Hi Everyone,

I've been reading through some threads about people's experiences with this engine. I have my own and I'm ready to give up.
I have a 2009 (December 2008) 118TSI Golf Manual. I bought it second hand in 2011 with 26,000km on it. It has been VERY well looked after, ALWAYS... ALWAYS! run with 98. It has EVERY options. It was always serviced within 1000km of the required kms with Volkswagen in the ACT and with Kloster VW in Newcastle up until it ran out of warranty when it was serviced with Ultratune (after I had bad dealings with a service manager at Klosters)

The end of March 2017 it had been running horribly and the engine shuddering yet no engine lights, we replaced the trans mount which was pretty destroyed and it ran fine for a few weeks until the engine light started coming on but only flashed for a few seconds and went away. At this point is had 140,000km on it. We ran a compression test on it and it had low compression on cylinder 3 so we thought it was fairly likely it was a cracked piston. We've read about people getting discounts from VW for this issue so thought we'd give that a shot. Because of my dealings with the local dealer in the past, my husband took it straight there for me. He was told that they couldn't fit it in right away and we'd have to book it in for the following week. He said that's fine but he's not driving it home because of the things we'd read about this engine. He was told the worst thing you could do was google a problem like that and not to believe anything on the internet about it. The service manager also told him because the light had gone away again it would be fine to drive! We had to drive it home, we couldn't leave it there as they said they would charge us storage for it if we did.

They have had it now over 3 weeks and they have pulled the engine out and discovered a cracked piston in cylinder 3 (surprise surprise). It will need all new forged pistons and possibly a new head or the head machined. The quote for this including all work so far to diagnose it is $7,100. The service manager put in a claim for goodwill which came back and VW Australia is not willing to pay for anything. No labour, no parts, nothing. The service manager said this is based on the age of the vehicle. My husband rang VW Australia direct and told them is wasn't good enough and he ran everything through again and it came back the same, they won't pay a thing. My husband was also told they don't give out the parameters of how they make this decision or people would use that against them.

Has anyone else been in this situation? Or can anyone offer advice on where I can go from here? This was quite an expensive car when I bought it but I wanted something safe for my kids to go in and something that wasn't going to chew through fuel. It is a beautiful car to drive when it's running, I just want it back. Please help!