Fabia VRS MK1 ownership woes

[bonesX]

After some years of Impreza ownership I decided on a Mk1 Fabia VRS for cheaper motoring while still being a fun to drive car. The Impreza avaraged 23mpg while the Fabia would I thought avarage ~40.

I found a tidy sounding '06 VRS on sale from Westway Nissan. 39,000 miles, FSH, mildly mapped, plus it came with Nissan's Cared4 12 months no quibble warranty, breakdown cover plus a few other bridge insurance type warranties. Great I thought...

First month was great. I was regularly seeing over 50mpg, and even driven really hard the fuel trip wouldn't go below 39.5mpg. I had the timing belt replaced and the next day the turbo pipe blew off - almost zero power and loads of black smoke - limped home, garage said very common with the push fit plastic pipes to pop off after being disturbed. Fitted a new o ring and self tapping screw to make sure it wont come off again

Then after a couple of thousand miles the turbo failed.

Nissan replaced the turbo under warranty. The bill came to £1400, the warranty paid £1000 and I was left to pay the rest

The job wasn't without its problems. Nissan put the wrong engine oil in, so the car went back, with me taking the correct oil to them as their service manager was trying to use a 'similar spec' oil to what Skoda specify I was out driving the following day and ~50 miles from home the rear f the undertray blew off that had just been put back on by Nissan. I had to crawl under the car and lash it up to get home

The car was not right on its return from the turbo replacement. Fuel consumption was up, and power was down (~10% on both). Nissan said 'brim the fuel tank, do 50 or so miles and then brim it again. Work out the fuel consumption and then we'll compare it to what the car should be doing'. WTF kind of thing to say is that? BS or what? I said to them I regularly do a 15 miles run and see ~52mpg, now I see 42. Ended up taking it somewhere else - EGR valve knackered

Rattling & knocking started coming from fns corner. Had the arb bushing changed, knocking still there.

Driving home last night and the turbo manifold to turbo manifold 'flexi' pipe broke. Looks like some clown has tried welding it at some point.

Garage have said there is an injector issue with these engines, although this might be covered under VAG group issue warranty.

And I suppose I have the DMF to deal with soon

I looked and read around before buying the Fabia seeing some stories of owners woes, but thought as I had the good warranties at least I would be covered. Since all this happening I've heard of loads of similar issues with all VAG cars...

For the mileage I cover per year the fuel differences of Impreza/Fabia VRS ownership is ~£1500 more, but all things considered that's a small price to pay for increased reliability as all things considered the Scooby never let me down

Edit: forgot to add - Console bushed needed replacing almost straight away, and the rear door seals

Edited by bonesX on Tuesday 20th November 14:40

[bonesX]

I needed to return the car to Nissan to use the warranty (or did I?) after all that was the place I bout the car from. The turbo invoice cost is listed as £755+VAT

Turbo air pipes popping off are common, as are arb bushes, DMF's, turbos, injectors.

VAG seem a little less reliable than most, but I'm now thinking modern diesels, especially performance diesels are just one thing after another

[bonesX]

cra1gy1989 said:

Problems I've had with mine in 22k miles...

Since remmaped, blown turbo, oil leak from new turbo, dmf, clutch and gearbox, abs links both sides, front console bushes, front wishbones, both rear wheel bearings, boot won't open.... the list goes on....

Crikey, that's hard luck. What figures have yours been mapped to?