Put the ignition on and hold down the odometer 0.0/Set button... Keep holding it down for a full 10 seconds and it will eventually display the engine code. Much easier than looking around in the engine bay imo, although you can also find it there.
How to Identify a 130 and 150 PS Leon?
- Thread starter Loadmaster748
- Start date
I think on the 1.4 engines the difference between the 125ps? and the 150ps was the Active Cylinder Technology (ACT) which was fitted to be 150 engine only, don't know if this applies to the 1.5 engines though.
Despite the kangarooing we really like our Leon's. Yes the rooing can be annoying but it's only for the first minute or 2 of a journey. We used to be into Ford but would never dream of owning another one.
It does spoil the whole ownership of the car, if someone was going to be using the car for solely urban area’s i would strongly recommend to find another car as even in stop start traffic it is still horrible to drive even when warmed up. Not as bad but still not ideal.
Had my 1.5 130 for nearly 6 months now and not once has it kangarooed. Drives just as well (if not better due to less weight) as my previous A4 Avant 1.4 Black
They changed engines after less than a year
the DACA 130 was replaced with the DPBA 130, so something changed along the way. Some new owners still report kangarooing
You can count yourself lucky that yours is unaffected by the kangaroo effect, it’s very disconcerting, you can drive it the same as every car you have ever owned and it will kangaroo - yet VW group will tell you it’s your driving style and deny any issues.
Yet if you check out honest John you’ll find that they had kangaroo issues with there long term test car - a 1.5 seat arona - significantly lighter than your Leon.
Seat also withdrew the engine from the Ibiza - without explanation. And it was never offered in Dsg on either car.
And honest johns comment page are littered with complaints about the 1.5 engine.
Incidentally the current polo launched around the same time as Seat replaced the 1.4 with the 1.5 engine has not been fitted with the 1.5 nor the t-cross yet at the the launch reviews of both cars said they would use it.
My thoughts are Following diesel gate VW invested heavily in a new efficient turbo petrol engine - the 1.5 act and retooled the factory to produce this engine and used up the 1.4 stocks in Europe but the EU introduced WTLP - forcing VW to tweak the 1.5 into different tolerances and perimeters that the VW engineers had not envisioned - so it was effectively rushed into service without the full testing regime.
It wasn’t until unfortunate sods like me bought one (and t-roc owners) started to complain did the begin to look into it - following VW first response deny everything.
Hence the engine codes were changed about a year into production.
So very likely you have one of the newer ones.
And if the the 1.5 is so great why is the new Leon mk4 Phev hybrid fitted with a 1.4 and electric motor and not a 1.5 when this is the expected biggest seller in the range ?
@Vag8, I'm not convinced that any or all the 1.5TSI engine issues have any bearing on the fact that VW Group have brought out a 1.4 in their Phev hybrid, it does strange for them to use a different engine capacity but there you are, it could just be that the IC engine in a Phev hybrid needs to be a different beast to that in a normal fuel efficient car.
One of my wife's friends bought a late 2017 VW Golf 1.5TSI 130PS with 6MT and when I found out about this issue with these engines, I kept telling that lady's husband that there was a S/W fix in the pipeline so don't worry - but he said that that car ran perfectly at all times, and he knows a bit about cars, so I was happy for them but slightly confused.
Later my mate bought a May 2018 VW T-Roc 1.5TSI 150PS with 6MT and I thought he would have problems, but no, that car is said to drive perfectly - so again I was happy but confused.
So what/why/when is going on with some of these 1.5TSI engines does seem to be a mystery as both these cars I've mentioned must be from the early batches and are certainly DACA and DADA engine codes.
Don't get me wrong here, I am not a VW Group fanboy, I'm just a buyer of VW Group cars as I own VCDS and I like to be able to read codes by myself and not be totally at the mercy of garages, and I'm very aware that VW Group think nothing of designing then building totally junk engines and walking away - for instance the 1.4Twincharger, 2.0TFSI/TSI and the 2.0CR TDI - and now the 1.5TSI not a good round up of what VW Group have been up to even before adding in the problems that fixing diesel emissions caused long term with some engines - and that is without the initial issues with 1.2 3 cylinder petrol engines and 1.2TSI 8V petrol engines - not glorious historical background at all!
Edit:- what nearly chased the husband of the lady that has that Golf 1.5TSI away from VW Group cars was, when the oil pump drive broke in his Audi A6 2.0 diesel, his Audi dealership just treated this "event" as a normal service item and they could not see why he was getting annoyed by needing to spend a lot of money when the car was at that age and mileage, and that was the same for Audi UK.
One of my wife's friends bought a late 2017 VW Golf 1.5TSI 130PS with 6MT and when I found out about this issue with these engines, I kept telling that lady's husband that there was a S/W fix in the pipeline so don't worry - but he said that that car ran perfectly at all times, and he knows a bit about cars, so I was happy for them but slightly confused.
Later my mate bought a May 2018 VW T-Roc 1.5TSI 150PS with 6MT and I thought he would have problems, but no, that car is said to drive perfectly - so again I was happy but confused.
So what/why/when is going on with some of these 1.5TSI engines does seem to be a mystery as both these cars I've mentioned must be from the early batches and are certainly DACA and DADA engine codes.
Don't get me wrong here, I am not a VW Group fanboy, I'm just a buyer of VW Group cars as I own VCDS and I like to be able to read codes by myself and not be totally at the mercy of garages, and I'm very aware that VW Group think nothing of designing then building totally junk engines and walking away - for instance the 1.4Twincharger, 2.0TFSI/TSI and the 2.0CR TDI - and now the 1.5TSI not a good round up of what VW Group have been up to even before adding in the problems that fixing diesel emissions caused long term with some engines - and that is without the initial issues with 1.2 3 cylinder petrol engines and 1.2TSI 8V petrol engines - not glorious historical background at all!
Edit:- what nearly chased the husband of the lady that has that Golf 1.5TSI away from VW Group cars was, when the oil pump drive broke in his Audi A6 2.0 diesel, his Audi dealership just treated this "event" as a normal service item and they could not see why he was getting annoyed by needing to spend a lot of money when the car was at that age and mileage, and that was the same for Audi UK.
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RUM4MO,
Thanks for the reply, I was making more a generalised comment for the phev as being 1.4 and not 1.5 as this is based on the older and in my opinion of ownership a better engine.
my previous Leon was a 1.4 150 act and it was brilliant... never had any problems on 36k of ownership.
Ironically I cancelled its replacement a Seat Fr tdi 115ps on favour of this 1.5 130 Leon Fr I now have as due to the start stop / short journeys my wife does with her job I was concerned about Dpf issues ....At the time the 1.5 was so new they had no demo car and no one at the dealership had driven one ... but I was sold the it’s the brand new superduper engine so it it be brilliant blah blah blah.
I have been told by my dealership which I always take things at half truth, that the early pre WLTP engine was good hence no issues with your wife’s friends golf.
And they also told me that the fault only seems to effect 1 in 5 and that’s also causing a problem in identifying what the issue is or what cars will have the fault and which ones won’t.
I’ve had the software update and although this did improve some parts it’s not cured, I have a hiccup/blip in the tuning at around 50mph that wasn’t there before update and the stop start doesn’t kick in as much as it used to, so what ever the reason for changing the engine codes and whatever changes have been made, those of us effected have been left out in the cold .
I was and still am considering the current Polo Gti + as a replacement for my Leon but even reading up on that there are issues with rear brakes, bearings and Dsg issues.....
So you just can’t win...
@Vag8, yes too many wheel bearing issues with VW Group cars, this has been going on for far too long, my older daughter's previous car, a late 2009 Ibiza 1.4 16V SC which is a very light weight car, almost from new had an issue with one rear wheel bearing, it almost sounded like a ball was missing - brakes, again silly noises have plagued small VW Group cars especially the higher powered ones, since about 2001 starting with the Fabia VRS. A new annoying trait is for VW Group to move away from what a lot of us might consider "proper" brake manufacturers and onto cheap as chips Korean ones like Hyundai's spun out company Mando - so maybe that is where some of the new rear brake issues are coming from, also lower powered VW group cars seem to have ended up with these Mondo brakes in the front and the first thing some owners are doing are changing the pads to European manufacturer's parts, a bit annoying needing to do that while still under warranty just to move away from noises etc!
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