UK-POLOS.NET - THE VW Polo Forum

Right, the story goes like this. i moved my car onto the drive earler, started fine- no worries. went to move it about 3 hours later and the starter turns over for a sec then makes a noise like when u try starting it and the engines already running. so stop turning it over! try again a min later only this time the starter is makin a diffo noise when it turns over. went to work and came back, called out the AA.

Chap has a look turns it over for a minute - nothing. i said i thought the starter may be shafted as the noise its making sounded different. he asked what petrol i filled up with, and normally its bp, but my dad borrowed the car on monday and 'kindly' put half a tank of esso in. so told him, and he said that was it then as tesco is esso petrol, and theres a batch with silicone in thats normally used for diesels to stop it freezing in the winter and plus my epc light was on, so one of my airflow sensors is shafted he said. then he hit me with the news that its gonna cost about £3000 to sort it as they need to drop the tank, replace the fuel lines, injectors etc!!! im hopin the petrol is fine and it is just a dodgy sensor, tho it had a new cat + air flow sensor about 2000 miles ago from vw so the signs are not good. does this sound like it could be the petrol bearing in mind it had a service in december and has been running spot on since? am absolutely livid at the mo

Tesco isn't Esso, it's Greenergy IIRC.

yeah i'm a bit unsure myself. they do have tesco expresses on a couple hundread of their forecourts ive read but deny supplying the petrol. A vw diagnostics tomoz will solve this mystery. tho if its not the petrol that will be money wasted, tho vw are the only ones that can do the silicone/petrol test if im to claim any money back so im in a catch 22. bugger. just seems odd how about 30 miles after filling up (from a quarter of a tank of BP) that this should happen

Sorry to hear about that mate, that sucks, however I would suggest getting some quotes in and a second opinion just in case it doesn't need all that work to it...

yeah i mite try and syphon a bit of petrol out and get my mate at bmw to test thinkin about it, as im sure vw wont fit me in for a week anyway.....

i did read in the paper about tesco petrol whoever supplies it causing problems
so do some reasearch on that basis

The guy doesn't have a clue its going to be a lot less than £3k to drain the tank, even replacing the tank/fuel lines/injectors wouldn't be more than 1k and is unrequired all that is needed is the if the car does have bad petrol is it to be drained which doesn't require the tank removed. As was said before Esso didn't supply the bad petrol anyway.

The AA should not be telling people its 3k of damage thats just taking the p*ss. I would get the car checked with vagcom, if the starter is making a funny noise the chance is its the starter not engaging properly and not turning the engine over. My Polo used to do this every so often until I got it stripped and cleaned.

I recon garages are using this as an exuse to charge silly money, there was a report one BMW garage supplied a bill of just over £1000 for draining the tank, filling it back up and replacing two lamda probes I bet the sensors only need cleaned aswell.

I thought it was a little expensive! The car is only worth 4 - 5 k max! Going to cost more than half to fix it!

Ok so happened to speak to an RAC man today at work and he said so far he's had reports of bad petrol from esso, morrisons, tesco and sainsburys and has had a 72 hour week this week!! he spoke a bit more sense and said i'd be looking at a diagnostics, maybe one or both lambda probes and a set of new injectors and to drain the tank but still said i'd be looking at around £700 plus labour which i guess would be about 2-3 hours so touching on a grand from a vw dealer (well mine's £70 an hour now i think, shocking when one 10 miles away is £40/hour) I think the AA guy was goin on the price to drain a diesel if someone's put unleaded in their car and tried to start it. The car's booked in for tuesday so i guess i will find out then....

If it is dogey petrol you won't need new injectors, all that would be needed is drain the tank, change the fuel filter and fill the tank up with v power or the likes to give the system a clean.