Hello everyone, i'm from Denmark!
1 year ago I purchased a Skoda Octavia 2008, 1.8tsi, 4 cylinder, 160hp with a manual transmission. I bought it from a private party for 4.7 thousand dollars, but at this date I have already used more or less 2 thousand dollars on repairs (the seller screwed me over).
Now I have the following problems:
- The engine is leaking coolant, somewhere around the place of my right-front light(gets a lot worse when it's very cold).
- The engine has the code P0171(the engine is running too lean)
- The engine has a rough idle at start, and I feel like it's missing some power(probably because of the code, I guess).
When I look at the OBD-II scanner I can see that my short-term fuel trim does not show anything(only the value 0.0) the first 120seconds. And that may go up to 300 seconds or more if I wait at idle. So that is probably the heating element of the lambda that is dead?
And to the OBDII code: When my short-term fuel trims starts showing up they go to around 22% at idle. Way too much, yes. But when I rev the engine they immediately go down to normal numbers. I suppose that is "dead-air" after the MAF, but I am really not sure of anything.
So with all the information I had(and you guys are more than welcome to ask if I didn't cover something relevant) I just want to know whether I should sell the car or go for the repair?
If I repair it i will probalby be able to sell it for around 4.8-5.5 thousand dollars. If not, yeah I have no idea how much it's worth then.
A comment along the answer, to the poll, will be highly appreciated.
What do you think? Every serious answer is welcome, thank you for your attention.
Sell, sell, SELL!
Do you have any idea how much I possibly can or should try to get for it? :/
@mrcreedie it’s hard to say with so many problems going on. You might have to bite the bullet and sell low to get rid of it.
Insufficient information. Need to investigate more.
I would attempt to fix because those are nice cars.
Coolant leak... where?? Right-front near the light is the radiator right?
hose: $10
new rad: $300-400
The poor idle is obviously due to the lean mixture. This could be as simple as a vacuum leak.
When you get poor fuel trim at low RPM, this is usually vacuum leak.
Spray some water or starting fluid around the intake.
O2 sensors need time to heat up, but they cost what... $100
Did you take a MAF reading? Those are at most what ... $500 ?
Thanks, I will atleast try to investigate those parts and failures. Guess it really could pay off, if the fixes turn out to be, more or less, the parts you described.
You really cannot blame it on the seller. Just chalk it up to a life lesson learned and next time, due the work necessary to look out for number 1 - YOU.
You are 100% right. He gave me a car he knew had codes he deleted. But if I had known as "much" about cars, as i do today, I would have spotted it then.
Someone screwed you so you're going to screw someone by not fixing it?
Very honorable, you are
That is most definitely not what I said, more the opposite? Either I will repair it, or I will sell it at a fair price when considering its flaws.
I thought I wrote only serious replies is welcome, didn't I?
Sorry bout that but anytime you buy a used car, you can expect to do some repairs and unfortunately sometimes when you buy off a private party it's because the car dealers won't touch it. Especially from Craigslist.
Fix it, you may like it after that.
Just an opinion.