Audi A3 1.8 TFSI - Anyone know anything about this engine?

[benjijames28]

I recently bought a 58 plate Audi A3 1.8 TFSI sportback.

Doing under 10,000 miles per year, and with my budget it seemed wiser to opt for a petrol instead of diesel.  My car has done 80,000 miles and has full service history, most of it been at a main VW dealer (not Audi).  Last serviced about 4000 miles ago.

Trying to find any information on this engine online seems next to impossible.  I cant even find a definitive answer as to whether it uses a CAM belt or a timing chain.  The dealer who sold it me says he thinks it uses a belt, and the belt needs changing about 160,000, sceptical anyone?

I cant find any service interval information anywhere online either.  I got a quote from JCT600 in Sheffield.  They quoting £160 for a interim service, and £309 for a full service.

Anyone got any experience or advise for me?

 

Hopefully I wont regret not opting for the diesel version.

[Trevor]

The TFSi engine does have a cambelt

Here is a link to Audi's fixed price servicing with costs for cambelt, etc

https://www.audi.co.uk/owners-area/servicing-maintenance-mot/fixed-price-services.html#/fixPrice?id=4&serviceCode=SERMIN

[Magnet]

Hello Bengi,

Whoever the dealer was who sold it to you and said the belt would not need changing until 160K is not only talking a load of nonsense, but potentially putting you in a very vulnerable situation if you follow this advice.

The car is now 8 years old and I would suggest the belt is now due for change if only on an age basis. Not wishing to appear critical of Trevor's link, I would have thought that £455 ( plus VAT?! and without water pump) to renew the belt assembly is not a very good deal. I would be tempted to shop around dealers near your area and see what comes up. An alternative would be to use a reputable independent and enquiry whether you might be able to supply the Audi parts for them to fit. If so, you should be able to get a good discount on parts at Skoda Parts Shop. 

If you do decide to go to an independent and you get a competitive price, ask what make of parts they are going to use - very important. If not genuine VAG then I would only go for Gates as an aftermarket supplier. If the water pump is to be replaced then do not, just do not, use any aftermarket pump in preference to a genuine VAG.

Hope some of this helps.

Good luck.

Gareth.

[benjijames28]

Well thats real bad news.

I really regret buying this car, I thought I had done enough research, I belived his bullshit that the petrol engines will have a lot less issues than the diesels.  I also paid a pretty high price.  £6500, fair enough he probably gave me £500 more for my part ex than it was worth, but even at 6k ive paid top money for this engine model.

 

!Removed!!

 

[Magnet]

Hello Benj,

Appreciating your disappointment, but I would have thought that if enough research had been done then it would be reasonable to expect that cambelt changes and confirmation that it had been attended to would have been a topic covered. My experience points to the general car buyer being tuned into cambelts and the effects of them not having been changed - even with cars that are found to be running on chains rather than belts! 

I do feel for you if you think you have paid too much, but you don't tell us whether the car has given you problems that disappoints or if it's the anticipated expenditure which has to be paid to get -what is a routine maintenance job- done. 

An extra £500 allowance in part exchange for your old car is attractive to some, but the hard and simple economics is that it is easy to inflate the outgoing car so a more generous allowance is able to be given for the incoming. It's as old as the hills and will always be the acceptable ethics of the motortrade. Experience is great, but the only figure that matters is what is called the "cost to change" which is the difference in the buying and part exchange price. Any trader will be happy to pay you £1000 more than your car is worth, if he is able to convince the buyer to pay £1000 more for the outgoing car.

If you think you paid too much, did you actually check the "list price" of the car against its condition, mileage and service history?

Not sure if any of this helps, but routine service items such as cambelt changes are no different from having to buy tyres when they need renewing.

Good luck with it.

Gareth.

[benjijames28]

13 hours ago, Magnet said:

Hello Benj,

Appreciating your disappointment, but I would have thought that if enough research had been done then it would be reasonable to expect that cambelt changes and confirmation that it had been attended to would have been a topic covered. My experience points to the general car buyer being tuned into cambelts and the effects of them not having been changed - even with cars that are found to be running on chains rather than belts! 

I do feel for you if you think you have paid too much, but you don't tell us whether the car has given you problems that disappoints or if it's the anticipated expenditure which has to be paid to get -what is a routine maintenance job- done. 

An extra £500 allowance in part exchange for your old car is attractive to some, but the hard and simple economics is that it is easy to inflate the outgoing car so a more generous allowance is able to be given for the incoming. It's as old as the hills and will always be the acceptable ethics of the motortrade. Experience is great, but the only figure that matters is what is called the "cost to change" which is the difference in the buying and part exchange price. Any trader will be happy to pay you £1000 more than your car is worth, if he is able to convince the buyer to pay £1000 more for the outgoing car.

If you think you paid too much, did you actually check the "list price" of the car against its condition, mileage and service history?

Not sure if any of this helps, but routine service items such as cambelt changes are no different from having to buy tyres when they need renewing.

Good luck with it.

Gareth.

I feel like I did plenty of research on A3's and saw/test drove loads.  Problem was all my research was on the 2.0 TDI versions.  Theres not that many 1.8 TFSI models around, not where I live anyway.  It was almost an impulse buy as I will explain:

I saw this one listed and it looked stunning, dealer had plenty of positive feedback online etc.... and the price was within the budget of what I was looking to pay for a 2.0 TDI.  Truth be told I didnt look at list prices for 1.8's until after I bought the car, its at that point that I realised I just paid top end of the price bracket for that model / age / mileage.

Its obviously been looked after and runs well.  Only issue was noticed after I bought the car, a shock absorber started creaking, the strut top had gone, this dealer said it wasnt there on the test drive, so its obviously a wear and tear item, I kicked off and he paid the small bill to have that part fixed.

I could try and confirm with Audi tomorrow when the belt should be changed, then complain to the dealer that I feel he mislead / missold me the car, whether knowingly or not?  See if he will do anything, I highly doubt that he will.  No doubt im gonna get labelled his customer from hell.  The other options are to sell the car private, probably taking a £1000 loss after 2 weeks of ownership, or go trade it in and buy a TDI version, probably taking a £1500 loss.  Or save up £500 and pay for the cam belt, and hope not to have any other issues come up (im thinking intake valve getting coked up, cold start misfires, aka the other problem I didnt know about until after I got the car).

[benjijames28]

Ok just got off the phone to JCT600 Audi servicing department.  Gave them my registration number, and they looked up the engine code for the service intervals.

They have told me that the 1.8 TFSI engine does not have a cambelt, it uses a timing chain which is not replaced.

WTF?!?!?!

UPDATE:  Ive emailed Audi UK customer services, to see if they could shed some light.

[FrenchAvant]

Seems the TFSI engine has 3 chain drives.

byt_bzb_1_8_tsfi_eng.pdf

[Magnet]

So it's possibly an 8 valve rather than a 16 valve then. 

[benjijames28]

3 hours ago, Magnet said:

So it's possibly an 8 valve rather than a 16 valve then. 

I have no idea?  My engine code is CDA.

Did they make a 8 valve 1.8 TFSI?  and then a 16 valve one?

 

All I know is mine is the one with 158 BHP, and that according to the engine code associated with my number plate.... it defo doesnt use a cam belt.

[FrenchAvant]

Did you look at the pdf for which I sent the link above?

[Magnet]

Seems like it is 16 valve. 

16 valve, chain not belt! - still disappointed with it, and the deal Bengi? 

[benjijames28]

Didnt have time to go through the PDF, but I downloaded it for future reference, thanks for that.

 

Magnet - I am happy enough with the car, it drives well.  Fuel consumption isnt brilliant, I did 200 miles in the past week with a bit of a mix of short and slightly longer journeys, it returned 31.2mpg measured full tank to full tank.  Thats driving steady most of the time.  Apparently I should be able to improve fuel consumption by getting the intake manifold "de-coked".  The car has done 80,000 miles, so its going to be interesting to see if I get any issues with it, apparently some people experience cold start issues and misfires.  I found a company called Awesome GTI near manchester.  They quoted me £450 to clean out the manifold, replace seals and do 2 rolling road tests to compare results.  

Nice car overall.  Going to keep it for a while, unless I come across a diesel model that I would prefer.

 

[Magnet]

Hello Benji,

Glad you are now pleased with it. All I would add is that £450 would buy you not that far off 100 gallons of petrol. You would need a lot of improvement in mpg to recoup that. A bit of added performance as well though, which it could be tempting to try out - at additional petrol costs!    

[Ecosse]

Benji,

There are a lot of snake-oil fuel/air system cleaner off the shelf, but if you are prepared to chuck around £15.00 for a bottle of Forte fuel system cleaner, in my experience it's not wasted on engines used to a lot of short fuel-rich urban runs as opposed to nice motorway CAT-cleaning (etc) runs.

Basically wait until there's no more than 2 gallons left, shove it in, go for a short run, park it overnight, then the next day give it beans...serious beans....somewhere safe etc etc.

Forte stuff does what it says on the tin, but frankly I hold the view that modern engines, with 21st century fuels and oils, look after themselves between services.

 

 

 

[benjijames28]

On 20/08/2016 at 5:15 PM, Ecosse said:

Benji,

There are a lot of snake-oil fuel/air system cleaner off the shelf, but if you are prepared to chuck around £15.00 for a bottle of Forte fuel system cleaner, in my experience it's not wasted on engines used to a lot of short fuel-rich urban runs as opposed to nice motorway CAT-cleaning (etc) runs.

Basically wait until there's no more than 2 gallons left, shove it in, go for a short run, park it overnight, then the next day give it beans...serious beans....somewhere safe etc etc.

Forte stuff does what it says on the tin, but frankly I hold the view that modern engines, with 21st century fuels and oils, look after themselves between services.

 

 

 

I think your right about the snake oil products.  

The plan is now to take my car to Awesome GTI near manchester and have them manually clean all the carbon that builds up from the intake manifold in the TFSI engine.  At 80,000 miles, I can feel the symptoms people describe from the carbon build up.  The engine sounds very lumpy when started from cold, I dont have misfires or anything yet, but I still feel that I will enjoy the benefits of having the work done.