Serious Problems Guys

[cevans598]

Got in the car today on the drive thats on a steep slope,
was messing around with the handbrake gaiter trying to get it off n accidently let it go.
it rolled back for about 5 yards.
its a 1.2 55 bhp polo 9n.
called the AA out as the car was ticking over and it wouldnt start. engine began to chug but cut out.
simply a electrical problem from the sparks is what i thought.
later on, ther AA took the spark plugs out, covered in petrol. burnt it off, cleaned 2 of em n put em back in.
tried firing it up and still didnt work.
the car engines belt on the left side is just going round and round but wont fire up.
tried tow starting it in second, didnt work
tried third, then my dad said it kept violently pulling to the left when engagin the clutch,

what you guys recon?

[RUM4MO]

I don't think that there are many positive things to say, I'd say that at some time, either when it "fell" back on the gearbox or when cranking it or towing it, the engine has ended up forcing the timing chain to jump some teeth while there was no oil pressure to hold the tensioner in place! I'd reckon that this is one car engine that you should never tow start if it fails to start quickly on the starter, I'm amazed that the AA did not check the engine timing before trying to force it into life by lots of cranking. If I am correct, then the engine will now have suffered some internal damage - bent valves. I do hope that I am wrong though!

[chewy]

Yep timing chain has slipped by the sounds of it

[RITCHAT]

Get the engine stripped down sound like afew if not all of the valves will be bent and the cpistons may also be damaged thanks to the aa.

As far as I am aware you should never tow start vw polos. I would get back onto the AA for compo seeing as their man was incompetent

[cevans598]

well, next morning, i managed to get the car taken on a truck to the service station.
they went over it today.... and its bad news lol

well, they said the car wouldnt start due to a spark plug failure.
and after tow starting it, theyve ruined it.

car went one way slowly, sounded like it was starting.
came back the opposite way banging.
stopped the car.

took the sparks out.
the garage put a camera down the tubes,
sparks are completly mushed, as in theres no metal on the plugs left.
valves are all bent, holes in the engine, pistons have dents and holes in it, chain has snapped,
think clutch plates are ruined, battery is all clogged up.

the sparks were fine when the guy took em out n cleaned em, therefore everything sounded and looked fine
now the car wont go again, need an entire new engine block.

bloody AA ruined this engine.
time to chase for money? lol

EDIT: just to say the garage didnt touch it cos of the battery was cloged up aswell,
talking about what the AA did above with the whole up and down road thing.
garage just cammed it n said its nakerd

[Pratikt]

man that is messd up but i think u should go back to AA seeing as it sounds like its their fault like RITCHAT said.

[cevans598]

ow yeh, definantly. it couldnt have done thst damage from not moving.
we called them cos it wouldnt start. entirely their fault

[RUM4MO]

Honestly, I don't know where you can go with this one, so many people have now had a go at whipping this poor little car to death including you and your dad, it would be hard to pin the complete blame on either of the other parties, ie AA or the garage that eventually recovered it for you. It surprises me that a service station or garage that has and uses a "boro-scope" would end up being stupid enough to try to drag it into life before checking on static timing etc. Surely in the greater "car repair" world the news is out that these 1.2 engine can behave like lemmings by themselves never mind while being bullied into life!

You have already got working for you a "motoring legal eagle" in the shape of the AA - but I'd think that they would swear blind that it was not them and that they would also claim that they had advised you to request that the engine was examined before anyone else tries to start it.

[cevans598]

welll from the proof that there were 4 of us standing there watching this aa guy clean the plugs,
checks out that the engine was fine. it was an electrical problem, but the AA didnt have any spare sparks,
so he was the one who tow started it. he told me it would be fine, the garage hasnt started it, because they physically couldnt
due to the battery siezeing up, so they didnt touch it. the car was a simple electrical fault from what the garage found.
so there writing up a report tommorow about what damage was caused from tow starting it
its what happens when u try to force a diddy engine to start at 30mph.
how coould a car start, roll back, then work but chug out. then be expected to tow start,
bending and denting pistons and valves left right n centre.
he showed us the car engine was fine and that it was flooded. he told us that.
so theres no way other than me and my dad that anyone was involved, we just followed their instructions.

we'll get em, and ill persue em throught small claims, courts, watchdog if i have to lol.

[RUM4MO]

Yeh, I see that you have edited your first two postings to clarify "who" did "what" - so it is down to the AA's actions possibly. I had a bad experience when my Passat V6 would not start, thing was they were busy and sent and agent, once again, thing was the agent sent a recovery truck with a driver that, as it turned out, never involved himself with even his own cars! I only discovered this "bit by bit" as the day panned out. I was just a bit angry and eventially an AA patrol turned up and assummed right away that I was thinking that I had not been given reasonable service - ie wrong asset was sent! A complaints form was filled in and I was duely contacted by the AA - butthey were only checked up on if I thought that they had handed the situation correctly, next phone call was from the AA to see if the first phone call had been handled correctly. In all of this the AA patrol guy that should have been sent as soon as he was available, gave perfect service and solved my problem quickly as well. In this instant, the AA were more interested in despatching a response person within the time frame rather than being honest and sending the correct asset a bit late! This I fully explained to them but every answer was loaded towards moving all the blame to the actual AA patrol who sorted outthe problem, I had been smart enough to say that to him when he suggested I would be filing a complaint, as usual sh*t flows down to the lower levels. In your case it might be where it should be flowing towards!

[JUV]

I don't think we'll be using the AA again on our 1.2 Polo. We had a few problems earlier in the year and called them out twice, and on both occasions (from two different AA people) their computer wouldn't connect to the car and they could only offer us vague guesses about what might be up.

The frustrating thing was both times I was able to tell them the engine code (AZQ) and both times I could clearly see their laptops weren't giving them that option, only a couple of other codes - so obviously their systems weren't compatible. Despite that, they still acted on both occasions like it was basically the cars fault, and something else we should be worried about, giving it the whole "I can't understand it, this never happens.." routine. Which actually did worry my wife on top of everything else, thinking the car's ECU was on the fritz, when of course it was absolutely fine when we got it to a garage (in fact two different garages, one with a basic fault reader and another with much more complex gear, managed to read and diagnose from it just fine).

For whatever reason the AA just don't seem to be up to speed on these cars and engine types at all, and I guess we were lucky in the end that they didn't attempt any kind of repair on ours (in the end we had our problems, which turned out to be the same problem on both occasions, sorted out by an independent).

Hope the OP gets some joy out of them, they clearly owe you a new engine.