Buying a 2.0 tfsi with no service history, would you??

[willmagrath]

As the title says, would anyone here buy 95,000 mile tfsi with no service history when its VERY cheap and hpi clear??

[Cupramax]

If somethings very cheap theres usually a reason... Phone up Audi uk customer service with the reg and see if they have any records, its could be clocked hence the history has been conveniently lost.

[willmagrath]

Cupramax said:

If somethings very cheap theres usually a reason... Phone up Audi uk customer service with the reg and see if they have any records, its could be clocked hence the history has been conveniently lost.

That could be a good that! thanks

[va1o]

As above, if it's priced well below the book then could be worth a punt. Give it a through looking over and though and be prepared that it could be hard to sell on

[ManOpener]

I'd budget for a cambelt change plus water pump, PCV, diverter valve, a good hut-through OBD codes, a thorough examination of suspension and brakes and a full service- which could easily be pushing a grand or even more from a decent specialist. Add that to the price of the car and it would have to be really, really cheap to make sense.

[Crafty_]

No.

Regardless of if the car has an issue or not, odds on it soon will, piston rings are made of chocolate and wear out. £2k+ from a dealer.

[ManOpener]

Crafty_ said:

No.

Regardless of if the car has an issue or not, odds on it soon will, piston rings are made of chocolate and wear out. £2k+ from a dealer.

That's the chain-cam TSI, not the belt-cam TFSI, no? Think this issue was primarily in '09 cars?
Lots of EA113 Golfs, Leons etc on fairly high mileage without issues.

Edited by ManOpener on Friday 4th July 14:53

[Crafty_]

Either way I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole, seem lots of gory pics of failed TFSIs - rings, cam chain tensioners, flap mechanism in intake manifolds falling apart etc.

Bit of a liability really.

[va1o]

The older belt driven ea113 unit is pretty solid, it's the ea888 chain unit which in early examples gives problems.

It all comes down to the price though, if a mk6 gti came up for £5k I'd take it even if the engine was fked and no history, as that's less than half you'd pay for a clean one. Extreme example admittedly but you get the point.

[ManOpener]

Quite, and AFAIK only the early EA888.

Aside from cambelt failure and the vague prospect of dropping a valve due to coke build-up, which seems to be a hugely overblown issue that primarily seems to affect cars state-side, I can't think of a common failure method for the EA113 that could be described as "terminal" for the engine.

I always thought "TFSI" referred only to the 113 and "TSI" to the 888 but it doesn't seem to be quite that clear in reality.

[Dr G]

Differs by brand as well; both of TSI and TFSI are brand names much like 'Zetec' with Ford. They are marketing terms and do not refer to a particular specification.

[AJB88]

The TFSI and TSI confusion is across most of the brands for example.

MK2 Leon Cupra Sport, FR, Cupra (Pre-facelift 2005-2009) all have TFSI engines badged as TFSI
MK2 Leon Cupra and Cupra R (Facelift 2009-2012) all have TFSI engines badged as TSI

Audi is now badging its TSI engines as TFSI

[Crafty_]

The irony is that as I understand it the "fuel stratified" mode is disabled because it causes undesirable characteristics, certainly on the earlier engines

Edited by Crafty_ on Friday 4th July 19:51

[Cupramax]

AJB88 said:

Audi is now badging its TSI engines as TFSI

Audi have never badged any engines TSI, FSI yes but not TSI.

[MonkeyHanger]

willmagrath said:

As the title says, would anyone here buy 95,000 mile tfsi with no service history when its VERY cheap and hpi clear??

Given that i have a 6 year old, 30,000 mile one which has been very well looked after that is currently sitting in a Garage awaiting a new turbo, no i would not.

[AJB88]

Cupramax said:

Audi have never badged any engines TSI, FSI yes but not TSI.

Where in that statement do I say they had?

I simply stated they are badging their TSI engines as TFSI, I didn't say HAD ever badged their TSI engines as TSI or any of their engines tbh.

[Adrian E]

Don't forget as well that you can pull up recorded mileages at MOTs from its past using the document reference number from the registration document, to get a bit of additional confidence the mileage is genuine.

As to whether to buy, it clearly needs to be very cheap and to have evidence that it has been maintained, just not noted in a service book. If the oil is ancient and general patina of the car is of a less than cared for state I wouldn't take the risk

[blade7]

willmagrath said:

As the title says, would anyone here buy 95,000 mile tfsi with no service history when its VERY cheap and hpi clear??

It would have to be VERY cheap if it wasn't a quattro. There's plenty of pics on the net of damaged fuel pump followers that could lead to cam/head damage so I'd walk if it was misfiring. I replaced the follower on my car at 80k even though it looked fine.

[KarlMac]

Absolutely not. These aren't the most reliable of engines seem to need almost constant care and attention.

Saying that I bought one with FVWSH and its still cost me loads to put it right.

Chain tensioners, pcv valves, divertor valves, charcoal canisters, fuel filters. All problem areas.

[ManOpener]

KarlMac said:

Chain tensioners

Yours is an '07 Mk5, no, so belt cam?
DV, PCV and charcoal canister are hardly serious issues, never heard of fuel filter problems, cam lobe/follower wear I forgot about- that's a proper issue but only really terminal if you don't notice the misfiring or crap running for ages.