102PS with 2 Turbo Failures - was re-map to blame?

[A Bridge Too Far]

If you need to go legal. Join Which magazine and you get free legal cover, Phone their legal team and they will advise exactly how to claim against the garage if they won't play ball. (they even sent me all the letter templates so it had the correct terminology in).

They were brilliant for me and helped me win a warranty case with BMW which forced them to take the car back.

There are time limits on some thing of when you have to claim by, but I would definately do this. Saved me thousands and enabled me to get rid of a pig of a car.

 

[Stevo468]

All very interesting stuff chaps. In a past life I was involved in the analysis oil samples from aircraft engines and hydraulic oil for aircraft hydraulics systems. It was used more for trying to identify the early stages of premature wear rather than post failure analysis.

VW have now emailed me an estimate for just under £12k... I guess that's them covering everything they can think of.

For what it's worth I've asked VW what they would give me trading it in for something on their forecourt. Paying out £12k I currently don't have on top of the £2.2k I've already spent on a van worth £14k on a good day is a tough situation to be in..

The comment about getting legal cover from Which Mag by joining may be useful - thanks for that. I'll look in to it.

 

[A Bridge Too Far]

All very interesting stuff chaps. In a past life I was involved in the analysis oil samples from aircraft engines and hydraulic oil for aircraft hydraulics systems. It was used more for trying to identify the early stages of premature wear rather than post failure analysis.

VW have now emailed me an estimate for just under £12k... I guess that's them covering everything they can think of.

For what it's worth I've asked VW what they would give me trading it in for something on their forecourt. Paying out £12k I currently don't have on top of the £2.2k I've already spent on a van worth £14k on a good day is a tough situation to be in..

I'd have a stab at getting the other garage to fix it first / legal threat (you don't have to follow through, but don't tell them that!) Even if they fix it and you still want to trade it in at least you'll get more oney for it.

Just for my piece of mind this garage isn;t in Derby or surroundiung areas is it?.... looking for our first non VW service at the moment and don;t want to walk into this place

 

[Stevo468]

Which magazine legal services was a good idea, but limited to small claims limit of £10k, which I'm over.

I take your point, but I'm a little nervous of the garage having another go as they failed to diagnose the cause first time around. Plus I do not think they know how to enable the high oil pressure mode that VW said would've been mandatory following a turbo replacement if VW had done the work.

And no the garage is nowhere near Derby..

 

[Niknak]

Have a check on your house insurance some offer legal cover

 

[Stevo468]

I did and I've bombed on that as well.

VW van centre came back saying they would not even take the van as part exchange on anything they had in stock... Its worth around £15k working

 

[mommabear]

Hi People, I recently had my 3 1/2 year old T6 Euro 6 102ps re-mapped with a Quantum Tuning map by a highly recommended and accredited mapping guy. I had the full power, up to 170ps map so was expecting great things. The van drove fine after re-mapping, but I was hard pushed to sense a big gain. It seemed a little more spritely in the mid range. I questioned this with the mapping guy and he assured me all was fine. The next day the van died with no prior indication anything was wrong. A local garage diagnosed turbo failure. I mentioned the re-map as it was out of warranty and naively thought his would help them with diagnostics. The local garage re-placed the turbo and fixed everything else trashed by oil being sucked in to the inlet tract. The van was test driven around the block by a mechanic. I paid my £2.2k and collected van and drove off down the road. A couple of miles later the new turbo failed catastrophically as I got into third gear. This time even more of the engine oil seems to have been drawn in to the inlet tract and gone down the exhaust as the new turbo expired. The local garage have now washed their hands of getting involved saying they believe the turbo failures were down to the mapping. I'm not convinced this is the case. They are also saying their warranty is void due to the re-mapping. They even sneakily put this on the invoice as I was settling up without mentioning it - although legally I do not believe it will hold any water because they cannot demonstrate I signed up to accept the liability - which I obviously wouldn't have. The mapping guy made it clear that for whatever reason the original VW map can easily be re-instated if requited.

Now I'm between a very big rock and a hard place as I rely on using this van for work. It's dead, they have my money and I'm back where I started. VW quoted £5k which is why I used the local garage.

Does anyone have a view on this in respect of the likelihood that a re-map could so easily fail the turbo?

It smacks of the local garage being out of their depth and not properly diagnosing the cause of the initial failure and therefore not fixing it and then trying to cover themselves with the warranty voiding statement on the invoice.

Feel your pain here mate and nothing anyone says will help as its all "hindsight" now.
Try to look at the issue not as a general "Did the remap cause the Turbo too fail?" rather, was there an underlying issue with the turbo before I had the remap, and has pushing the parameters exacerbated the issue and the turbo has gone pop. - This is the most likely issue. This is why I've never had one. As solid as VW transporters are, they can lull you into a false sense of invincibility. Cars are like people my friend, I've learned in Medicine, 109 year old ladies can survive double pneumonia, 21 year old tri-athletes can drop down on the football pitch for absolutely no reason. Id say that undertaking any engine modification that removes the limits set at the factory (whatever the reason they were set), puts you at risk of damaging parts that may be worn/damaged/teetering on the brink anyway.
Another factor is the youth of your van - at 3.5 years old, even as a daily driver, its still possible that you've got a dicky part that hasn't shown itself yet.
Can I ask the question - did the remapping guys or yourself run a proper diagnostic pre-remap?

 

[mommabear]

Agreed. A map can’t take out a turbo in a few miles.

Pete

Provided there's nothing underlying wrong with the turbo waiting to be made worse by the remap.

 

[Niknak]

Have you thought about buying a complete low mileage engine second hand and having it fitted ?

 

[Skyliner33]

Have you thought about buying a complete low mileage engine second hand and having it fitted ?

Thats what I was just thinking

 

[mommabear]

Good point.

 

[DXX]

There maybe engine exchange deals which could reduce the cost or offer it as a repair project, either way the ’old’ engine has value.

 

[mommabear]

yeah! actually, you could put the new one in and strip down and rebuild the old one as a little learning project - you got two engines then and you've learned how to build an engine.

 

[Neil Nicholls]

I've had a few replacement engines in vans before. Including one on a T5 2.5L, which cost ££££
None have ever been the same again.
Not driven the same, sounded the same, or been as reliable.
If the same happened again, I would sell it on e-bay, be done with it, and buy something else.

 

[Long tall John]

Quoted from your initial post....
They are also saying their warranty is void due to the re-mapping. They even sneakily put this on the invoice as I was settling up without mentioning it -

A very long shot but would the garage have CCTV of the counter area being recorded? And If they do how long with they likely keep the recording? If you could prove they were writing that clause as you were paying the billI don’t think he would have a leg to stand on. I know its a long shot but good luck.

 

[Timothy person]

I had a similar turbo failure after a remap on my 2 1/2 year old t6, it went to vw and they picked up the remap and threw my warranty claim out . Cost me nearly 4K . I learned my lesson, should of left as standard !!!. Did they not mention it being mapped At main stealers or was it put back previously to standard map?

 

[DaveD]

I had a similar turbo failure after a remap on my 2 1/2 year old t6, it went to vw and they picked up the remap and threw my warranty claim out . Cost me nearly 4K . I learned my lesson, should of left as standard !!!. Did they not mention it being mapped At main stealers or was it put back previously to standard map?

Was it the 102 HP model, just out of interest?

 

[Timothy person]

Was it the 102 HP model, just out of interest?

Yep. Why do you ask, you had similar issues??

 

[DaveD]

Yep. Why do you ask, you had similar issues??

No, it just seems that the 102 is more susceptible to turbo problems than other models, from what I've read on here, and I guess a lot of 102's get mapped too.

 

[Mwillis]

I do feel for you, could you buy a written off van? Just looked and a few on ebay and at least you have the rest of the van to sell on and try and recoup some cash after the engine swop.