I was recently reading a German magazine article about the poor reliability of some modern Diesels, in particular French (Renault, PSA) Diesels which are apparently getting a terrible reputation in Germany for being problematic. One of the 'straplines' to the article was quite amusing:
Du weisst doch, warum französische Autos die sichersten sind?
Weil sie immer in der Werkstatt stehen!
"You know why French cars are the safest? Because they spend all their time in the workshop!"
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>>"You know why French cars are the safest? Because they spend all their time in the workshop!"
LOL
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Sorry, should have said - the Mondeo has just over 81K on the clock (or at least had done by Turbo blow time...).
Maybe I'm just expecting too much from a car if I'm going to push it hard by doing alot of towing. Perhaps I should just accept the need to have a bigger budget. Before I started this towing lark, I drove a Cavalier TD up to 165K - I suppose, I'm asking the impossible to find a car which could manage this...but then, I went through the pain barrier with that car - in its time, just about anything that could break did so!
The idea about getting an old, old oil burner is interesting. However, I wouldn't want to be travelling around in something so old it might break at any point. I'm no dab-hand with a spanner. Also, I quite like refinement for the 90% of the time I won't be towing.
For the record, the Sorento was fine. It would obviously help me and the boat up a slipway, and I found it quite refined, although the compromise of rolling around on slightly uneven road surfaces is something that I'd have to think about. They suggested I purchased a couple of years of additional warranty - which is always a thought. Provides some peace of mind, and is always something I can budget for. However, the boot is small, and, being used to Mondeo Estate sized spaces, I suppose I ought to go and try the Nissan Pathfinder which I think HJ still likes (I know he's withdrawn his backing for the X-Trail) and which seems to be getting good feedback on the What Car site.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Any other thoughts gratefully received.
Splodgeface
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One thing I would say, and this is not down to any biases I may have or anything like that, is that I have not heard of any CR problems on Hyundai/Kia diesels.
They've sold enough CRDis over the years for problems to begin to surface by now, and it just doesn't seem to be happening, unless someone can say different.
In general, I suspect that it's the Renault/Nissan engines that are the real problem, with PSA/Ford and Honda engines suffering to a lesser degree. Fiat, Hyundai/Kia, Toyota and the non-CR VAG engines seem to be safe enough.
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Isn't this all a case of the percentage of failures vs. actual figure for failures. For example, far more Ford TDCi units are sold in Europe than Hyundai/Kia. The difference is probably huge. So there might be a lot of problems with Ford (and other popular CR diesels) but this is because so many are sold. And because there are so many we hear about it a lot more than for say Hyundai/Kia.
Figures plucked out of the air:
- If Ford sold 1m million TDCi units and maybe 2% failed then that's 20,000 failures.
- If Kia/Hyundau sold 100,000 units and 5% failed then that's 5,000 failures
Not suggesting any of these figures are accurate because plucked out of the air. Just trying to say if you sell more vehicles then you will have more failures. And Ford/VW/PAG/GM vs Hyundai/Kia means there will be more failures in the former than the latter.
That's my 2p worth anyway.
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Absolutely correct. However, since people have a tendency to speak louder about failed units than OK ones, I'd still have expected to hear of a few examples.
IE, when a small percentage of Hyundai clutches were giving trouble in the early 2000s, this did become obvious, despite the fact that it only covered a few vehicles over a 1 year period.
Likewise, I've heard of several Mazda CR failures. These are PSA engines, and in fact fewer Mazda diesels are sold than Hyundai/Kia combined.
You're totally right about the numbers game but it's not as if only half a dozen of these engines are being sold each year.
I believe that GM, Fiat and Hyundai all use VM as their diesel engine design provider -- and none of these companies seem to have the reputation that Renault/Nissan, and PSA/Ford have for the diesel failures.
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You don't hear a huge amount about the rarer diesels - I hadn't realised until flicking through car mechanics today that changing the timing belt on a diesel Kia Sedona is an engine-out job. Every 54,000 miles! (The article is about a way for six-jointed people to be able to do it with the engine in place).
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You don't hear a huge amount about the rarer diesels - I hadn't realised until flicking through car mechanics today that changing the timing belt on a diesel Kia Sedona is an engine-out job. Every 54 000 miles! (The article is about a way for six-jointed people to be able to do it with the engine in place).
My mate has repaired a few Sedona CR Diesels at around the 50-70k mark (pump and/or injector problems). I don't think he's ever worked on a Rio Diesel (or at least he's never mentioned it, and I've never seen one in the 'shop). Mind you, most if not all of these will be under warranty still. We don't have a Kia dealer for miles, so he doesn't get called in by Kia. Mostly Ford, GM and PSA.
Yes, you do have to take the motor out of the Sedona to change the belt - if you look at one you'll see the engine is right up against the inner wing - no room to work. I don't read Car Mechanics and I can't see how they would change the belt without lifting the engine (at least enough to get access to the belt and pulley).
I do know that Kia parts prices can be insane, and that alone would make me wary of getting one. In other respects the recent ones are not bad motors.
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I believe that GM Fiat and Hyundai all use VM as their diesel engine design provider -- and none of these companies seem to have the reputation that Renault/Nissan and PSA/Ford have for the diesel failures.
Oh, I don't know - diesel jeep cherokees became almost worthless once word got out that that the (VM engine) heads crack. And that there are four of them.
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"PSA diesel failures."
OK, I admit I am biassed. We have the aforementioned Xantia HDi (and I have previously had a couple of Cit diesels which did getting on for 200k) and I am on my second Berlingo HDi. Not one of these engines has ever had anything done to it bar the scheduled oil/filter/cambelt changes and a few glowplugs replaced.
I also look at the Technical bit on this website, and I also pop into French Car Forum
www.frenchcarforum.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=3&s...1
on a fairly regular basis and I can't recall many posts about Citroen HDi Common Rail engines going pop at low (<100k) mileages. There must also be thousands of Citroen vans with HDi engines that do very high mileages. There are others on this board who have driven them for many miles and I can't recall them coming on here and complaining about the engines.
HJ mentions no such problems in the CBC breakdown for Xantias, C5, etc, in fact he is usually pretty complimentary about HDi engines - especially the 1.6 16 valve HDi. The only thing he mentions is " On HDIs, rubber cushioned timing belt pulley needs replacing at same time as timing belt (60k - 70k miles) otherwise can separate." Which is a bit odd because cambelt replacement interval is higher than he quotes, and I've always understood that Cit engines were pretty good with regard to lack of belt failures. How come he doesn't go on about common failure of fuel pumps, turbos etc?
So as a family with 2 HDi engines on the drive (inc Xantia with nearly 100k on it (and not having had its timing belt pulley replaced as far as I know), a son who also has an Hdi and a friend with one that has done over 100k with one, can you point me in the direction of some evidence of the common failure of these engines?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not doubting anyone's word, I'm just asking for the evidence - and I'm not talking about Ford TDCis here - ironically of course it became a bit of a joke on here a while back that whenever anyone on here asked which car they should buy, the answer was always a Mondeo TDCi (Skoda Octavia seems to have taken its place recently!)
Regards
--
Phil
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"PSA diesel failures." can you point me in the direction of some evidence of the common failure of these engines?
Cue 'Screwloose' perhaps? I think there are quite a few guys around the country who are being kept in work by the failures of these engines..!
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SWMBO, her son, her daughter and I have all been running Peugeot HDi 306s for varying amounts of time - the oldest being a T-reg. Between us that means a big mileage.
No engine issues at all. Just regular servicing, up to 57 mpg, a few relatively minor problems (wiper motor, 2 x indicator stalks, screen wash motor, failed a/c is about it). My indie sees quite a few HDis and speaks highly of their reliability.
Are PSA common rail issues really that common? Or am I just lucky?
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Phil, for your database. Asking for trouble I know, but I have a 4 year-old 2 litre Peugeot HDI with 50K miles plus on it, owned from new. Nothing on the car has ever gone wrong in any way. Nothing replaced beyond service/recall items and the stereo (because we wanted line-in). It tows for about 5,000 miles a year, so over a third of the total mileage, which earns it an intermediate oil change. Completely reliable so far. Badly needs a wash.
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One thing I would say and this is not down to any biases I may have or anything like that is that I have not heard of any CR problems on Hyundai/Kia diesels.
Probably because there aren't many around and they dont get worked hard like the 1000's of Mondeo diesels in al the car fleets.
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