MK5 Golf GTI
All Things Mk5 => Mk5 General Area => Topic started by: bergenhaus on September 05, 2012, 07:00:42 pm
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Hi
New here. Pic of car on new members section.
I've just had a nightmare taking my car to the garage. Wondering if I need to take it to a tuner. Erm, this might turn out to be a long read but thought better put up the full story. :popcornsoda: For tl;dr see summary at the bottom
It's an 05 plate DSG GTI which had 110000ish on the clock which I bought privately for £5600 at the end of June. I thought that was pretty good, especially since I bought it in Scotland where prices seem to be higher. It had an amber warning light on the dash for engine/exhaust and the previous owner said it was a cheap fix exhaust valve. Seemed to be running fine. Pretty clean and standard.
Noticed on longer runs it could hang on to the gear a bit to long and power could seem pretty dead. Spoke to a guy who seemed to know about these things in a dealer down South (I'm in Aberdeen) and said it sounded like needed a DSG oil change.
Anyway, MOT was due at the end of August so decided to get it in. I didn't necessarily want to go to a main dealer but couldn't find anywhere else recommended so went to John Clark Specialist Cars. By then I knew it needed MOT, service, timing belt, water pump, DSG oil change probably new front pads so was expecting a big bill. It passed MOT fine and the did the other stuff but on diagnostics they found a fuel pump problem caused by a worn camshaft....lots of money. They fixed that within a couple of days but I soon heard back from them that they needed to go back into the engine. They'd mucked up installing the new camshaft, buggered the timing and caused a fair bit of damage which of course they would repair without extra charge. By the time they'd sorted this (or so they tell me) the car had been in the garage for 19 days! On the last day they told me it was running fine but there was an error coming up with the fuel injection. They said it would normally be fixed by re-doing the ECU software but didn't want to risk it because the car was modified....this was a shock to me! I'm taking this as a bonus though. Apparently got K04 turbo, bigger intercooler (they think from an S3 but they couldn't tell me the part number), bigger fuel injectors and stainless steel exhaust.
So I went and picked it up after paying my massive bill. Drove about half a mile, there was a pop and a whoosh and I took it straight back. They hadn't clipped a turbo hose back on properly! They fixed it, I drove home (noticed they'd got the tyre pressures all wrong) but it was idling badly and hadn't been doing that pre-garage. Sometimes alternating fairly quickly between about 750- 1300 rpm, sometimes staying around 750 or less and feeling almost like a stall, sometimes sticking up at 1300ish and sounds like it's way too high. I took it back next day and they checked it but said fuel injection problem in ECU so not really their thing. I took the car back home and next morning it stalled twice when I started it but after that drove OK but same idling thing mostly in park and neutral. Occasionally still very flat on power but maybe better than before.
So summary is: not happy with garage mucking about and keeping it so long and them ballsing things up when I took it back, car idling crap (wasn't before garaged) and sometimes bugger all power. Do I need a re-map (or just map if the previous owner didn't bother)?
I typed a lot. I'm sorry. :laugh: Advice appreciated.
Mike
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I would take it to someone experienced in VAG eg PDT, AKS, JKM etc and get it properly looked at.
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Also don't forget that undeclared mods will invalidate your insurance.
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I would take it to someone experienced in VAG eg PDT, AKS, JKM etc and get it properly looked at.
Are they tuning places you're suggesting? Ideally I don't want to be travelling far and of course not spending much money. I've heard Wallace Performance mentioned in Aberdeen for mapping but don't know much about it.
Yep, I need to get on to the insurance.
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As mentioned you need to go to a VAG specialist, see what map/mods you have so that you can get the car insured properly. They should also be able to diagnose the problem and give you a quote to get anything sorted that needs doing. You may need to travel to find one but I think you need to get your car sorted in one go at the best place you can find.
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Thanks for the replies guys.
When your talking VAG specialist are you not meaning a garage? Because John Clark where I took it are the VW main dealers in Aberdeen. I'm guessing you mean more tuning/performance. Anywhere recommended in Scotland at least?
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Some of the independent specialists are more knowledgeable than VW dealers.
Not all tuners are VAG specialists. Not all VAG specialists are tuners. You want one that does both.
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Wallace Performance in Aberdeen is honestly your best bet (locally). Take it to them and ask to speak to one of the techs and just explain the whole situation (the more details the better) and they will advise whether they can chuck it on the rollers and sort the map out. Give them a call as they usually have a bit of a waiting list!
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Wallace Performance in Aberdeen is honestly your best bet (locally). Take it to them and ask to speak to one of the techs and just explain the whole situation (the more details the better) and they will advise whether they can chuck it on the rollers and sort the map out. Give them a call as they usually have a bit of a waiting list!
Cheers. They sound worth a shout at least. Hopefully if they seem up for it they can see the car before it blows up or something! :signLOL:
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A question though - although the performance problems seem about the same any ideas why it's running so much rougher after getting new camshaft, timing belt, water pump, fuel pump, whatever else gubbins the garage replaced when messing around with it? Could they have broken it a bit or is having fresh, working parts showing up previous faults?
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you should take it back, its not right regardless of what they say.
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A question though - although the performance problems seem about the same any ideas why it's running so much rougher after getting new camshaft, timing belt, water pump, fuel pump, whatever else gubbins the garage replaced when messing around with it? Could they have broken it a bit or is having fresh, working parts showing up previous faults?
Your cam belt on your car might be fine, but there have been numerous stories on here of mechanics incorrectly setting the cam timing. In most of the cases I can recall, the badly timed cambelts have been fitted by VW dealers.
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Yeah you should try and get a bit more out of VW, but if they are not budging take it to someone that can sit it on a rolling road (i.e = Wallace Performance) and set it up properly or at least identify the problem if it is not the map!
Im no expert by any means, but if i was in your situation, thats probably what id do..
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If the work done by VW is at fault then they will have to fix it. I would suggest going to a specialist, then they can diagnose the issues and then if necessary you can take it back to VW to fix anything that was their fault free of charge.
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My car was booked into specialist cars for a service next week but after reading this I have called and cancelled and told them exactly why they are not getting to touch my car.
For the labour rate they charge the job should be done right first time
I had my timing belt changed at CMB autos in pitmedden and had no issues at all
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Yeah, when its service time for mine i think i might put it into the Volks Centre or something. Half the rates for same standard of work.
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Yeah, when its service time for mine i think i might put it into the Volks Centre or something. Half the rates for same standard of work.
I was thinking of going to the Peterheed vw dealer but will give the Volks center a call :happy2:
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berghaus,are you on the EastsideVW forum in Aberdeen?
There are members on there with plenty of horror stories about Speccy cars and won't go near them.
If it's a case of them stuffing up on your car and then using the modfied excuse, then as has been said, take it to WP or get on Eastside and they'll soon recommend you a list of reputable places to go and get a second opinion.
Then go back to specialist and tell them (politely) what you think of their service and the problems it has caused for you and see if they will do a goodwill gesture in paying for the remedial work needed to get the car runing correctly.
Modded or not,if the techs in the workshop know the VW product,then they should have the ability to rectify problems.
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It had an amber warning light on the dash for engine/exhaust and the previous owner said it was a cheap fix exhaust valve. Seemed to be running fine. Pretty clean and standard.
Maybe the previous owner knew alot more about what was wrong with the car than he was letting on. Have you seen the old cam shaft and HPFP cam follower to see what condition they were in for yourself?
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It had an amber warning light on the dash for engine/exhaust and the previous owner said it was a cheap fix exhaust valve. Seemed to be running fine. Pretty clean and standard.
Maybe the previous owner knew alot more about what was wrong with the car than he was letting on. Have you seen the old cam shaft and HPFP cam follower to see what condition they were in for yourself?
I've thought about that but I think he genuinely didn't know what was going on. I didn't 100% believe that's what it was but I couldn't find anything myself. He came across much more well meaning but clueless.
To be honest I'm not the most clued up so I wouldn't really know what to look at looking at the old cam shaft.
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If you fancy a drive, I will be glad to take a look over it and give you an honest unbiased opinion of the fault, and fix it if I can :happy2:
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berghaus,are you on the EastsideVW forum in Aberdeen?
There are members on there with plenty of horror stories about Speccy cars and won't go near them.
If it's a case of them stuffing up on your car and then using the modfied excuse, then as has been said, take it to WP or get on Eastside and they'll soon recommend you a list of reputable places to go and get a second opinion.
Then go back to specialist and tell them (politely) what you think of their service and the problems it has caused for you and see if they will do a goodwill gesture in paying for the remedial work needed to get the car runing correctly.
Modded or not,if the techs in the workshop know the VW product,then they should have the ability to rectify problems.
I don't thinI just signed up to Eastside last night. Seems pretty good and would be good to link up with the local crowd.
That's pretty much my plan at the moment. I spoke to a Wallace technician today and they said they'd dealt with loads of VAG cars and thought a stage 2 re-map could cure it. I didn't manage to speak to Matty who's the mapping guy but he's meant to be phoning back tomorrow. Sounds like it could be a couple of weeks to get done though. I'm thinking that some of it's problems a while before of having no power could well be due to it never having a proper map on it so hopefully it's not going to blow up in a couple of weeks if I take it easy!
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If you fancy a drive, I will be glad to take a look over it and give you an honest unbiased opinion of the fault, and fix it if I can :happy2:
Thanks! lol I can't see where you're based but I'm guessing miles from me!
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Took my car to Matt at Wallace Performance today. They seem fairly decent. The car didn't get as far as the dyno and remap though as they ran VAGCOM and said pretty sure the fueling problem was due to the control motor in the manifold failing. I told them Specialist Cars thought that was down to the ECU controlling it. Matt didn't think so and did what Specialist Cars didn't want to do and put the standard software on the ECU - fault still showed the same so pretty convinced it's the motor controlling the intake.
I'm completely fed up of all this now. Does anyone know if it's possible to get hold of that motor and change it over with the help of my mechanically minded neighbour?
I'm not sure how likely a goodwill gesture is from Specialist Cars after all this mess but that might be the other option.
(Btw, if I have the money and patience to persevere with this Golf hopefully I'll know enough to actually contribute to this forum instead of just asking stuff)