Vw water pumps

[johnnyroper]

Been looking at a Skoda fabia with 1.4 tdi cr engine CUSB with overheating issues.
Turns out it's the crap water pump design that's causing it, in theory it's a good idea as there is a shutter that covers the impeller to speed warming up process. In reality it's crap because it doesn't work properly. On this one the seal inside had broken up and caused shutter to be stuck around impeller.
It seems to be a known issue as vw ones come without the shutter now you just put solenoid on rear as normal just to keep ECU happy.
Oh and the belt on these is a right shit to get on!
 

[Mirez]

VAG went through a period of over complicated and unreliable engineering around that time, the 1.6 TDI has similar issues and the least said about its EGR the better. TBH its about the same era that Ford came up with that appalling 1.0 Ecoboost and Merc had their woes with  the front suspension.

I'm guessing a load of graduates were taken on that production year...