59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not?

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 10:56
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81

Hi everyone,

I have been having issues with our Ibiza the last few years, firstly I had to change the throttle body which I managed to do myself apart from diagnostic cost. Now the last year I had intermittent EML light)limp mode which is now constant. I had the diagnostic done yesterday and they want 500 big ones to fix, wiring has corroded to the turbo sensor and one of the dpf soot level sensors is faulty.

The guy in the garage said I got lucky as it could have been the turbo itself due to its age and mikes (130k).

Bearing in mind the car is 11.5 years old and has done 130k, also is overdue on timing belt replacement (every 4 years on this model), so another 500-600 Inc water pump etc. Then there is the other minor issue of air con not working due to broken pump again probably 400-500. They also mentioned a slight coolant leak although although I don't seem to lose any if at all. So all in I could be looking at £1500-£1700 bill, or £1000 at best to fix the wiring/sensor and do timing belt.

I could just get the wiring/sensor repair done and delay the timing belt but it's already overdue. What I'm concerned is I could pump 1000 into this then for the well known EGR and turbo failure to appear.

I'm thinking I maybe better off getting another car for 3k to 5k that is petrol, no turbo and timing chain, and just ebaying the Ibiza for spares/repair, or trade in if I pay for the wiring/sensor fix and hope I get a better return. Although it doesn't owe me much having had it for 5 years and paying £4500 for it. My main priority going forward is reliability and I've begun to lose faith in the Ibiza over the 5 years of ownership as it's not been great.

I'd appreciate any thoughts and advice on this, following advice from the forum before we bought a 2nd hand jazz that has been faultless really.

Edited by Hojo_81 on 09/06/2021 at 10:57

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 12:47
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Andrew-T

On the face of it, it seems you have been allowing faults to accumulate until the total cost becomes too uncomfortable. I wonder if it might have felt better to do them one by one ? :-)

Seriously though, buying a 4-5K petrol car could make sense if you don't do enough miles to justify a diesel. On the other hand, a newer car will have more potential for expensive repairs than the one you have - does your Ibiza have a DPF, for example ?

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 15:18
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81
To some extent I probably have, but I have limited the expenditure to the most pressing issues. I don’t consider air con essential so never fixed it, the coolant leak issue it has been in before and pressure tested etc but they found no issue at the local garage. The throttle body and turbo boosting are critical to the normal running of the engine.so I got them sorted,

The Ibiza does have a DPF, garage are going to fit a new sensor as it read 0.00g of soot despite the light coming on indicating it needs a good run, but it won’t regenerate if eml light is on. The garage actually questioned me on if I had tampered, bypassed/blanked off the DPF.

To be honest I’m not doing the miles I was since the pandemic, that is true about getting a newer car and potentially higher repair bills, but I feel the Ibiza could become a money pit in the years ahead. The only thing that makes me think of keeping it a bit longer is the mot goes up to Feb 2022. If I pay for the turbo wiring to be fixed and new DPF sensor for £500 I suppose that’s not too bad for another 8 months motoring, assuming the timing belt doesn’t snap or something else fails. I fear it is on a slippery slope in term of age and wear when sensors, actuators, dpf/egr etc could continue to fail ina chain like manner.

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 14:43
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - SLO76
Get shot of it, there’s too much potential here. Spend £4-£5k on a nice petrol engined Fiesta 1.25/1.4, Mazda 2 1.3/1.5, Toyota Yaris 1.33 or Suzuki Swift 1.2. All will be cheap to run and fun to drive and there’s no fear of costly diesel related repairs for the future.

Edited by SLO76 on 09/06/2021 at 14:44

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 14:53
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Ian_SW

It would be worth doing the maths on relative value of the car with/without the engine management light on.

It won't be worth a huge amount as spares/repair on Ebay, but with secondhand values so high at the moment, spending £500 fixing it may increase the value by more than that, particularly if it's in reasonably good cosmetic condition and has a fair amount of MOT left. There's no point in replacing the timing belt though if you're getting rid, you'd have to be incredibly unlucky for it to fail in the next few weeks.

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 15:29
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81
Yea definitely, it’s not worth a lot though probably £1000ish , although it’s not showroom condition anymore obviously so maybe lower. Although I don’t want to sell privately as a running motor, had too much hassle in past (would sell for spares/repair though) and would want to trade in so no idea if fixing the eml light is worth it or not.
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Wed 9 Jun 2021 14:53
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - elekie&a/c doctor
The 1.6 tdi is one of the worst Diesel engines to come out of the Vag factory . Dogged with problems from day one . Move it on , and as already suggested, get a petrol.
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Wed 9 Jun 2021 15:32
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81
Agree, even worse when they do a recall an emissions fix and give you only a 2 year warranty because it breaks everything further down tracks, all because they lied about cheated the tests.
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Wed 9 Jun 2021 15:22
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81
Edit: that was meant in reply to SLO

That’s what I’m thinking, would prefer NA Japanese petrol so will definitely look at Mazda, Toyota, Suzuki, Honda etc although I may go for something a little bigger like the 1.6 Mazda 3, they seem to have good reliability.

Edited by Hojo_81 on 09/06/2021 at 15:30

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 15:49
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - SLO76
The Mazda 3 is a very good car, it’s robust and great to drive and the post facelift cars that’ll be in your budget are better at holding off the rust. The only issue is that a 1.6-2.0 petrol may be a bit thirsty compared to what you’re used to, 35mpg(ish) maybe a bit more day to day is the norm. But I’d forget the diesels as they're nowhere near as reliable.

Others to consider if you’re willing to upsize and possibly Chuck in a bit more money would be the 2012 on Honda Civic and 2013 on Toyota Auris. Both are utterly reliable in petrol form and decent on fuel.

Edited by SLO76 on 09/06/2021 at 15:51

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 16:12
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81

Thanks for the reply and info, do you happen to know what year was the facelift cars went from?

1.8 civic is another contender, I hadn't considered an auris, I've heard good things about the civic, 40+ mpg and reasonable performance.

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 17:08
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - catsdad

Unless you want to keep the Ibiza long term I think you should get rid of it. Which seems to your intention now..

As a cautionary tale, two weeks ago my daughters boyfriend had his 2013 Chevrolet Spark fail it’s MOT for broken spring, exhaust, Engine Management Light and a couple of other things. £650 estimate and the original MOT was expiring that day. Leaving aside the fact it got that far he had to decide to repair or sell as faulty . He opted to repair as the car was pretty much worthless as a failure. He also had to have a car for trip away so he felt he needed to act immediately.

This week, now having lost faith in the car he has traded it in for a 2017 Vitara and only just recouped the cost of the Spark repairs. He didn’t want the hassle of a private sale. Had he kept the car he may well have got another couple of years out of it. With the benefit of hindsight if he wasn’t keeping it he’d have been better scrapping it right away, postponing his trip and negotiating a straight purchase of the Vitara. I am sure the cost of change would have been less.
I think the same logic applies in the Ibiza case. Repair it and keep it or bite the bullet and get rid without further expense.

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 22:47
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81

Thanks for sharing this, on more reflection I agree it is a case of two different paths and like you say, repair and keep or get rid and replace.

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Thu 10 Jun 2021 10:15
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - John F

Thanks for sharing this, on more reflection I agree it is a case of two different paths and like you say, repair and keep or get rid and replace.

What about the third path? Keep, and run it into the ground - or at least till the next MoT. It seems to me the car is almost worthless as a trade in.

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 17:52
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - SLO76
The facelift 3 came out in 2009 and yup I really rate the Civic from 2012 on. It’s a better made car than the earlier bullet shape model but that’s not to say a nice example of the earlier car wouldn’t make a good buy.
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Wed 9 Jun 2021 18:20
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - catsdad

I had a 2012 Civic 1.8 until 18 months ago. I really liked it and it would shift if you used the rev range but a bit lethargic if you kept revs low. They are pretty vice free. Look out for brake wear as they do tend to need pads and discs relatively frequently. Less easy to check is oil consumption. Mine went from negligible use to a litre per 1000 miles. I did a bit of online research and there were rumours of an oil issue with 2012 cars, not 2013 onwards. I haven’t seen anything authoritative however.

We have a Mazda 3 petrol 1.6 as our second car. The performance is less than the Civic on paper but day to day is closer than the figures suggest. The Mazda is crisper to drive but it’s a rung or two below the Civic in interior quality. For example Civic carpets and seat fabrics are a class above and the Mazda has a scattered dash with different shades and styles of digits between the various displays. Once noticed it does annoy me a bit.

The biggest difference is space. The Civic has a much bigger boot and the well-regarded magic seats.

Both are good cars, you will get a newer Mazda than Civic for any given budget and that might be a factor .

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Thu 10 Jun 2021 05:48
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Sprice

Mine went from negligible use to a litre per 1000 miles. I did a bit of online research and there were rumours of an oil issue with 2012 cars, not 2013 onwards. I haven’t seen anything authoritative however.

There's a thread I read somewhere, maybe Civinfo, where someone linked to some photos of the pistons fitted to the 1.8 in 2012 9th gen Civics. The pistons had a different code to 2013 on Civics. The 1.8 fitted to the 9th gen - R18Z4 - is slightly different to the 8th gen version - R18A2 - it's slightly up on power with reduced emissions, but real world tests find it a bit lacking compared to the R18A2. FWIW I have a 2009 8th gen 1.8 and it doesn't use a drop of oil between services, approx 10k mile intervals and it averages about 45 mpg measured brim to brim.

Edited by Sprice on 10/06/2021 at 05:49

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Thu 10 Jun 2021 08:02
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - catsdad

Thanks Sprice that’s the best explanation I have had. By the way there is a typo in my post, it should be 10,000 miles. Had I been sure it would have stayed at that I might have kept it but to suddenly go from negligible use to needing a litre raised concerns that I had a problem that might worsen.

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Wed 9 Jun 2021 22:49
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Hojo_81

Thanks for the info, that's really useful I will keep this in mind.

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Thu 10 Jun 2021 16:49
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Sprice

Did some digging, it was on Civinfo I read about the oil consumption issue, mainly pages 6 and 7 of the attached link. In a nutshell affected engines had "R3A" pistons, which when replaced with "R1A" sorted the problem. Basically, if you buy a 9th gen 1.8, buy a model sometime after the 2012 model year!

www.civinfo.com/threads/oil-2012-uk-honda-civic-ex...6

Edited by Sprice on 10/06/2021 at 16:50

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Thu 10 Jun 2021 18:46
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - catsdad

Again, thanks. It’s interesting that the oil issue with 2012 Civics hasn’t featured much on this site despite the car being recommended on a weekly (if not daily!) basis.

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Thu 10 Jun 2021 19:17
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - SLO76

Again, thanks. It’s interesting that the oil issue with 2012 Civics hasn’t featured much on this site despite the car being recommended on a weekly (if not daily!) basis.

While I’m not suggesting the issue doesn’t exist I have never suffered any engine related issues with any Honda Civic I’ve bought or sold. To bypass the issue though I’d seek a 2013 on example, it’s worth spending a bit extra up front.
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Thu 10 Jun 2021 20:50
59 Ibiza TDI 1.6 - To keep or not? - Sprice

www.honestjohn.co.uk/user-article/114405/honda-civ...2

Coincidentally, the HJ forum link above is listed on page one of the previously posted civinfo link.

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