Skoda ‘writes off’ my six-year-old £20,000 car when it suffers a common fault | Money | The Guardian

Mar 04, 2025

In early October I drove my six-year-old Skoda Octavia vRS car into my local Skoda dealer with an intermittent fault that was causing a loss of power and strange engine noises.

I was eventually told that the timing chain mechanism had failed and it needed a new 2.0 litre turbo petrol engine – at a cost of £8,250.

This is for a car I bought new from that dealer in 2010, costing more than £20,000, and have had serviced by them every 10,000 miles. It has covered 70,000 miles and was worth around £7,500 before the incident.

The dealer, Vindis in Cambridge, advised me to open a claim with Skoda, as timing chain issues are common with this engine. It had diagnosed it using a “technical product information document”, produced for common faults. A basic internet search shows that this is indeed a common issue affecting thousands of owners of Volkswagen Group (which includes Skoda) cars fitted with this engine. It seems it was rectified in later engines, but, critically, there was no recall.

Fighting for a fair resolution has become a nightmare. After many conversations, letters etc, and the threat of legal action, Skoda has offered to pay half the engine cost but still expects me to stump up £4,100.

I have offered to contribute a maximum of 20%, to reflect the fact that a new engine would place me in a better position than before, but it was rejected.

The timing chain and ancillary parts are “non-service” items, expected to last the life of the car. Yet, after six years and 70,000 miles, they have in effect written off what was a top-of-the-range car. Skoda UK has failed to supply any evidence that the damage was not due to a manufacturing fault, and it refuses to share the vehicle damage report with me.

Emails from the Skoda customer services executive office have clearly been carefully written and reviewed from a legal standpoint. They have made it clear they will seek to strike out any legal action I take, on the basis there is no contractual relationship between us.

JC, Cambridge

This is the latest in a number of emails from unhappy Skoda owners who have suffered serious timing chain-related problems, and have faced big bills as a result. As you say, the problems with this engine are well documented – it is the same one as fitted to VW Golf GTIs of a similar age and other Volkswagen Group cars, including Audi and Seat.

You were unlucky in that this happened just over six years after you bought the car, which meant you were out of time under the Consumer Rights Act. That said, having bought the car new, and having had it serviced each year by the same dealer, you could reasonably claim Skoda should have done more.

Initially, it stuck to the line that it was happy with its 50% offer. When it was suggested that the best course of action was to push the stricken car across the road from the dealer and cover it with signs outlining how you had been treated, it appears to have decided to take a second look.

Skoda has now agreed to add an extra £2,000 “goodwill payment”, meaning you will now have to pay £2,200 to repair the car. Or it will give you £6,000 to trade in against another model.

This is an equitable outcome, given that you will have a car with a new engine that should, hopefully, last at least another six years.

Meanwhile, if you have a car with the same 2.0 TSI/TFSI (EA888) engine bought between 2009 and 2014, consider selling it if it is six years/20,000 miles old – especially if it does not have a full dealer history. Or consider changing the timing chain tensioner.

Why this problem has not been covered extensively in the motoring press is a surprise, to say the least.

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