Broken conrod

harbourmill

Hi all, i am the owner of a 1.9tdi skoda superb 09 reg. Engine code BXE, 105bhp, with 80,000mls. it put a conrod through the block while travelling in traffic on the M50, at a speed of 50mph.It would appear that VW engine code BXE which is fitted to Skoda / Seat /VW vehicles has a problem with breaking conrods resulting in the engine having to be replaced. I had to source a secondhand engine as mine was beyond repair. Skoda, due to the car being out of warranty stated that they would strip down the engine to find the cause but i would have to pay for labour and for the new engine replacement which was not an economical solution. Google VW engine code BXE and it is frightning the number of breaking conrods incidents that are present. So if you are thinking of buying a 1.9tdi, 105bhp, engined seat/vw/skoda do your research and avoid engines with the BXE code. This is my third skoda tdi, and the only one to give problems.

Wheelnut

harbourmill wrote: »

... Skoda, due to the car being out of warranty stated that they would strip down the engine to find the cause...

I don't understand that bit. Why would they investigate the cause unless there was a possibility of them accepting some or all of the cost?

harbourmill

It was towed to the local Skoda Main dealer , service manager said that in order to investigate what had happened they would have to strip down the engine at my expense, i assume they would not hold themselves liable(throwing good money after bad) they would then decide if they would be a warranty claim or good will gesture by skoda which was unlikley (his words) as the warranty was up by 3 years in January. their remedy was to fit a brand new engine. I did not even enquire about price. i had the car towed to a independent garage and a second hand engine fitted for 2000 euros. This car was serviced every 10,000 mls using castrol edge fully synthetic oil. it would appear that the shell bearing carrier bolts under the conrod sheared off as the conrod top bearing carrier was half way out of the block with the threaded end of the bolt still in it.

mickdw

I think its pretty well known of that engine code. As you say, research before buying is the solution but not man will as most think all 1.9 tdi engines are equal.

visual

Research my foot. We need to be thinking more like the yanks and place the responsibility back with the manufacturer.

Too often we get crap cars with defects where we take the hit yet in uk and else where the manufacturer takes responsible and sorts it out.

The contempt most manufacturers have for irish customers is shocking

CJhaughey

The 2.0 TD BKD, AZV and BMN engines also have problems with the oil pump/balancer shaft assembly which causes terminal damage as well.
The problem with all of these is that the local distributor in Ireland won't back any warranty claims, in the UK individuals have better success with repair and compensation unlike the situation here.

mickdw

visual wrote: »

Research my foot. We need to be thinking more like the yanks and place the responsibility back with the manufacturer.

Too often we get crap cars with defects where we take the hit yet in uk and else where the manufacturer takes responsible and sorts it out.

The contempt most manufacturers have for irish customers is shocking

While you are correct, it's difficult to make progress with the small numbers we have here. That's why imo, if you can avoid these issues by doing a bit of research, it will lead to an easier life.
Op could always ring a northern Ireland dealer quoting chassis number and issue and see if there is any cover. It worked with injector issues before they agreed to cover them here.

Wheelnut

@Harbourmill: Those BXE are putting con rods out through the block all over the place and VAG are saying there is no problem. There are threads about it in several places, here's one to get you started:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=1124871&mid=376130&i=40&nmt=VAG+TDI+1.9+PD+engine+failures&mid=376130

Here's another one:
http://www.audi-sport.net/vb/a3-s3-sportback-8p-chassis/146231-bxe-engine-crap.html

harbourmill

Thanks wheelnut and all other contributors, i am new to this brilliant site, which was recommended by my son. i worked for Smiths garages ( main renault dealers) in the early 1970. i can honestly say in my 3yrs there i never came accross a car that had thrown a conrod. yes i have heard of it happning which i assumed was caused by over reving, or extreme hard driving, but when you play by the rules, regular servicing and timing belt kit with water pump replacement when due , its annoying and expensive to be hit out of the blue with a fault that you cannot prevent, My engine was replaced with another BXE, hopefully it will last but confidence levels are low !!!! thanks again .

Truckermal

Surely to god they cannot wash there hands on it when the car has a full service history.

Tea drinker

visual wrote: »

Research my foot. We need to be thinking more like the yanks and place the responsibility back with the manufacturer.

Too often we get crap cars with defects where we take the hit yet in uk and else where the manufacturer takes responsible and sorts it out.

The contempt most manufacturers have for irish customers is shocking

I had to replace at my expense a fuel hose which peed petrol all over the turbo. This was again a VAG car, 2003 Passat. The exact same issue is covered by a recall by VWUSA. VW Ireland more or less said XXXX off.

visual

Tea drinker wrote: »

I had to replace at my expense a fuel hose which peed petrol all over the turbo. This was again a VAG car, 2003 Passat. The exact same issue is covered by a recall by VWUSA. VW Ireland more or less said XXXX off.

The usa does put more pressure on manufacturer to sort out common known issues

I love to see the puppets in dail start to follow up with protecting the public more.

The probem as I see it is we have no collective voice.

B00056718

Friend of mine owns a '07 Octavia with BXE engine in it in Latvia.

He has it since new and has full main dealer service history.

It spun all of the big end shells and threw a rod on a motorway, with no warnings at all.

Finding a donor engine was quite a challenge and he asked me if I can look for one in Ireland.
I had a look and they are quite hard to come accross and are expensive second hand.

He got a block with a different code at the end (Apparently there are three codes that will fit) and used the head off his own engine on it. Running fine for now.

Skoda didn't want to know.

Bacchus

Same thing happened to me last Summer... there's a thread in this forum somewhere about it.

Another member put me in touch with a guy in the UK who knew all about these problems (having gone through it himself). He has a stack of reports built up from when he was putting together his case in the UK. He won through his financing company though, not through VW.

Anyway, he set me off with confidence I'd get VW to pay for the new engine. As an aside, I had already got 50% goodwill towards a new engine from the VW dealer I bought from. I wanted to be 100% compensated though. VW did not budge. I tried to go down the road safety route then. The guy in the UK mentioned that during his case he was told that if the failure caused some serious danger to other road users that it would be grounds for the UK road safety authorities to put pressure on VW. The only thing he had (and I had) was oil spilling on to the road but that was not enough. Only, and I quote, a "sudden catastrophic engine seizure, which results in the vehicle
to instantaneously stop" is sufficient to open a case against VW. So basically, only in the event that someone dies (I don't know many who could survive a car instantaneously stopping while tipping along at 80+kph) will something happen about this. When the day does come that someone is seriously hurt or worse as a result of this dodgy engine, the sh*t will hit the fan.

/rant

Spiritine

add me to this list, 09 passat 99,000 miles bang, pure junk these vw engines lately, and vw dont want to know about it

FrontDoor

Is there any preventative work that can be done for this? What causes the failure?

pred racer

FrontDoor wrote: »

Is there any preventative work that can be done for this? What causes the failure?

Yeah, don't buy a vw

L-M

I have also heard of a good few doing this...

Are there any decent cars out there?

Bpmull

FrontDoor wrote: »

Is there any preventative work that can be done for this? What causes the failure?

It couldn't be that common on them. There's some serious amount of that engine going around and I can't say I've ever heard of a case of this happening. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but I'd say odds wise your talking way less than 1% it's not as if every second one is failing.

pred racer

Limerick man wrote: »

I have also heard of a good few doing this...

Are there any decent cars out there?

My Alfa is still going............

Crosses fingers;)

FrontDoor

I know one lad it happened to - an 08 Golf with 150k miles and the long interval servicing thing.

2.0 HDI/TDCI engine in the Fords and Citroens, etc is supposedly very good.

Bpmull

FrontDoor wrote: »

I know one lad it happened to - an 08 Golf with 150k miles and the long interval servicing thing.

2.0 HDI/TDCI engine in the Fords and Citroens, etc is supposedly very good.

I personally would service it every 15k km. at the end of the day if you look at any engine long enough on the internet you'll find a million things that could go wrong with them. You could buy anything with an engine known for reliability and you could still drive down the road and the timming belt could snap or it could drop a valve or any other random thing could go wrong . I know of a guy who had 5 passats in a business they all had 450-500k km on them when he sold them they were 08 1.9tdi and I know for a fact none of them seen any new engines. Clutches and turbos that was about it. Our 05 octavia had 220k km on it when we sold it and it was running as good as ever.

harbourmill

VW make and supply a number of different 1.9tdi engines with different engine codes, the only vw 1.9tdi engine that has problems appears to be the BXE code, also the 2ltr VW tdi engine has a serious fault with the engine oil pumps and this fault is not confined to a single engine code or a single engine oil pump , some units have a sprocket and chain setup which wear down,resulting with the chain jumping the sprocket, another different 2ltr tdi code had a shaft drive oil pump where the shaft was designed too short and did not sit flush in its housing causing the splines of the shaft to wear down and fail. A third fault still with the 2ltr tdi is balancer shaft problem with the oil pump, this balancer shaft pump runs at TWICE the speed of the engine, and is prone to failure. If you are intending to purchase a 1.9 or 2ltr diesel be aware that Audi, Seat, Skoda are fitted with these diesel engines. Do your home work before you purchase.

Bacchus

What harbourmill said. It's just the BXE engines from around 2008 that are at risk. Nothing you can do really. Our car was serviced not long before it blew up. VW deny there's an issue. One day there will be a serious accident as a result of this engine. Don't understand how VW can ignore it.

L-M

A friend of mine had a 09 Caddy 1.9 BLS and it happened him.

kona

I always get a laugh out of vag diesels being thought of as super cars , 200,000 miles , barely run in baiii!! Lmfao

Terrible to think the cost of these things new and the manufacturer just tells you to get lost when there's a issue. Disgraceful really.

brosnadog

Same thing happened my wifes 08 passat last week, about a hundred yards from home the car sh*t its self. Conrod through the block. Im to collect it from the garage this evening, cant wait for the bill!
The web is full of horror stories.

the culture of deference

FFS the sale of goods act covers you buying a fridge or tv for 6 years, but for the car manuf., how do they get away with it?

Friend has a 2009 520d.

This year it had turbo leak and dreaded timing chain, with dpf or dmf issues too, a 5 year old car.

Gazzmonkey

Search long enough and you'll read horror stories about every car & engine ever made.

tossy

the culture of deference wrote: »

FFS the sale of goods act covers you buying a fridge or tv for 6 years, but for the car manuf., how do they get away with it?

Friend has a 2009 520d.

This year it had turbo leak and dreaded timing chain, with dpf or dmf issues too, a 5 year old car.

You buy a fridge or TV you bring it home, plug it in and it does what its meant to do. There is no responsibility on your part for mechanical sympathy or servicing, so a Fridge or TV manufacturer can offer a long term warranty with confidence.

There is no accounting for what kind of Ejit will eventually buy and run the car you make, what kind of fashion they will drive it in (or climate) and what kind of care or lack off they will give the car. Too many variables.

I wonder how many of these X car is crap it failed after X years stories have a hidden story of "I bought X car, never checked it for oil, only bothered to ger it serviced when it started to make a funny noise or stopped working, drove the ring out of it from cold....

Bacchus

tossy wrote: »

You buy a fridge or TV you bring it home, plug it in and it does what its meant to do. There is no responsibility on your part for mechanical sympathy or servicing, so a Fridge or TV manufacturer can offer a long term warranty with confidence.

There is no accounting for what kind of Ejit will eventually buy and run the car you make, what kind of fashion they will drive it in (or climate) and what kind of care or lack off they will give the car. Too many variables.

I wonder how many of these X car is crap it failed after X years stories have a hidden story of "I bought X car, never checked it for oil, only bothered to ger it serviced when it started to make a funny noise or stopped working, drove the ring out of it from cold....

Generally speaking I would agree but there is a clear pattern with VW Passats and Golf of the 2008 vintage where the conrod is coming out of the block. All in the same batch of engine (BXE engines - just do a Google search to see). The person I was put in touch with in UK had cataloged over 20 case of the same engine batch with the exact same catastrophic failure. It's nothing to do with checking oil, not getting it serviced etc. Our car was only serviced shortly before it went. There is a clear pattern and I hope one day VW own up to it so I can get my money back. Unlikely, but I follow this thread in hope of one day getting some good news

jca

harbourmill wrote: »

VW make and supply a number of different 1.9tdi engines with different engine codes, the only vw 1.9tdi engine that has problems appears to be the BXE code, also the 2ltr VW tdi engine has a serious fault with the engine oil pumps and this fault is not confined to a single engine code or a single engine oil pump , some units have a sprocket and chain setup which wear down,resulting with the chain jumping the sprocket, another different 2ltr tdi code had a shaft drive oil pump where the shaft was designed too short and did not sit flush in its housing causing the splines of the shaft to wear down and fail. A third fault still with the 2ltr tdi is balancer shaft problem with the oil pump, this balancer shaft pump runs at TWICE the speed of the engine, and is prone to failure. If you are intending to purchase a 1.9 or 2ltr diesel be aware that Audi, Seat, Skoda are fitted with these diesel engines. Do your home work before you purchase.

That bad engine was never used by Skoda. It was only used in the front to back engine layout not in the left to right configuration. A terrible engine.

jca

What actually happens? Does anyone know? Is it oil pump failure?

Bpmull

Is it a batch off bxe engines or all bxe engines as in there the batch. I thought bxe was one of the main codes for that 1.9tdi engine over a few years and not just in 2008 so surly not every bxe is potentially at risk. I recon is probably a way less than 1% failure rate. But like everything on the internet it seems way worse than it is as you are only ever hearing about the ones that did fail.

hutch100uk

Hi everyone. If you would be prepared to submit a witness statement for a possible claim to VW, please contact me directly. I'm currently waiting on my dealer coming back to me with a possible goodwill gesture. My Golf has done exactly the same thing and has a BXE engine. The more witness statements I can get, the better my case. Either message me on here or email me on hutch100uk at hotmail dot com.

Bacchus

In what capacity would I be able to be witness? I'm happy to help out but not sure what exactly it is you are looking for.

Best of luck to you BTW, I got no joy from VW myself. If one person can make them cave, the claims will roll in and I'd say they know it.

hutch100uk

Hi there. I wouldn't expect anyone to appear in person - I'm hoping it would simply involve an official statement in writing to the court about your similar problem, backed up with any evidence you had. If I decide to do this, I will be taking some legal advice first. I will let you know if/what is required and you can then decide if you wish to help. Thanks a lot.

Bacchus

Grand so, I'm happy to help. I can write up what happened to us (well what happened to my wife, I wasn't in the car at the time) and we have the report & bill from the VW garage that replaced our engine.

This is the email of a guy in the UK who has a rake of information gathered on the issue, I highly recommend you get in touch with him - conrodcon@yahoo.co.uk

Given the address, I don't think this is classed under "personal information" so should be fine to share out.

hutch100uk

Great thank you!! I actually emailed that guy last night so just waiting on his reply to see how he got on

Bacchus

BTW, are you in Ireland or the UK? I've just noticed the "uk" in your username. VW Ireland and VW UK are separate entities in different countries. It was quite surprising to find out how little they have to do with each other when I was chasing them (our car is a UK import so I tried VW UK too).

hutch100uk

I'm in the UK!!

Bacchus

hutch100uk wrote: »

I'm in the UK!!

Ah ok, you know this is an Irish site? I may not be able to help you so since you're putting your claim through the UK system and I'm not a resident there and the incident with my car occurred in a car registered to Ireland. That guy you email has loads of info you'll be able to use in making your claim though. Good luck.

hutch100uk

Ah yeah, of course - hadn't realised that VW is so different in the UK. Hopefully this guy will respond to me and I can get some good advice from him. Just want this nightmare to be over. thanks again

Bpmull

sorry for bring up an older thread. But anyone found anymore info on this. I was looking on a few other forums and this seems to be a big issue in the uk, across all the vag stuff with bxe engines. But then also I seen that a lot of cars over there are on variable service intervals and often the cars don't say they need a service until 30k miles plus which just seems mad. so many car over there are only being serviced at around that mileage vs. most in Ireland being done every 10k miles. I wonder is it actually possible to rebuild an engine after the conrod has broken like is happening can a mechanic just replace the conrod, head, piston or whatever damaged parts and obviously this would take a lot of labour but surely its the cheapest option if possible.

CJhaughey

Bpmull wrote: »

I wonder is it actually possible to rebuild an engine after the conrod has broken like is happening can a mechanic just replace the conrod, head, piston or whatever damaged parts and obviously this would take a lot of labour but surely its the cheapest option if possible.

The problem is that the conrod punches a hole in the side of the engine block.
Its not repairable at a reasonable cost as most of the engine needs to be replaced.
The only real option is to change the whole engine.

Bpmull

CJhaughey wrote: »

The problem is that the conrod punches a hole in the side of the engine block.
Its not repairable at a reasonable cost as most of the engine needs to be replaced.
The only real option is to change the whole engine.

Bit of a disaster so. I'd say bxe secondhand engine are like gold dust. Then I've heard quotes of 7k for a new engine which seems very high. So really then there is not a whole lot of options but to write off the car. I'll have to just keep mine well serviced and hope for the best can't exactly do a whole lot else.

gctest50

might be worth looking into :

We own a workshop and maintain a fleet of Jetta's with the BXE engine.

I don't think one has come to the end of its 4 year life span with the company without throwing a conrod (usually #2).

The only notable reason we see for this is the conrod's are considerably thinner than the older TDI's and a lot lighter, presumably to lower the reciprocal weight.

We have adapted the older PD130 (ASZ etc) block to fit which can be had for pennies and are built twice as strong (the rods are at least twice as thick).

Most of the conversion is bolt & go, the difficulty is boring the hole for the crank sensor and fitting the pick-up ring on the crank.

We've done quite a few now and they've had zero issues since.

We've also gone to the lengths of fitting 4 PD130 pistons & rods in the higher mileage ones before the inevitable happens!

before it decides to get a bit of fresh air for itself

vandriver

This happened to my brothers 08 Golf BXE this morning.(fvwsh)

Bpmull

vandriver wrote: »

This happened to my brothers 08 Golf BXE this morning.(fvwsh)

What mileage and what interval was it serviced at ?

vandriver

Bpmull wrote: »

What mileage and what interval was it serviced at ?

150,000 miles. He was on the long life servicing so I think about 17 k miles between services.

Bpmull

vandriver wrote: »

150,000 miles. He was on the long life servicing so I think about 17 k miles between services.

That's crap news. Like the car would still have been worth a bit. Does he know what he's going to do with it I'd imagine trying to find a good second hand bxe would be hard. I have a bxe engine golf with 74 k miles on it but has been serviced more or less every 15k km using the long life oil and I'm going to keep it on that interval. I'm a bit nervous about it but I can't do anything more. I know you can't prevent it but the way I look at it the fresher the oil in it the engine better the lubrication less stress on the components but I know they can still fail. But sure what can you do really.