The great big MK6 Golf 118TSI tuning thread

[Rawcpoppa]

Hey guys.

I have some completely fkd news. My car started running rough earlier this week and progressively then started barely running. I had it towed to a mechanic. 4th cylinder was down to about 75 psi of compression AKA. Nobody was home.

They basically told me straight up that it is gone. Most likely around $7k for a rebuild using all the revised engine parts.

I contacted VW and they have told me to have it assessed by a VW garage as they may cover the repair costs on goodwill that it is only 1 year out of warranty.

I will have to get everything stock back in the engine and have my stock tune put back on before getting it assessed by them.

Such a fkn terrible week and after doing so much research on these engines I was so confident that being the 2012 model it would be fine.

Anyone have any other advise or solutions I would be happy to listen.



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Man that fkn sucks. Sorry to hear that.

Is it a calendar year 2012 or manufacturer year 2012?

[rygreen93]

I'm not actually sure. It's manufacture year 2012.

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[blower]

Damn! sorry to hear that.

I really don't like the APR Stage 1 tune on these engines - I had mine taken off.

It runs uncontrolled boost for most of the rev range when you are at full throttle - the N75 valve is at 100% duty, the requested boost is greater than or equal to what the boost pressure sensor can read, so actual boost is usually higher as the sensor is maxed out and the turbo is running flat out.

Fueling is too rich at maximum engine load for newer revision injectors found in 2011 onwards engines, at around 4000k revs this caused intermittent misfires on my engine and I would suspect others too, maybe to a lesser degree so you don't get an engine management light. The misfires occur when the EGT protection kicks in and fuel enrichment is used to cool down EGT's, when this happens AFR can drop to 10.3 (0.7 lambda) - simply too rich causing spark plug fouling with the wider spray pattern from the new revision injectors. All the custom pro tuners are aware of this and you always see them running much leaner on some of the big stage 3 setups.

I also found that it would not consistently run full boost - intermittently dropping back to some form of boost limp mode that was closer to stock. I notice that your earlier post with the dyno's looked a bit low (even for WHP) for the apr stage 1 tune....I suspect if the engine was restarted and the dyno run a few times more you would have had some runs with much higher figures.

The map is just too aggressive - way more so than revo's stage 1, it produces far higher torque figures at the middle rev ranges - simply because the turbo is running flat out. It's unlike APR to produce a map like this, they are normally more conservative but I don't know what they were thinking when they produced this revised stage 1 map with more power back in 2011 iirc.

Of course there is no guarantee that the map was the cause of your piston death - it could have died from detonation/knock from poor fuel quality, but I would expect you have only used premium fuel.

[rygreen93]

The thing is Blower I'm not running the APR tune. I have a tune developed by ottinger and refined by harding performance. It's a much smoother tune. The car was running amazing for about 3 weeks since I got the tune and then it just went to ****. I have a feeling that the stock tune causes the engine to become weak by running overly lean and then adding the stage 1 power caused stress and something gave in.

I am still considering all my options but something that is very surprising is that my mechanic contacted VW about the parts required for the rebuild and he said only about 2 of the parts had the same part number as the original. This means that even since 2012 they have revised the entire engine almost. Apparently all pistons and rods are now forged and the timing chain tensioner and chain have been revised AGAIN!!!

This engine is a great little power plant but they definitely fkd it up.

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[The_Hawk]

Update on mine. It was serviced this week, first major service, and it all checked out OK, compression OK etc. New plugs seem to have solved the misfire, tested on cold it's not happening and when warm it's always run fine. The N249 errors are apparently down to the GFB DV+ and spring making the computer think the N249 isn't working correctly.

I've thought about it a bit more about the couple of misfires, I was running near the bottom of the fuel tank on 6 week old fuel too, so maybe there is something in that too. I keep thinking instead of filling up once every 6 weeks I should just be throwing $20 in when the light comes on so the fuel is fresher.

My APR tune has been on since the very start and it's never given me any grief (and it's been up and down the strip and round a few race tracks) although I haven't logged all the duty cycles. Some say that the tune from day one protects the car from the stock tune...

Anyway, it's all humming away nicely for now so I'm happy

[blower]

If you do get VW to do a goodwill, they will first insist on disassembling the engine to confirm its a cracked piston and the engine should be replaced. They usually want to charge 8 hours labour just for disassembly!....tell them to remove the pistons from below - unbolt the gearbox, remove flywheel, drop the sump, remove the crankshaft and just pull the damn piston out. You can't install pistons this way, but you sure can remove them and its only 2-3 hour job instead.

[rygreen93]

If you do get VW to do a goodwill, they will first insist on disassembling the engine to confirm its a cracked piston and the engine should be replaced. They usually want to charge 8 hours labour just for disassembly!....tell them to remove the pistons from below - unbolt the gearbox, remove flywheel, drop the sump, remove the crankshaft and just pull the damn piston out. You can't install pistons this way, but you sure can remove them and its only 2-3 hour job instead.

Good thinking. I'm going to do my best.

Thanks guys. Wish me luck. I hope things don't get any worse. Most annoying thing is that after spending all this money I could have just got a GTI

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[blower]

The pistons and conrod's are definitely not forged - they have not changed since 2012 (I've recently checked on etka)

The last piston revision, the ones that are supposed to be better, was changed on 10/01/2012 - so if your manufacture date is just before 10th of Jan 2012 you would have the older revision pistons. The latest revision, from 10/01/2012 onwards is part 03C107065CK, this is the same piston used in the newer CTHD engines.

It's still not a forged piston, but it is apparently better than what was in 2009-2011 engines.

[blower]

The thing is Blower I'm not running the APR tune. I have a tune developed by ottinger and refined by harding performance. It's a much smoother tune. The car was running amazing for about 3 weeks since I got the tune and then it just went to ****. I have a feeling that the stock tune causes the engine to become weak by running overly lean and then adding the stage 1 power caused stress and something gave in.

Ah, didn't realise you had a custom map - and yes I agree that even the stock tune can weaken the pistons over time. It doesn't help that the pistons in these engines are made out of chocolate either!

[ope126]

Good thinking. I'm going to do my best.

Thanks guys. Wish me luck. I hope things don't get any worse. Most annoying thing is that after spending all this money I could have just got a GTI

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Hopefully the dealer gets it all sorted out for you mate.

IIRC this might be one of a few Mk6 (current model) Jetta's to suffer this issue.
Generally it has been MK5's...

Keep us up to date mate!!!