[Closed] Car-trackworld - where can I learn about long term pros/cons of certain engines?

Honest John I think used to do something similar to this. And Parkers. I've not bought a car in ages mind.

You could also google Golf 2.0 TSi problems, but that doesn't always seem to throw up everything in my experience.

The Car Reliability Index?

I used it when I bought my last car in 2012, but it doesn't look to have been updated much since...

Honest John or ask on pistonheads forum

My car buying speadsheet:-

Do I like the look of it?
Does it drive well?
Is it big enough?
Is it a nice colour?

That's all surely!? 🙂

honest John does usually give a realistic view of problems.
you are aware of course that looking on the internet will give you an unbalanced view of car reliability, as people (generally) only go there to find out about a problem they already have.
example: googling 2.0tsi problems will give you many results about the cam chain tensioners on these vag group engines, enough that it might put you off buying a car with one of those engines.
however, I asked my mate (a vag group trained mechanic) about it, and he told me its only a tiny fraction of these engines that ever actually have a problem, there are literally hundreds of thousands of them running around just fine.
so my advice would be, buy one you like the look of. make sure its fully serviced.and make sure you keep it that way.

Avoid French stuff. The engines are usually ok, but the electrics, dear god the electrics!

If you're after a specific brand and model, there will be a thread on one of the owner's forums for it. For example, the last two cars I've bought I looked on the respective forums. I had a Skoda Fabia VRS with a 1.4 engine with a supercharger and turbocharger - the threads on Briskoda neatly summarised that before a certain year, these things hoovered up oil and eventually died, and after that they were fine. I replaced that with a Peugeot 208 GTI and the Peugeot 208 forum said there was basically nothing wrong with those engines.

buy one you like the look of. make sure its fully serviced.and make sure you keep it that way.

Good post martymac, ive been following this adice for years.

Take into account that the more complicated and efficient and clever cars get the more electronic systems they have become dependent on and the more reliability seems to have come second to losing weight or material to gain economy.

My last car (sold to someone on here) and the other same model of car we had alongside was a fraction of the bother in 8 years that the new one has been in 3 and a large chunk of that reliability difference has been in electrical related issues.

Both cars bought at 4 years and 40k.

Neither was French.

As my local independent who's serviced both has said. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don't but all modern cars run on such fine tolerances that it's inevitable they will be more likely to give more aggro as they get older than the generation that came before.

Next time I will buy what I fancy and resign myself to the odd scary bill instead of trying to buy 'clever' for reliability and running cost.

For balance I've most electric issues I've ever had in a car was a near new vw golf

Central locking gone haywires , windows that wouldn't go up or down depending on what day of the week it was and an airbag warning light that they couldn't find a fault to fix....

Followed by its 1.4 engine deciding to not hold oil-shortly followed by it not holding water.

All before 80k

After that we had a succession(3) of French cars and zero electric issues.

- car 1 from 38k to 140 car 2 from 75 to 140 both non turbo diesels and now on car and it has the omg terrible 1.6 diesel engine that everyone says is almost as shit as french cars on the internet.....

Then you crunch numbers and realise that a huge portion of cars on the road have the engine ....all the frenchies -the ford 1.6 and the BMW mini 1.6 diesel the Volvo and others.

Least reliable car we've had was a Toyota made in Japan.

I agree with martymac and garage-dweller.

Yes there is luck involved too, you will get some french cars that run with routine servicing to 150k miles perfectly,
You will also get (as one example) toyotas that give nothing but bother.
A mate of mine and i both run diesel subarus, of the same age and mileage, his uses oil, mine doesn’t. We both drive the same way, we both warm up before putting the foot down etc.
Pot luck.

Look up Honest John for the basics of each model.

I try to go off car condition and service history, plus the old owner. Sadly buying of dealer seems the way these days, cheaper and easier.

I am a believer in avoiding some models though. Our SEAT is deliberately the old model engine - no turbo, no dafty EGR, DMF, swirl flaps etc. Parts are cheap (clutch kit is £80…!) and simple to service.

It's 85k in and not had any issues at all.

the EA888 engine has a couple known issues. Cam chain tensioners are normally mentioned but failures aren't that common - although a guy at my work with a Mk6 Golf GTI did need a new engine due to this issue. Its a well known issue due to the fact that a slipped timing chain is often pretty terminal.

Far more common is an issue with the inlet manifold and the swirl flap actuator, the rod that actuates the swirl flaps is really weak and snaps. Mine went, it doesn't really effect drivability to any degree, it just generates an engine warning but a replacement manifold (which is a revised part with a stronger actuator rod) is about £300.

When I traded my Leon FR with the 2.0TSI engine to an independent dealer he asked if I'd changed the manifold. I told him I had and he said 90% of cars with the same engine he's had in have had the manifold done at some stage.

So if you are getting one second hand its worth checking if the manifold has been changed.

EDIT

After typing all that, I've just realised you were only using this engine as an example! Oh well

Yeah Honest John is good!

My Steps are;
- Wikipedia the specific car
- Copy the engine code
- Google engine code followed by problem, in this case; 'EA888 problems', 'EA888 common problems'
- Read the various results to get a flavour for it

Most manufactureres use the same engine accross models and different brands, so using the engine code gives you a wider range of results.

Thanks all - Honest Johns was the site I was thinking of! Some great tips also. Cokie, that's exactly what I'll do next.

I'm considering various AMGs - some of the smaller 2.0 engines with 300+ bhp seem incredible value/performance/economy but I have some concerns over the reliability of a 2.0 engine putting out over 300 horses.

Let's see what the internet has to say...

I think the one thing left out above that I've heard before, and sounds like good advice, is it very much depends on the age. You may read about various common problems with an engine that require various fixed but it's almost certain that the later releases of that engine or gearbox have had all the issues ironed out as running changes to spec.

Avoid French stuff. The engines are usually ok, but the electrics, dear god the electrics!

It's not 1992 anymore.

Tallpaul

Member

Avoid French stuff. The engines are usually ok, but the electrics, dear god the electrics!

It’s not 1992 anymore.

Yeah but only a fool buys a Renault then tarnishes all french cars with the same brush.

I still wouldn't buy a Renault as much as I get on with French cars.

In Renault's world it is still 1992 they are about 15 years behind real car makers.

Nissans involvement have helped their reliability no end though but they still are not without their issues.

trail_rat Member

Yeah but only a fool buys a Renault then tarnishes all french cars with the same brush.

To be fair though, our 59 plate Citroen is an absolute turd of a car with a list of faults almost as long as bigyinn's up there....massively frustrating because if it was reliable it would be a great family car. Never gonna set the world alight, but small, spacious, well equipped, practical...

A real shame that it has had so many faults. Can't wait to get rid of it (probably later this yr).

EDIT - oh, and my Wife's Peugeot 308 was so bad reliability-wise that she got rid of it after 18 months. She was never sure if she'd get where she wanted to go in it, and hated driving it.

Buy an Audi next time. See how empty that makes your wallet.

They would love you to believe they are nice and reliable.

I live in the white Audi capital of the UK.

My colleagues are never out of Aberdeen Audi it seems like. Active cruise not working (by not working they seem to be speeding up when getting close to a car instead of slowing down)and random limp mode with no detectable faults seem to be order of the day this last year or so.

Nobody hates driving an Audi.

Renault.
My last car was a renault scenic.only one electric fault in 100k miles.
Window.
But as an alternative view, many, many mechanical parts have been replaced.
All the brake calipers, all the hubs/discs/pads, including wheel bearings.
The steering rack, suspension arms, 3 pairs of springs on the front, ball joints.
All on a car that did a 33 mile commute along a motorway sat at 60-65mph.
Several friends with peugeot/citroen group cars tell pretty much the same story.
I would no longer buy a nissan precisely because of renaults involvement with them.
I did considerably more work to that renault in the 55k miles i owned it than i did to my mondeo in 160k miles.
As noted above, it’s a real shame, the cars are comfy and generally good to drive.

Ask an AA, RAC man or mot tester what are the most problematic cars

Next time I will buy what I fancy and resign myself to the odd scary bill instead of trying to buy ‘clever’ for reliability and running cost.

+1

If you actually like the car you resent any bills a bit less.

If you go on the extended warranty sites then get quotes you can get an idea for how expensive a particular model is to run as it gets older. Obviously that discounts any niggling faults like switches or fans and only shows up major failures that are worth claiming for. But when I looked almost everything was much of a muchness. On the whole most cars were £400-£450 to warranty, except honda who were <£200, make of that what you will!

Ask an AA, RAC man or mot tester what are the most problematic cars

ex-BiL worked for various dealers/service centers and I asked just that when looking for a new car.

"The ones with no oil in them and 4 bald tyres".

There's some good/bad luck involved too when it comes to random failures, but for every "My donghleflaps have snapped on my DRT53 engine aggggggg!!!!!!!" thread on a forum there's probably a hundred dead engines that just ran out of oil or never had the cambelt changed.

Ohh and while the STW armchair mechanics are assembled:

Tssss-Tssss-Tssss-Tsss noise from the front of my car, sounds like a stone in the tyre or a bit of brake pad material stuck on the disk, but it's neither of those. Almost sounds like a bit of plastic being dragged round and scraping against something.

Pads and disks changed ~30,000miles ago (disks still look new, pads maybe 1/3 worn), wheel bearing ~20,000miles.

Only does it under no load, it disappears under braking and any throttle.

CV joint? I would have thought to be at the point where it was noisy it would have to be utterly f***** and would have failed it's MOT last month.

Not wheel/tyre related, I thought it was possibly but swapped from winter to summer wheels and it's not changed (other than quieter tyres making it more obvious)

Never mind. All the hatred for French cars suits me.

Makes em cheap.

One day I might buy the wrong one with all the faults but stw seems to be hoovering them all up and keeping them away from me 🙂

Worst/only real failure I have had was a rear torsion bar snap. And that was my fault for significantly overloading it with 22mm oak flooring and a wood burning stove and riding the bump stops home for 60 miles.

Can't really blame that on the car. Other than that regular servicing /cam belts /windscreens (stone chips )

@tnas - could possibly be a stone chip caught between the disc and the disk shield. Jack the car up and rotate the wheel by hand to have a feel, so to speak.

CV joints tend to chatter when they disintegrate and it’s only the integrity of the gaiters that’s on the MoT IIRC. Although as you likely know, a broken gaiter tends to accelerate the onset of bearing demise.

trail_rat Member

Buy an Audi next time. See how empty that makes your wallet.

See, here's the thing...current car is a 12 plate Seat Ibiza 2L TDi. It's got 104k miles on it and apart from a stone going through the radiator, there have been no faults.

My previous car was an 03 plate Seat Ibiza that I bought in 06 with 24k miles on and got rid of in 2016 with 274k miles on. It was still on original clutch, exhaust, turbo, injectors etc. The biggest expense was £500 fitted for a new ac compressor.
It had a couple of turbo pipes fail and a fan belt snapped, but failures were few and far between.

Prior to that I had a Fiesta, which I bought with 54k miles on and got rid of with 144k miles. That thing had hardly any issues; the most expensive being a
Lambda sensor.

My Wife had an original Ka for 9 years from new. The worst failure on that was a leaking thermostat housing. I can't remember anything else that went wrong. Oh, I tell a lie, a rear spring broke.

The current Citroen and my Wife's old Peugeot are/were always on the blink.
If they weren't unreliable, I wouldn't make them out to be. And I really like the Citroen, apart from its unreliability.
But, there's no getting around the fact that in <4 years of ownership the Citroen has had more faults than all the other cars I have owned combined. And it's only got around 60k miles on it.
And my Wife got rid of her Peugeot because driving it made her anxious because it let her down so many times. She always had it in the back of her mind it would fail.

I don't really have any allegiance to any brand - I have no love for prestige brands like Audi or BMW and have Honda, Skoda, Ford, Seat and Kia on my list of cars to potentially replace the Citroen.
But, there is no way on Earth I would spend any more money on a Citroen or a Peugeot, as a direct result from ownership experience of their cars.

Next time I will buy what I fancy and resign myself to the odd scary bill instead of trying to buy ‘clever’ for reliability and running cost.

Ha! I read an interesting example of someone doing this, he went out planning on buying a practical car, then ended up buying a Passat W8, (a car I didn’t even know existed, it has a W8 motor, instead of a V8), and a Touareg V10 TDi, two vars considered to be the most complex and troublesome ever created! I’ll see if I can find the article, it makes interesting reading...
Here you go:
https://jalopnik.com/meet-the-hero-who-owns-two-of-the-biggest-auto-maintena-1836729555

It’s not 1992 anymore.

I had a 1992 petrol Peugeot 605 for 18 years, the electrics were fine, as was the rest of it up to about 200 000km beyond which things started failing, it always got me to destination and home and drove perfectly to the breakers when parts became a headache.
2017 Renault Zoé 40 - Flins factory: nothing
2014 Dacia Lodgy (Renault engine, box and rear suspension - Douvrin factory, th erest Moroco): rear wiper motor (it still worked but would sometimes run for ages before turning off)
1983 Talbot Samba Rallye: one gearbox in a rally season and lots of brake pads.

European car manufacurers have so many parts suppliers in common it's naive to think one is much better or much worse than the norme. Mercedes A-class use engines that roll down the same line as Renaults, the electrical parts are often made in the same factories. With the possible exception of made-in-Japan Hondas and Toyotas it's very much a case of same shit different badge. Buy what suits your needs, drive it gently, service it or make sure it's been serviced as required, and cross your fingers.

Get a quote before you take it for service and spend and few minutes with a marker pen, sticky tape and a knife to make sure they change what they're supposed to. The mechanics will notice and probably think something that would activate the swear filter but they'll do a proper job. When I picked up the Zoé from Renault recently there was a bottle of washer fluid on the passenger seat with a note to say the washer was full so here's the fluid that's billed.

trail_rat

Member

Yeah but only a fool buys a Renault then tarnishes all french cars with the same brush.