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I have the 2.1 in my faithful old banger and it has never let me down.
Looking at the advice for buying second hand cars the 2.1 is always praised for it's extra power but is usually accompanied with a warning of less reliability than the 1.9.

Has anyone had much trouble with their 2.1?
This is my second car with the engine and essentially it's the been the best bit of both cars.
My Xantia was chipped to push out about 140bhp and never missed a beat til 175k when it fell off the road (a bit).
My pug has 170k so far and the car still pulls like new.
Have I been lucky?

Not necessarily, they're a reliable old lump so long as you keep up with the servicing. Even the engine management, which is renown for being rubbish, doesn't seem to give many major issues.

My car will now go bang! just to prove me wrong

[Semi-hijack]

Can the old TDi plants be overhauled/tuned to be less noisy? Mine sounds like a tank. A soviet tank from, like, the 50's

Fill the engine with cotton wool? (turn up the music!)

Dynamat around the entire engine compartment and inside of bonnet?

swiss wrote:[Semi-hijack]

Can the old TDi plants be overhauled/tuned to be less noisy? Mine sounds like a tank. A soviet tank from, like, the 50's

1.9's sound quieter, smoother and seem to have more go on a partial veg oil diet - wouldn't try it until the weather's a lot warmer though. 2.1 is more likely to go totally quiet, permanently....

swiss wrote:Can the old TDi plants be overhauled/tuned to be less noisy?

You could try padding the engine compartment up with a deer?

dogslife wrote:

swiss wrote:[Semi-hijack]

Can the old TDi plants be overhauled/tuned to be less noisy? Mine sounds like a tank. A soviet tank from, like, the 50's

1.9's sound quieter, smoother and seem to have more go on a partial veg oil diet - wouldn't try it until the weather's a lot warmer though. 2.1 is more likely to go totally quiet, permanently....

I wouldn't run a 2.1 on veg, the Lucas EPIC pump will not tollarate it at any more than very low % (5 or 10) and only in worm wether, but 100% biodiesel will be fine down to about 0c if made from good stock, the 1.9's (bosch pump) will run on veg no problems untill it gets down to about 5 or 6c at witch time you need to be mixing 30 < 40% diesel or 5 <10% petrol (yes mixing petrol will do no harm).

All very interesting if a little off topic here and there.
But no-one has come up with a reason why the 2.1 is touted as less reliable than the 1.9.
Starting to think it's a rumour put about by jealous 1.9 owners.

Mine is absolutely fine (tempting fate!). I've had it for two years, it's at 110k, and so far the only thing to go wrong was the fuel temp sensor (cheap to fix). It's fast, comfortable, economical on long runs and generally an all-round good car as far as I can tell. I've had a few pugs and a citroen and this is the best of the bunch.

Ok - I shall tell you then:

I had the 2.1 12-valver in a K-reg 605 with over 230,000 miles (was really more than this cos the speedo didn't work for 6 months at one point) and the most common failure point is the fuel pump! it will leak, be hard to start etc. my car also started blowing loads of blue smoke after the over-run and no-one could be bothered to find out what that was but suspected the turbo etc etc......

Basically it ran out of puff and was reduced to a quivering wreck BUT it had a terrible life of endless torture, no oil changes, relentless thrashings etc etc. it was used by my company to ferry men up and down the motorways for 3 years and was horribly neglected mostly. I suppose we actually 'broke' the thing in the end but it hung on for ages and ages until someone actually bought it of us for £350.00 in 2001

I reckon wih care you'd see 300,000 miles without too much bother.

Seems to me the main point of contention with the 2.1 versus the 1.9 is the fuel pump.

That and it's a bitch to work on.