top end of the deal. I'd bought it privately 12 months earlier for $13750.

Trade-in on a 2009 118tsi DSG is around $5500-$7700 (have a look in Redbook - which is usually optimistic). Any more than that and they are borrowing off the RRP.

Lets face it, apart from having the worst engine & gearbox combo, it's also 8 years old and was $30-$32k new? Cars depreciate like crazy these days.

[Golfception]

Awesome thanks as for the information.

I was probably only going to be keen for the 4-6k range to purchase from her. So fits rebook which I was using aswell
This factors in that worst case stays under 10k if the worst was to happen. I do have access to staff/trade prices through repco and a mate works as a mechanic for kmart tyre auto.
So those contacts might be handy.

Admittedly I will be upgrading from a N/A 2003 Subaru forester that is 15k kms away from its major 200k service which includes head gaskets and is quite pricey haha. So that service alone would pay for half an engine rebuild.

[Kaliani]

Golfception:

I sold my 2009 Jetta 118TSI last week after a close call with the engine failure issue in September. VW covered it all on warranty thank goodness.
We had it fixed and decided to upgrade before we had any more trouble. We tried to negotiate a trade in at our local dealer to upgrade to a new Golf alltrack.

We were offered $4000 maximum after much negotiation. this was despite Redbook quoting the 5000 - 7000 range you also mention. I would look at Glasses guide if I were you as their estimation was more accurate. I then went to a car broker and they tried to find a trade-in deal and it came up at $4,000 or less again. The broker said all the dealers know about the issues with this model so they build it into their calculations as they are such a warranty risk.

As to your 'risk' in taking your sister's car on - ours had been looked after, had only 61,000 ks on it, serviced with VW regularly. Never had an issue with it - then a couple of months ago we started to notice a strange ticking sound and driving on the expressway it just lost power. I don't know if 'its never given my sister any trouble' is any indicator of its likelihood to show up with the problem.

I wouldn't risk it to be honest.

[brad]

Head gaskets as part of a 200k? I don't think so... Timing belt (??) and the spark plugs tend to get stuck in the heads and cause angst.

As long as you know what you might be taking on. The Brits seem to think changing the spark plugs more often is helpful (plus 98 ron and more frequent oil changes). Probably the best thing you can do is remap so it doesn't run as lean.

[Kaliani]

I bought a used 2010 TSI118 1.4 Golf with 100,000km, full VW service history for $9000 last December.

I had a engine rattling incident within a few weeks of driving and the car had never ran really well. I had put that down to reviews saying the car will be uneasy in city driving.

I took the car for a service a few weeks ago and it turns out the engine has blown, cylinder 3 is cracked. I tried for a goodwill fix but after stripping the engine down they found evidence of a previous replaced head gasket and will not provide any goodwill. I've raised with VW customer service and management there are "firm" and "adamant" that no support will be given to me.

I contacted the previous owner who has been responsive and genuinely concerned. They only ever had the car worked on by an authorised repairer and I contacted the repairer to hear a list of minor things done to the car including sump gasket but no replaced head gasket. I've since found out that the authorised repairer doesn't mean anything in terms of VW accepting the cars history.

I am left with the decision to repair the vehicle at a cost of $7400, $660 of which is already due for stripping the engine or scrapping the vehicle and starting again.

I've been really surprised by how common this issue appears to be, how uncaring VW have been and the poor quality of a car produced by a brand I held in high regard.

I'd be really interested in opinions on whether to repair/scrap/other. Of course my main concern with repair is throwing good money after bad.

Sorry to hear you are going through this. I wouldn't let it rest just yet - especially as you have been so diligent in establishing the car's repair history. From my research in this thread (having had the same problem and won the warranty claim) - a number of people have had to write many letters and emails and harrass with with phone calls, as well as doing a little bit of social media shaming. As 'BRAD' suggests, you should also speak with ACCC.

Please see my post earlier in this thread with a run down of cases that have successfully been pursued.

[Kaliani]

UPDATED LIST 1/11/17
I did a bit of research through these threads to pin down the number of successful cases where VW have coverd the cost of all or part cost of repairs. I went back to January this year and tracked each instance. I thought I would share here as a resource for others.

The short story is that between January and NOVEMBER 2017 - as far as I can see - there were 16 instances where VWA covered the entire cost of the repair and two cases where they covered only part of the cost - in both cases this was due to patchy servicing, high KMs. Two cases where no costs covered.

Please correct me if I've missed anything. Here is the table I made. I thought it might be worth keeping a running tally.

FULL COST COVERED
Church
Redhot
Lachlan MC
Anapo
Bensi
Svandas (including a loan car)
Billables
Saveferris
Ellwith
Axyl
Nick123
JoshDC
Zackzorr
theHawk
Pirelli
Kaliani

PART COSTS
1/2 Costs - smokiebear
75% cost Sosotired

NOT COVERED
sixbolt
BurnedbyVW (VW argue evidence of previous head gasket replacement -disputed by owner - voids warranty claim)

[BurnedbyVW]

TSI118 Engine Blown

Sorry to hear you are going through this. I wouldn't let it rest just yet - especially as you have been so diligent in establishing the car's repair history. From my research in this thread (having had the same problem and won the warranty claim) - a number of people have had to write many letters and emails and harrass with with phone calls, as well as doing a little bit of social media shaming. As 'BRAD' suggests, you should also speak with ACCC.

Please see my post earlier in this thread with a run down of cases that have successfully been pursued.

I emailed VW to ask for their details as I wanted to raise a ACCC claim, they thanked me for my email and provided them.

I've just got off the phone from the office of fair trading, as I purchased the car privately they said I have no rights and buyer beware stands. I was certain I had read that there were statutory rights I had against the manufacturer regardless of a private purchase, but unless there's any suggestions I think I'm at the end of the line and will have to pay for the repair.

[brad]

I emailed VW to ask for their details as I wanted to raise a ACCC claim, they thanked me for my email and provided them.

I've just got off the phone from the office of fair trading, as I purchased the car privately they said I have no rights and buyer beware stands. I was certain I had read that there were statutory rights I had against the manufacturer regardless of a private purchase, but unless there's any suggestions I think I'm at the end of the line and will have to pay for the repair.

Fair Trading is state based isn't it? ACCC is different.

Consumer guarantees | ACCC

Basically, you'd expect a "quality" manufacturer like VW to produce an engine that would last at least 200,000km if serviced IAW the manufacturers recommendations. To have it crack a piston at 100k km isn't normal for an engine these days. In addition, it appears to be an issue for that engine type, therefore it should be repaired at the manufacturers cost.

[BurnedbyVW]

Fair Trading is state based isn't it? ACCC is different.

Consumer guarantees | ACCC

Basically, you'd expect a "quality" manufacturer like VW to produce an engine that would last at least 200,000km if serviced IAW the manufacturers recommendations. To have it crack a piston at 100k km isn't normal for an engine these days. In addition, it appears to be an issue for that engine type, therefore it should be repaired at the manufacturers cost.

The office of fair trading lady I spoke to said they handle the ACCC claims as well and said no chance. Here's the section I think she was referring to, bullet 2: (happy to hear if this is BS)


Rights to a repair, replacement, refund, cancellation or compensation do not apply to items:

- worth more than $40 000 purely for business use, such as machinery or farming equipment
you plan to on-sell or change so that you can re-supply as a business
- bought as a one-off from a private seller, for example at a garage sale or fete (but you do have rights to full title, undisturbed possession and no unknown debts or extra charges)
- bought at auction where the auctioneer acted as an agent for the owner (but you do have rights to full title, undisturbed possession and no unknown debts or extra charges).