Golf R engine blown

[Beanie]

Gary C said:

Beanie said:

Yeh me too

It's been quite a learning experience so far,

The one that's baffled me is the insurance point of view.

In their view, hitting another car, putting wrong fuel in is an accident and unintentional

Miss shifting however oh no that's wear and tear and my fault.

Is it just me that's confused by this definition?

As usually, your fully insured until you need it

What are the symptoms?

It's totally dead

[Beanie]

pavarotti1980 said:

eliot said:

Given the amount of money for the new engine, i assume the old engine is now yours? If so, make sure you retrieve it - and if you don't want to retrieve it, i will go down there and collect it personally.

How much for the engine to be stripped and sold as bits?

Interesting point

I was told that the old engine has to be returned to VW

[Beanie]

Gav147 said:

Just out of interest have you tried another VW dealer? Sounds like the one you are using are taking the piss quite frankly, they're insisting it needs a brand new engine at the cost of a minimum £10,0000 without even opening the damaged one up to look, unless I missed something? Then if you do spend north of 10k with them they won't let you have the damaged engine? Sounds like a pretty good money maker for said dealership.

So here's what I've been told,

Open it up and have a look 2k, they think I'm wasting my time, if I've bent and snapped all the usual bit's and pieces the time and cost of the repair and put it back together means I might as well get a new one.

Maybe having it rebuilt still voids the warranty for the engine anyway?

Cost of new engine 6.5k that's without labour and then finding out other bits are trashed too.

I'm expecting 10+

Oh and that engine price is based on there being the old one to part ex

[Beanie]

Well apparently it's the first.. so yes I imagine they want a nose around...

[Beanie]

Stickyfinger said:

2k to remove the head from a trashed engine......stting giggles !

16 man hours plus vat to strip it down apparently

[Beanie]

Olivera said:

Beanie said:

Yeh me too

It's been quite a learning experience so far,

The one that's baffled me is the insurance point of view.

In their view, hitting another car, putting wrong fuel in is an accident and unintentional

Miss shifting however oh no that's wear and tear and my fault.

Is it just me that's confused by this definition?

As usually, your fully insured until you need it

It's a simple fact that there is no way to cause such an over rev in a manual car *without* the driver putting the gearbox in too low a gear. There is simply no other explanation other than you are at fault.

Insurance does not cover wear and tear or mechanical only failure, with yours being the latter.

You just need to pay up and fix it out your own pocket.

That's fine, understood

So why do they pay for the numpty that puts the wrong fuel in then runs the car? Human error right?

[Beanie]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Many a true word spoken in jest

[Beanie]

Stickyfinger said:

Beanie said:

That's fine, understood

So why do they pay for the numpty that puts the wrong fuel in then runs the car? Human error right?

Not all do......it depends on the company. Read your small print and what your company covers you for.
As an example, I have chosen to add it on the cover for my diesel but do not have it on the cover for the two petrol engined cars (next to imposable to miss-fuel a petrol due to spout sizes being narrower)

I did it once on a diesel due to BP "Advertising Pump Covers" all being the same colour !....(I did not start the car and pumped it out in the car park with the aid of a Halfords 12volt oil pump)

My policy states

We do not cover:

Mechanical failure

I don't think this is a failure it's an accident, if I had whacked it into the wrong gear whilst avoiding next doors gerbil, blown the engine, hit their wall, smashed in the front bumper, would they only be repairing the front bumper and saying the gear selection was my error? I doubt it

[Beanie]

TimmyMallett said:

A failure is a component failure. This is not that. But it's also not an accident, you're really just wasting energy chasing your insurance.

I really think you need to work out how to pay for it. Maybe ask if they could offer some sort of contribution under the warranty outstanding? They must realise very few people could finance that sort of payment.

So here's the Oxford definition of accident:

An unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury.

Preturn sure if it's what happened then it's an accident

Same as accidentally colliding with another vehicle

Same as accidentally putting in the wrong fuel

Wear and tear: tyres, windscreen wipers etc

P.s never too soon for the graphics although based on those graphics if I was in 6th I would be even more trouble lol

Edited by Beanie on Friday 6th October 19:30

Edited by Beanie on Friday 6th October 19:34

[Beanie]

Evanivitch said:

If you drove through a pot hole and damaged suspension/wheel, would insurance pay out?

I feel for you OP, a lot of people giving you stick but we're not all high-powered directors with £10k in our back pocket.

Im big enough and ugly enough to take the stick, but thanks I appreciate it. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but the insurance more than anything is rattling me

[Beanie]

Olivera said:

A mechanical over rev could cause a plethora of different faults, snapped camshaft, bent valves, dropped valves, knackered cylinder, snapped cambelt, etc etc etc.

If insurance paid out for a mechanical over rev what would stop anyone and everyone claiming a prior mechanical problem was caused by an over rev? Why would anyone repair any major engine problem if they could easily and deliberately cause an over rev grenading the engine and guaranteeing a replacement through insurance?

Surely that's where the ecu comes in to provide a history

So I have a mechanical fault, let's go fill it with the wrong fuel, I know they pay out for that???? 'It was all fine til the wrong fuel went in and the ignition point was all off, destroyed the timing, but it's ok I put the wrong fuel in' cheques in the post...

I see your point but still...

Edited by Beanie on Friday 6th October 20:02

Edited by Beanie on Friday 6th October 20:04

[Beanie]

SMB said:

Beanie said:

Surely that's where the ecu comes in to provide a history

So I have a mechanical fault, let's go fill it with the wrong fuel, I know they pay our for that????

I see your point but still...

Edited by Beanie on Friday 6th October 20:02

The relative risk exposure of a misfuel does not compare to an over rev.

Misfueling was very rare prior to the take up of diesel cars, Insurance companies saw a gap to promote a product for relatively little exposure and cost, small firms will drain a tank and flush for a few hundreds of pounds, probably little more than some excesses on policies so the risk is manageable for an insurance company given the policy excess. This was added relatively recently to appease some peoples concerns, and was costed into a policy charge but the insurance company


If they offered unlimited engine replacement, just consider the cost of that risk on their books......

Ok poor example,

Swing it into the central reservation to avoid the 'crossing dog' it's still a bloody accident with intentional consequences

That'll get your motor fixed right up

£250 excess or £4000 to sort the engine down the specialist, wonder how many times thats happened

Oh but the honest motorist, never claimed, let's bend him right over.

Edited by Beanie on Friday 6th October 20:13

Edited by Beanie on Friday 6th October 20:21

[Beanie]

Evanivitch said:

Olivera said:

A mechanical over rev could cause a plethora of different faults, snapped camshaft, bent valves, dropped valves, knackered cylinder, snapped cambelt, etc etc etc.

If insurance paid out for a mechanical over rev what would stop anyone and everyone claiming a prior mechanical problem was caused by an over rev? Why would anyone repair any major engine problem if they could easily and deliberately cause an over rev grenading the engine and guaranteeing a replacement through insurance?

I could easily drive into a wall too.

Or claim someone vandalised my car.

Or petrol bomb it.

All of the above are fraudulent, you might get away with it once. But really, why would someone with a car on lease and nearly due to hand it back try to beat the rev-limiter? What do they have to gain?

Thanks, exactly my point, 70 into a 50, average speed cameras, single lane traffic, stretch of road I travel daily, what do people think I was trying to achieve?

[Beanie]

SuperchargedVR6 said:

OP f'cks his engine on a track day with a crappy downshift and won't man up about it.....and then tries to compare his 'accident' to miss-fuelling, jesus christ. Some people. This is precisely why car companies are becoming more and more litigious.

Once again..... for the benefit of 'can't be arsed to read the whole thread sorts', 8000+ rpm is ONLY possible from a bungled downshift. Stock rpm hard cut on acceleration is around 6600rpm.

VW have all the evidence they need. You carry on with your skirting around the truth and see how far it gets you.

Track day? Impossible, given the time of failure on ecu, location, duration to recover vehicle to main dealer. It's a physical impossibility.

Anyway as you call it, accident...

[Beanie]

Stickyfinger said:

Beanie said:

Thanks, exactly my point, 70 into a 50, average speed cameras, single lane traffic, stretch of road I travel daily, what do people think I was trying to achieve?

I do not think anybody thinks you were trying, but you managed 8500K Rpm.

Yep apparently so!

[Beanie]

Stickyfinger said:

Beanie said:

Yep apparently so!

As VW have said (and others) it is ONLY possible with a "money shift"...if you disagree and say you did not do this, how do YOU think 8.5k is on the ECU/the engine is buggered and you did not notice.
VW have made their statement, it is up to you now to counter that.

I think what I'm saying is IF I did, it was unintentional action, as is wrong fueling, sliding off road, rear ending, t boning.

The human factors side of things is the same, accidental, no one got in the car intending any of those things.

VW still can't tell me what gear I was in

[Beanie]

Blaster72 said:

Beanie, very unlikely but has the gearbox shift mechanism been checked for faults (ie is there slack or misalignment that makes it too easy to select the wrong gear) ?

Can't offer much more in a way of explanation other than driver error.

Crap situation to find yourself in, feel for you.

Thanks, I did question the gearbox, I was told it was highly unlikely, and I think if they find anything at this stage it will be attributed to the overspeed rather than the other way round.

[Beanie]

IanJ9375 said:

Beanie said:

VW still can't tell me what gear I was in

Well if the recorded RPM is 8500 then it wasn't...
6th as that would be 212mph
5th as that would be 176mph
4th as that would be 139mph
3rd as that would be 101mph

So that leaves us with 1st 44mph and 2nd being 72mph at those revs - so you tell us what you remember from when it went bang as I may have missed that part? Is it that hard to remember what you were doing for the 30 seconds prior to it stopping?

Coasting to safety

[Beanie]

IanJ9375 said:

Beanie said:

Coasting to safety

Well lets ask how far did you coast then as when my cambelt roller disintegrated back in the 90's I coasted for an awfully long time including up hill at one point.....

Seriously can you not remember anything as it's pretty obvious that if you hit 8500rpm then you dropped it in on 1st or 2nd.

Maybe about 0.5 miles

As I've said previously, I remember the revs coming up but no where near the red, didn't hear anything crazy, didn't feel anything at all.

8500 is off the clock, so I would never have seen it anyway,

Maybe someone that understands this particular gauge better me, possibly with that quick a wind up and lag in the indication, it could have hit 8500 before it have even registered on the gauge. I also wasnt fixated on the instruments and it was done in a blink

[Beanie]

Hammer67 said:

mcg_ said:

Hammer67 said:

mcg_ said:

Hammer67 said:

mcg_ said:

Hammer67 said:

So what you're effectively saying is that in your opinion you can buy a new car, run it for a couple of years, decide that you quite fancy a new engine under warranty, deliberately over rev it to blow it, and expect the dealer/manufacturer to play ball.

Or are you not saying that?

That is exactly what I'm saying. Don't know why everyone isn't doing what you've described it's genius.

And there, in a nutshell, is why VW and the like apply this technology in ECUs to avoid paying out thousands of pounds in fraudulent warranty claims.

I just can’t believe the great idea has been scuppered. Good job I didn’t try it before my warrenty ran out.

Shame you didn`t as you would have been "personally fighting this all the way".

Oh and the claim you mentioned about the RX8, no way in a million years would the claim sent to Mazda for authorisation from the dealer have listed as the reason for failure "Customer changed from 5th to 1st and over revved". The dealer, helping the customer, would have put in something like "unexplained engine failure".

I have been replying in jest since my first post but I’m not sure you’ve got that.

I suppose you would just bend over and give them 15k

“Oh yes VW here’s the money no problem, I’ll have one of those new Arteons whilst I’m here”

Regarding the RX8, who cares what they wrote, it got fixed. Don’t dwelll on it.

Yes I`ve got that although I'm not sure the OP is finding his situation particularly amusing.

I coming at this from the angle of my previous life, a director in aftersales of a multi franchise dealer group.

Part of that role was overseeing Warranty Administrators whose sole task was to administer and process warranty claims. The manufacturers, in all cases, have quite onerous procedures in place that require dealers to adhere to in respect of warranty claims.
These procedures are audited and where errors/omissions/failures are found the dealer can be and are penalised financially.

Everything on a claim has to tie up, customer complaint correctly described, signatures/technicians time stamps, diagnosis according to manufacturers service procedures, photos, pre-authorisation, return of failed parts etc etc etc the list goes on. Any sort of deviation can lead to the manufacturer striking out the claim and the dealer carrying the cost of it.

The bigger the claim, such as this situation, the stricter the adherence of procedures need to be and could even involve a visit to view the car from the manufacturers field force.

As it stands in this case clearly the dealer, unaware of the over-rev, has followed VWs warranty procedure and has got to the point of diagnosing the cause and has come up with the fault codes produced by the over-rev. This will now be in VWs warranty claim system logged against the VIN and flagged warranty void. I strongly suspect the only way to unwind that is for the dealer/ another dealer to repair the car. Either a rebuild using genuine VW parts to factory specs or a new/VW recon engine.

What would I do in the OPs shoes? Good question and one I don't know the answer to. I agree, chucking £15K at the dealer, would be a tough call but, in this case, what alternative is there to return the car back to a position with a valid warranty?

The unpalatable truth here is that the OP has caused £15K worth of damage to somebody elses property.

Certainly isn't amusing and unpalatable is an understatement.

I have to thank you for your last post though, very helpful insight into the behind the scenes,

Exactly as you say, what do I do? I have to return it as a 2 year old car still with a year's warranty. I don't think I do have a choice, I'm having to cough up.

I'm taking the insurers to task though and requested an investigation with vw, not the main dealer. I still can't believe I managed to do it... yes I know I know, the ecu says so