2005 Audi A3 2.0T DSG

[benjijames28]

LiamB said:

Yep third time lucky!
It's had a new crankshaft sensor which is making the car run a lot smoother which is good I suppose.. just waiting for them to find and fix a suspected electrical fault then I'll have it back!

I'll give it a week to impress me again before I get rid

Poor sod who buys that thing! I hope your going to sell it cheap. This is usually the sort of tosh that ends up at some dodgy driveway dealer selling on eBay.

[SebringMan]

LiamB said:

Yep third time lucky!
It's had a new crankshaft sensor which is making the car run a lot smoother which is good I suppose.. just waiting for them to find and fix a suspected electrical fault then I'll have it back!

I'll give it a week to impress me again before I get rid

We've all had cars like this. The issue is that the car is only as good as the mechanic that worked on it. IME those are few and far between.

problemchild1976 said:

who the hell has been working on that car!!!

JJ

To be honest I am with this man below with my experience of garages.

BrettMRC said:

Half arsed mechanics are everywhere - glad you're getting it sorted

[TheLordJohn]

Countdown said:

If there wasn't an oil pressure warning light beforehand I'm not sure how it could be Intrigued's fault?

Surprised at somebody having problems with a Toyota 1.8. Normally they're bulletproof.

Unable to check oil level on a reasonably regular basis would definitely be the owners fault?
PS - you're showing your inexperience with the second line. Usually, a japanese engine, i'd agree with you.
However, that 1ZZ (think that's right) 1.8 (In the Avensis and MR2, too) is absolutely notorious for oil consumption.

PPS - if you're waiting for your car to tell you engine oil level is low by oil pressure, it's too late, the damage is done.

Edited by TheLordJohn on Saturday 11th February 20:46

[TheLordJohn]

SebringMan said:

And people still complain about paying £15/20 an hour...!

[Countdown]

TheLordJohn said:

PS - you're showing your inexperience with the second line. Usually, a japanese engine, i'd agree with you.
However, that 1ZZ (think that's right) 1.8 (In the Avensis and MR2, too) is absolutely notorious for oil consumption.

I'm pretty sure it's the 2ZZ in the T-sport (which pumps out IRO 190bhp) whereas the 1ZZ which, as you say, known for burning oil, was only in the Avensis and lower-range Corollas. I had a couple of Celicas with the 190bhp engine and i dont remember either burning oil tbh.

[TheLordJohn]

Countdown said:

I'm pretty sure it's the 2ZZ in the T-sport (which pumps out IRO 190bhp) whereas the 1ZZ which, as you say, known for burning oil, was only in the Avensis and lower-range Corollas. I had a couple of Celicas with the 190bhp engine and i dont remember either burning oil tbh.

Not big on Toyota (never owned one, which is rare for me to be able to say that about a brand!) but i think the 1.8's suffer oil consumption partly due to oil capacity not being enough (pre-recall) and something to do with poor quality fuel.
Apparently higher octane fuel reduces oil consumption.
There's absolutely loads of info online about it all, anyway.

[problemchild1976]

what company did the engine swap??

JJ

[SebringMan]

TheLordJohn said:

And people still complain about paying £15/20 an hour...!

I missed where you were trying to quote bit me but I believe I know why it is the case.

1) People assume mechanics are so simple any idiot can do it.
2) Cars are not cheap things to run. Yes, a diesel Focus may cost only tax, fuel and insurance to run every month but depreciation also kicks in.

Funnily enough I was discussing a similar thing with my tyre fitter, in particular wheel alignment. Alot of people think that anything over £30 for 4 wheel alignment is a rip off ; after all you read the gauges and make the adjustments right? But, it's amazing how many people get it wrong and I have been at the receiving end of that as well ; rear toe done for toe out instead of Toe in? Laser gauge readings need to be reversed to do it. To be fair to him he charges around £20ish, but his gauges due to being the hook over the wheel type can't do lowered cars.

Sure, Hunter systems make it easier, but again they are only as good as the operating using them ; being able to interpret the readings is part of the battle ; if your toe and camber are out for example it could be down to an iffy wishbone or dodgy top mount for example.

Likewise, people think a £10 code reader will tell you what is wrong with a car. For instance, a Passat I bought came with a MAF error on VAGCOM and a very rough running engine along with uneven injector stability values. Many people on forums etc. told me it was a MAF problem? The issue? A camshaft issue. Why did the EML come on? Due to the camshaft being completely borked the MAF was merely reporting that the airflow was low. But I doubt that error code or scenario applies to other cars out there.

It's part of the reason I work on my own cars besides being tight. Sure, there are good mechanics out there. But if I screw the job up, at least it's only my car that is faulty through my own doing.

Anyway, hopefully the OP's A3 turns out OK for his sake .

Edited by SebringMan on Sunday 12th February 00:51

[Ste372]

IntriguedUser said:

OP I know how you feel.

I purchased a Toyota Corolla T sport March 2015, 1 month later I could hear the engine making a metal clunking noise. The bottom end went. I was going very fast exiting a curved motorway slip-road, must have been low on oil too causing oil starvation.

£1500 later and a new engine went in, a few months later, misfire. Uh oh, what could this be? It was a fault ignition coil. A few months go by and another misfire comes, so I checked to see what it was, the spark plugs were loose, and cyclinder number 3 the spark plug had lost its electrode in the cyclinder.

You can still love a car, but once your confidence goes, it feels horrible. My confidence is coming back now, good luck!

Just out of curiosity reg wasn't GV55FOK was it?

[LiamB]

The garage that changed the engine was chosen by the previous owner as I didn't want to argue about where to go and wanted the easy way out so just agreed with him and I it went to Boss Engines in Essex

The mechanic phoned me today and we had a lengthy conversation about the car and he is 90% sure my cutting out problem is because the car is mapped for a different engine.. when the engine got changed they put a newer version in but used the old ECU and I've been told that could be the cause of my problems. Whether it is or not is another question!

[bungz]

tbh it must be a utter nightmare for any mechanic to pick up the pieces when it has has so many people mess with it previously.

[LiamB]

bungz said:

tbh it must be a utter nightmare for any mechanic to pick up the pieces when it has has so many people mess with it previously.

I've apologized a thousand times to the guy the car is with now, but we had a laugh about it and he is working really hard to get to the bottom of the problem. I think I found a good one for once!

[LiamB]

The A3 faf fest continues.. the mechanic has tried everything and it still has a fuelling issue which he has told me is because the car has a BWE engine fitted instead of the AXX engine I paid for (which it also says on my receipt) so I'll be having a word with the people that supplied and fitted the engine I think..

I'll update the thread when the car is gone because st might hit the fan

[ManOpener]

LiamB said:

The A3 faf fest continues.. the mechanic has tried everything and it still has a fuelling issue which he has told me is because the car has a BWE engine fitted instead of the AXX engine I paid for (which it also says on my receipt) so I'll be having a word with the people that supplied and fitted the engine I think..

I'll update the thread when the car is gone because st might hit the fan

That seems unlikely to me- as far as I'm aware the BWE is for longitudinal installations and the AXX is for transverse. I don't think it would physically fit.
Did you mean BWA? That's for all intents and purposes identical to the AXX, to the point of being interchangeable.

[LiamB]

Apologise for the terrible picture but here is the BWE engine code so something has happened somewhere

Even if it's just the head I can imagine it would still cause problems due to being different internally. I know about the BWA engine so asked to make sure it wasn't that but I've just got the car back and he showed me the code so now I'm even more confused

Edited by LiamB on Thursday 16th February 14:44

[Royce44]

get the car to a vag specialist, why not get the ecu reflashed with the correct engine code software, call r-tech in hinckley would be able to tell you whats up 100000%. if you can get the car there.

[ManOpener]

LiamB said:

Apologise for the terrible picture but here is the BWE engine code so something has happened somewhere

Even if it's just the head I can imagine it would still cause problems due to being different internally. I know about the BWA engine so asked to make sure it wasn't that but I've just got the car back and he showed me the code so now I'm even more confused

Edited by LiamB on Thursday 16th February 14:44

I don't think they are different internally, though. The mounting points on the block are different (transverse versus longitudinal) and the ancillary mountings are probably quite different too, but I think they're fundamentally the same engine. I don't know if there's any physical difference between an AXX and a BWE head. I would be very surprised if the block was a BWE one though.



I wonder if the difference in compression ratio might be the cause? The AXX was 10.5, the BWA and BWE 10.3...I do very much concur with the "take it to a specialist" idea though

Edited by ManOpener on Thursday 16th February 15:00

[Shadow R1]

ManOpener said:

I do very much concur with the "take it to a specialist" idea though.

Agreed.

[problemchild1976]

it all just stinks of poor ownership, poor choice of garage and a "watchdog" style engine swap company!!

i'm sorry but I wouldn't have let the previous owner bodge the car you now owned! you would't have been able to return it to him or even get him to pay tbh so the fact he was happy to pay says to me he was glad to have rid at any cost! alarm bells!

did you HPI the car at all??

JJ

[Justin S]

We had issues with an Audi 2.5 TDI V6 and in the end , the small car sales guy we bought it from, took it to Ray West at Thruxton. Was found someone had fitted an auto ecu in a manual car. We have no idea why or the guy we bought it from knew why either, he just got it from an auction. He cleared the ecu and put a tweaked map on it and it went like a scalded cat .