diesel experts? 2.0tdi high mileage, to buy or not to buy?

I want to buy a neighbour’s estate so i can put the bike in the back,etc it has a LOT of miles on it but the price to me is good
Its a 2.0tdi CR engine, and if you take the oil cap off at idle, a little smoke comes out.
However, VCDS shows compression test values very close @ 320/min, and injector quantity deviation very good at max 0.1mg/str
no noticeable smoke from exhaust and has been well maintained for many years and it doesnt use any oil.
So where is the oil cap smoke coming from, (its not the EGR) will it get worse suddenly, should i buy it?
Or is it going to be a nightmare thats impossible to get thru the MOT emissions?

How many miles and what price?

Smoke from the oil cap isn’t necessarily a major issue depending how much there is, some oil will always be burned while running.

250k miles and a better price than anything similar i could see on ebay

At that mileage I’d pay no more than I’d be willing to lose the next day without batting an eyelid. Just because it’s cheaper than any others on eBay doesn’t automatically make it a good deal.

It’s a good engine which can last a very long time and if it’s been properly serviced and you have evidence of that it could be fine, but everything will be wearing out in it and one bill will effectively write the car off at that mileage I would say. The EGR cooler or DPF or clutch or injectors could shit the bed tomorrow and it would be uneconomical to bother fixing.

Oil/smoke/vapour coming out of the filler cap if removed is normal – the engine has a means of burning that off when the cap is in place. A usual test is put a rubber glove over the filler cap to see how much ring blow by there is / how blocked the crankcase breather is.

Is there any mayonnaise on the underside of the filler cap?

Work colleague took one to 200k miles, it needed a turbo and egr but was otherwise fine and is still going.

RNP-
how do you measure the glove test? is it just by experience?
no mayonnaise
if its excess blowby, will the vcds compression test confirm it?

‘EGR cooler or DPF or clutch or injectors’- thats not an issue

Is dual mass flywheel an issue on whatever it is? I’d check for the tell tale signs if it’s not been replaced. I know my A3 tdi (i think with that engine?) was showing symptoms when I got shot at around 120k miles.

EGR cooler cost me lots but you say that’s not an issue.

Glove test is a bit subjective, if it blows the glove up like a weather balloon then there’s an issue sorta thing but if compression values are okay then the glove thing is only really showing if the crankcase breather/separator is blocked or not.

I’m happy with high mileage heroes but they have to be cheap (£500 levels of cheap) unless the rest of the car in general has had lots of money spent on it. And if it has – why are they selling it?

I’d get an AA or similar inspection. That way you both know what’s being bought and no one feels bad if it goes pop 3 months later

he got a new car as he had this one a long time and 1)he can afford it and b)there is always a chance that it wont last forever. but it is a nice car, all the options

For some reason I feel like you’re quietly alluding to the fact it’s had an EGR/DPF delete, is that the case?

If so, unless he’s been taking it to somewhere dodgy, it’s increasingly unlikely it’ll pass an MOT as it’s an instant fail to remove components from the emissions system.

it’s increasingly unlikely it’ll pass an MOT as it’s an instant fail to remove components from the emissions system.

Unless the tester is clairvoyant or it’s been removed really badly using an axe/ some dynamite or similar

No one will ever know.

so what – happens- when the compression is low- do all cylinders wear at the same time or is there usually one thats worse?
Im worried about breaking a glow plug trying to do a proper compression test. Is there much chance of doing that? Im not too bad with mechanics

What is the actual car ?

Plenty to go wrong besides the engine that can be ££££.

And are we talking £300 or £3000 or £7000 quid ?

At £300 I’d personally be happy with the risk. At £3000 not so.

I did take Megane  TDi off a mate as a stop-gap for £300 about 4 years ago.  Needed something to bridge a 6-8 week gap.  Ended up Mrs running it for 2+ years and eventually part-ex ING it for more than we paid !  Besides a couple of oil changes, only problem needing work was with a shite parking brake design that failed a couple of times (no drama, it’s revealed the moment you apy the brake , so no unnatended run-away).  And ran well.

On the other hand, the £5k Zafira 1.9tdi, middle mileage (maybe 70 or 80k) and very tidy inside,  was a total crock o shite, especially the EGR/ particulate system, turbo, exhaust, oil leaks, cooling, heating, exterior paint (as the lacquer deteriorated and paint fell apart)  and more. I’d never ever go near one again.

Why do you want to do a compression test? It’s probably the least of the things likely to kill the car off. Regular oil changes should prevent any serious wear on the cylinders and diesel is a lubricant so it’s more of an issue on petrol cars, but things like the gearbox oil never get changed by 99% of people and a new trans will write the car off. You stand more chance of causing issues by trying to take ancient glow plugs out which can snap in the head and surely you’d be forced to buy the car off your neighbour at the point anyway?

This car is only worth it to you as a punt for an amount of money you can afford to lose without losing sleep on.

I know a chap that has T5 with 450,000 miles on it. Still runs perfectly. It was used for taking people to the airport and was very well looked after.

really i want to know about the smoke from the oil cap,whats causing it.
its a good time to sell the car i have, and buy one i want from a reliable source. I dont know if I’ll get another chance so i’ll probably lose more sleep if i dont buy it. Anyway i cant lose more sleep, im insomniac already

Breathing through the filler isn’t always a huge concern.

But again what is it? Age etc.

High motorway miies grand.  Multi stop start not so much.

How’s vcds getting compression data? IIRC there’s only a pressure transducer on glow plug#1, the rest are standard dumb plugs. Is it interpolating it from the injectors?

250k is borderline for those engines. As others have suggested it’s the ancillary stuff like dpf & injectors that will fail and make it uneconomical to continue.

its a 2011 skoda
i dont know how vcds does it

Have just looked it up. It doesn’t/ can’t , what it will do on a CR engine is display the balance pressure of the injectors – how forcibly each injector sends the diesel into the cylinder. If that is out on a cylinder the theory is that bore is shaggged, if it’s uniform then all the bores are either ok or all shagged.  It has no way of knowing either way. I wouldn’t use it as a guide to overall engine wear.

really i want to know about the smoke from the oil cap,whats causing it.

The bottom line is that nobody can tell you over an internet forum. It could be from any number of causes with a variety of severity ratings. Take it to an MoT station

This car is only worth it to you as a punt for an amount of money you can afford to lose without losing sleep on.

+1, there are lots of cars out there

How much MOT on it?

A 2011 Skoda with 250k on it….no one else will be paying more than scrap value for it.

What is he offering it to you for?

No point messing about worrying about compression tests etc. It’ll be a turbo, dual mass flywheel/clutch or a failed injector that see it off as it’ll cost more then the cars worth. Has it got a comprehensive service history? It must have had clutches in the past, when was it last changed for example?

For reference I’ve bought a 1 owner 2010 Xc90 with 215k miles and MOT for £500 and recently a 2005 Porsche Cayenne with 160k miles but no MOT (it passed anyway so effectively 12months ticket) that was also £500. Both were straight and useable as bought.
Both were from a friend or a family I knew so not ‘trader deals’

Work colleague recently sold his Mk4 08 Golf GTD with 6months MOT with the same engine and 200k miles for £500, scabby sills but otherwise fine.
A few years ago I bought a Mk3 Golf GTD 200k miles and 12months ticket for £300 ran it for a year then sold it for £400

Depending on how much MOT is on this Skoda id expect it to be at the above sort of price range unless it was absolutely immaculate with LOTS of paperwork with it.

Also if it was low compression it’d be a bugger to start.

No need to be coy about the asking price on a 13-year-old Skoda, surely OP?

You’ll undoubtedly see people asking strong money for them, but your neighbour can’t be expecting more than £1k for it, can they?

A 2011 Skoda with 250k on it….no one else will be paying more than scrap value for it.

^^^  That – anything he gets above scrap value is a win for him.

I think scrap value is around £300 at the moment.

So if it has FSH, long MOT and is generally well cared for, then it could sell for twice that or a bit more. People like diesel Skoda estates, e.g. for minicabbing.

But basically as Airvent said early on, don’t spend more than you can bear to lose without regret.

We just sold our 04 Passat estate. It was very tatty but well serviced, 145,000 miles and crunching into 2nd gear for £500

Admittedly thats the 1.9tdi 130 so a different engine.

Scrap value was £214

dooosukFree Member
A 2011 Skoda with 250k on it….no one else will be paying more than scrap value for it.

What is he offering it to you for?

Not really true, they list at £1200-£1500 on autotrader, scrap is what, £250?

Nobody in their right mind is paying those prices, though. If you look again in a few months time those same cars will still be listed.

airvent

Free Member
Nobody in their right mind is paying those prices, though. If you look again in a few months time those same cars will still be listed.

I think you’re out of touch with the market, those are the cheapest Skodas 2011 or newer on Autotrader within 200 miles of my postcode.

They might go for a grand, however there is no way they will be going for anything like £250 unless there is something seriously wrong with it.

Yeah as I said, someone will pay a grand.

OP’s neighbour should be asking less than that, perhaps more like £600-800 depending how tight they are.

It’s a superb.  So £1000

max?

Re the smoke out the filler cap, is it persistent i.e. does it waft around or is it like steam out of kettle and disperses quickly?

Estate? Yeah a grand, might be worth it, just. My dad’s is a 10 plate/170tdi with ~100k on the clock. Its still ok, but I can see the start of rot in the sills. With more than double that mileage I’d be giving it a good poke with a tyre leaver. Front subframe too. We had to do the rear lower control arms about a year ago as they had decided to return to the earth. Knowing my brother in law he probably replaced the springs at the same time.

Also check the bottom of rear doors on anything VWG made from 2008 to 201x. They had a number of solutions ranging from increasingly big see through vinyl (superb/octy/yeti) to altered paint thicknesses, to stuck on massive protectors (kodiaq/karoq). I had two doors FOC on our yeti, mum has had one on her yeti and dad is just careless so both doors got the bodyshop treatment having been bashed into various trees, bollards, trolls before natural rot could set in.

It could be from any number of causes with a variety of severity ratings. Take it to an MoT station

Nothing in an mot will tell you much of anything about smoke from the oil filler cap.

Nothing in an mot will tell you much of anything about smoke from the oil filler cap.

Some of the smokey oil filler causes will show as raised emissions on test, plus the testers are quite helpful IME. The printout might also show oil temperature on test, abnormal temps may lead to smoke. The cause of raised temps will be interesting to a buyer

An MoT will also tell you about a pile of other stuff that might be a deal breaker at these sort of mileages/vehicle age