Anyone gone from a TDI to a TSI?

osxuser

Member
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Location
Socal
TDI
2010 JSW 6spd. 2004 Jetta 1.9PD 5spd
I got a 2018 Passat with the 2.0tsi as a loaner. Got 39.3 MPG calculated on a 500 mile tank. All highway miles, mostly between 70 and 80mph. They are competitve engines. Hated the DSG though.
 

turbocharged798

Veteran Member
Joined
May 21, 2009
Location
Ellenville, NY
TDI
99.5 black ALH Jetta;09 Gasser Jetta
A day or two with the 09G and you will want to put your fist through the windshield. Awful POS to drive. The accelerator peddle pretty much becomes a suggestion box on how much acceleration you want.
 

compu_85

Gadget Guy
Joined
Sep 29, 2003
Location
La Conner, WA
TDI
... None :S
A day or two with the 09G and you will want to put your fist through the windshield. Awful POS to drive. The accelerator peddle pretty much becomes a suggestion box on how much acceleration you want.
Hmm. In traffic I **much** prefer it to the DSG. And, in our roomates 09 Tiguan, it doesn't hunt for gears or do many other stupid things. My father's 16 Passat is even better behaved.

I actually pondered how if I was going a TDI swap into a Tiguan I'd want to keep the Aisin trans instead of going to the DSG.

-J
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
The Aisin works fine until the valve body goes bananas and decides to slam upshifts and downshifts with so much violence the tires screech. Man I have done a LOT of valve bodies on those. But usually the ones bolted to the 2.5L. The ones bolted to the EA888s typically outlast the engines... which is really, really sad.

At least the valve body is a pretty easy job, they are out in the open. I wish BMW would have been informed about that. Because that same job SUCKS in a Mini. And somehow the [basically same] valve body costs twice as much too.

Manuals are SO much better.... DMF aside.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
TDI
'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
I've had good experience driving the 09G in cars, too. My daughter had a 2.slow '13 Jetta that did well. One feature I liked is if you put it in manual mode on the freeway it would stay in 6th, even if you floored it, which was sometimes necessary with the 2.slow.
 

turbocharged798

Veteran Member
Joined
May 21, 2009
Location
Ellenville, NY
TDI
99.5 black ALH Jetta;09 Gasser Jetta
Hmmm..Wonder if the valve body on mine is shot. When I put it in tip mode, there is literally a 2-3 second delay from when I hit the shifter to when it actually shifts. Basically impossible to shift manually in lower gears.

I find it constantly hunts for gears as well.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
Just found out there is a class action lawsuit going on with the EA888 engine regarding its randofail chain drive system. The broad with this Eos is going after then with a vengeance! Good for her!

They said if she gets in on the suit, she can get $2500 towards a repair. :)
 

Mythdoc

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
Just found out there is a class action lawsuit going on with the EA888 engine regarding its randofail chain drive system. The broad with this Eos is going after then with a vengeance! Good for her!



They said if she gets in on the suit, she can get $2500 towards a repair. :)


I’m working a claim for $1050.00 on my son’s Tiguan.
Timingchainlitigation.com
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
I wish I had known this a while ago. I literally have had about 10 EA888 engined cars here in the last year or so with blown up chain drives.
 

DIVISIONINCISION

Active member
Joined
Jan 26, 2019
Location
Central Texas
TDI
2011 JSW TDI, 2015 Passat TDI SE
I would never own a VW TSI. All or Nothing.

The two TDI's I own will be the last VW's I own unless they reintroduce the TDI to the American market.

I would purchase a Chevy Diesel Sedan before purchasing a VW TSI!
 

ksing44

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Location
Southeast PA
TDI
2010 Golf TDI
My son crashed is 2010 Jetta 2.5 and I bought a low milage 2016 Jetta SE with Connectivity as a replacement. The newer Jetta has a 1.4 TSI. It's a great little motor! I got 38.8 mpg on my drive from Philadelphia PA to Chicago IL to give him the car. The car also runs great! It's certainly much more civilized than the tractor-like 2.5 motor in the 2010 Jetta. I also love Apple CarPlay! It was awesome to have the phone mirrored on the headunit!

I hope the 1.4 TSI turns out to be a good thing for my son! It was certainly a very good beginning. It left a very good impression on me for the week I had the car and during the 12-hour drive to Chicago.
 

tactdi

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 21, 2010
Location
North Carolina
TDI
2005.5 Jetta
I was browsing the VW site looking at the prices of new Jettas, found that the only 6 sp manual you can get is in the S Trim (GLI being the other exception).

And that VW has a rear bumper protector called "Bumperdillo" yes, at first glance the second "l" looked like a "d". I had to read it twice.

"Bumperdillo®" is a registered trademarks of Volkswagen Group of America, Inc

I wonder how long this name will be marketed, and I can hear the jokes in the parts department when the large box is delivered with a Bumperdillo label.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
It is June, and this is EA888 #6:



And check out those sexy legs! :D

2012 Q5, *almost* made it 90k miles. $10k out the door. :rolleyes:
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
What is the failure mode?
Many. but this one's issue was chronic running low on oil and what finally did it in was using regular gasoline. These require premium.

So it burnt out the exhaust manifold gasket at #4 cylinder ports and then burnt a hole through one of #3 cyl exhaust valves.

Timing chain and cam phasing bits are one of the more common problems, water pump housings splitting apart and causing rapid coolant loss and overheating is another one.
 

redbarron55

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2010
Location
Navarre, FL.
TDI
2012 Touareg TDI Executive
We had a nice 2015 1.8 TSI in a Passat and I wonder what problems this engine might have? I traded it for a 2012 Touarge TDI Executive (as my wife has always wanted one).
I thought that it was a wonderfully responsive engine with good torque and economy for the Passat.
The selling point for me was the turbo on regular gas as premium is even higher than Diesel most places.
Does it have similar with the head? (not that the Touareg is absent expensive problems)
 

2.2TDI

Veteran Member
Joined
May 1, 2011
Location
TDI
⠀⠀
It is June, and this is EA888 #6:

And check out those sexy legs! :D
2012 Q5, *almost* made it 90k miles. $10k out the door. :rolleyes:
Lol

How many times are you going to point out Gen 1 and 2 EA888 engines suck? We get it, I wouldn't buy one either

But as far as I know, EA888 gen 3 engines haven't had anywhere near the amount of issues, at least none that i've heard of in the 1.8 and 2.0, along with my own experience of owning a 2015 golf 1.8T

Since diesels are pretty much dead, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another TSI. Personal opinion is that it's a much better option then some of the newer turbo cars different manufactures make... especially the ones who just started turbocharging engines in recent years because of emissions regulations.

At least volkswagen has had a larger sample size of blown engines to somewhat figure it out by now (and like I said, EA888 gen 3 1.8 and 2.0 seem fairly solid to date)
 
Last edited:

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
Lol

How many times are you going to point out Gen 1 and 2 EA888 engines suck? We get it, I wouldn't buy one either

But as far as I know, EA888 gen 3 engines haven't had anywhere near the amount of issues, at least none that i've heard of in the 1.8 and 2.0, along with my own experience of owning a 2015 golf 1.8T
Two of the six (pointed out above) EA888 failures I have done so far this year were the newer 1.8L engines. So yeah, they suck too. :rolleyes:

And this does NOT include all the ones that were called/emailed about, but I did not fix.

VAG was still updating/changing things on these engines as recently as 2017. They STILL cannot get the basic design right. It is flawed so deeply from the get-go that the only 100% fix for it is to throw it out and start over fresh, which we KNOW is not ever going to happen. Because they've become so butthurt over Dieselgate they basically have caved and decided everything going forward is EV. So no more "new" engine family developments. The EA888 was the last of its kind, and they seem to be going out with a bang. Only not the good kind.

You seem to hold a lot of stock in this "gen 1-2-3" nonsense, but as someone who has actually gotten all too intimate with these engines (yes, all three "gens" :rolleyes: ) I can tell you that not much has changed, and the things that DID change are not necessarily any "improvements". The water pump assembly for instance. It changed on the later ones, yes, but I would hardly call adding an electric duty cycled control valve into the design anything helpful. Because now, instead of just worrying about when the water pump housing will crack and start leaking, you also have to worry about when that electronic portion of the water pump will fail and turn on that pesky MIL.

They "improved" the crankcase breather system... so now we no longer have an avenue to introduce the induction cleaner as prevention for intake valve buildup. No, now we MUST remove the intake manifold, no way to try and avoid this or at least push it off. This of course is if the intake manifold doesn't have to come off to access the broken water pump first.

And the 0w20 oil spec on some of the newest ones is downright laughable. You think something can burn 5w40 at a liter every 1000 miles.... try 0w20! Ask Honda how that's going LMAO.
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
TDI
'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
So this makes me want to ask, what are the best VAG engines currently available? And when you look at the universe of 4 cylinder engines in the market, which seem to be most durable and reliable? Seems of VAG engines the 1.4L TSI is the best of a bad lot, and people speak highly of Toyota's latest 2.0L with both port and direct injection.

If I wanted a gasoline powered long term runner I'd probably still go for normally aspirated. The base Civic engine might be OK, but I've read a bunch of stories about gearbox problems in those cars. Always something.
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
The general fragile nature of so many newer products is pretty disappointing. I'm not really sure anymore. I do think some of it has to do with the inability for so many examples to cope with any level of neglect. And this typically distills down to the motor oil, more specifically the oil level. And this is made more critical by the push to thinner weights. These thinner weights are specified primarily for a small bump in fuel efficiency and emissions, and this is highly concentrated on post-cold start data. Nothing more. They (the manufacturers) even admit this.

So the engine uses .005% less fuel, emits .05% less pollutants, but suffers a whopping 10% loss of engine life, and that assumes you actually keep the crankcase full. If not, then the life expectancy is anyone's guess.

We see FAR too many engines in need of replacement before 100k miles than we used to. It is not even close. And what sucks is, with few exceptions, the cars themselves actually have the ability to hold up better by many standards. Rust is not as big of an issue on most models as it once was. Interior trim doesn't discolor and fall to pieces like it once did. Dashboard don't warp and crack and distort like they once did. Even most paint has by now matured and they've figured out the more environmentally friendly stuff reasonably well. Steering, suspension, brakes, etc. all seem to hold up pretty good too.

But none of that matters when the oil burning engine has rods trying to Shawshank their way out of the engine at 80k miles, or the crap-o-matic CVT so many manufacturers are cursing their cars with is dead at 90k miles.

I was really impressed the first time I drove the current generation (first post-Ford model) of Mazda 3. Its looks can be polarizing, but the behind-the-seat feel is superb. Its interior looks and feels great. Fantastic steering and brakes. Everything you feel and touch is excellent. But gosh darn you drain the 0w20 oil out of the crankcase at even half the prescribed service interval reveals this black, inky, running, fuel diluted bong water crap and the dipstick prior to draining showed it already below the operating range. And we are talking a 35k mile car here. How long can this engine possibly be expected to last? :rolleyes:
 

ksing44

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Location
Southeast PA
TDI
2010 Golf TDI
Wow, reading the comments here sounds like we should go back to 3000 mile oil changes in the new cars! I love how my son's 1.4 VW Jetta runs and the mpg is great. Do you think I should rethink the oil change intervals?
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
Many of the DI gassers suffer from oil dilution, especially ones that are short tripped.

The 1.4L is no exception, however it does not seem to be especially drastic, and so long as the oil level is checked/added if necessary it should not be an issue.

It also still specs good ol' 502.00 5w40, and holds a reasonable amount (4.25 L) for its size. And you can screw on the longer oil filter (many VAG applications use them, just look it up for a 2005 BEV 2.0L if you like) and gain a little bit more oil capacity. I think the 1.4L got the short filter because in some applications the longer one will not fit. But in the NCS Jetta at least there is plenty of room.

I like that 1.4L. It is no TDI, but it does pretty darn good I think, and so far we've not seen any systemic chronic problems with them.
 

2.2TDI

Veteran Member
Joined
May 1, 2011
Location
TDI
⠀⠀
Alright oil hammer, firstly I went through your posts in this thread, and unless I missed something, I saw no mention of gen 3 1.8 or 2.0 engines. You talk about a CC, and EOS and a Q5 all with the ticking time bomb Gen 2 2.0t in your most recent posts

Regardless, even if you have worked on fixing gen 3 engines that doesn't surprise me because no engine is bulletproof, at least not any new engines these days with all the complexities involved

So with that said, with the way you're talking about modern engines, we may aswell go buy a bicycle and ride it everywhere... The only engine I've seen you mention something good about is the new vag 1.4T...

Most of the population isn't as fortunate as you to see all the failures across the range of brands and to own 6 old VW's that they can maintain themselves
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
I revived a thread that had its last post March of 2019. Sorry, I should have been updating every time an EA888 Failboat rolls in the shop. No problem.

We'll start today: 2011 Tiguan, water pump failure. I do not know the history of this particular vehicle, as it is a new customer for us, but I can tell you the intake manifold has already been replaced, the transmission has already been out (likely due to a blown rear main seal, as the Aisin box shows no signs of being rebuilt or replaced, and they rarely ever fail anyway). I know the transmission has been out because the idiot left things loose, and I know the intake has been replaced because the paint mark for assembly checks is absent from the nipple to the breather pipe, but it present on the breather pipe, AND the support bracket for the manifold has been conveniently left off.:rolleyes:

I maintain lots of older cars for people, you needn't "maintain it yourself or ride a bike", that is silly. And there are also plenty of instances where the newer stuff is perfectly fine if maintained religiously as well as traded off with relative frequency. Not all of us are fortunate enough to buy a new car every couple years.
 

2.2TDI

Veteran Member
Joined
May 1, 2011
Location
TDI
⠀⠀
I maintain lots of older cars for people, you needn't "maintain it yourself or ride a bike", that is silly. And there are also plenty of instances where the newer stuff is perfectly fine if maintained religiously as well as traded off with relative frequency. Not all of us are fortunate enough to buy a new car every couple years.
You completely missed the point of what I was getting at

The idea I was trying to get across is with the way you talk about most new engines in cars, regardless of brand, we all may as well ride a bike because everything new is a piece of ****

To add to that, most people aren't as fortunate to own a fleet of old cars and be able to fix everything on them, so they are left with owning a newer car, or obviously being unfortunate and having a ****box end up at your shop

And if it wasn't already obvious, most of the population leases cars nowadays... you don't have to be fortunate to do so, why do you think most people are in debt? But I digress, that's a topic for a different forum
 

IndigoBlueWagon

TDIClub Enthusiast, Principal IDParts, Vendor , w/
Joined
Aug 16, 2004
Location
South of Boston
TDI
'97 Passat, '99.5 Golf, '02 Jetta Wagon, '15 GSW
I wonder how cars like the Mazda (and Honda engines, which also seem to suffer from oil dilution), would fare if you immedialy replaced the 0w20 with 5w30, or even 5w40 with a similar spec.
I have any significant repairs on my TDIs completed by my guru. They're dead reliable, and even when paying for repairs are far, far less expensive to run than a newer car. More fun to drive and better FE, too. And unlike oilhammer, I only have 4 of them. :D
 

oilhammer

Certified Volkswagen Nut & Vendor
Joined
Dec 11, 2001
Location
outside St Louis, MO
TDI
There are just too many to list....
Glad you think my customers are "unfortunate to end up here". Thanks for the thinly veiled insult, Mr. 2.2TDI.

I'd invite you to read some of our customers' comments on our web page, but you've already made up your mind.

I am only relaying what I see in a high volume professional shop, and trying my best to do so with honesty from someone who is Volkswagen's biggest fan. It pains me to admit their faults, especially with the newer stuff.

I do not know a single person (friend, family... and I have a HUGE extended family) that leases a car. That sort of thing is common for fleets (commercial companies) here. Canada may be quite different. Even when I worked at an upscale brand dealer (Lexus, Infiniti, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Porsche, Land Rover, Porsche, and now Jaguar) the vast majority of new cars sold were outright purchases, either they wrote a check, or they were financed through the specific brands' loan management entity. BMW was the only one that really pushed for the lease, and to be honest, I'd not want to own one of those out of warranty either.

Edit: forgot we had Cadillac, but they rid themselves of that turd brand before GM's bankruptcy... they saw the writing on the wall. They've also ditched Smart (which was/is a sub-brand of MB) as soon as they announced EV only for the USA.
 
Last edited:
Top