German Castrol 0w30, 5000 miles '02 VW Passat 1.8T

[gnosis]

Miles on vehicle: 101,430

Time the oil was in service: 3 months

Driving conditions: no racing, no tracking. I'm a "spirited" driver (95% gentle, 5% hard), redline once every 2 weeks, 60% city/40% highway

air filter: Mann OE-spec/VW filter, 20k miles used, one year old

oil filter: Mann/Purolator L40316, extra-large size to increase sump to 4.5 quarts

climate type: mid-atlantic, suburbs of philadelphia (cleaner air), 50-90 degrees

One bottle of Techron fuel additive in the gas tank at time of oil sampling

no recent mechanical work, but found out after oil sampled that there is a coolant leak from a crack in the coolant tank/reservoir. I'm not sure how an external coolant leak is detected in the oil? Or perhaps there is an internal coolant leak that the mechanic didn't find?
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13 - Iron
5 - Copper
0 - Tin
0 - Lead
1 - Chrom
1 - Nickel
1 - Alum
0 - Titan
0 - Silver

1434 - Calcium
447 - Magnesium
1128 - Zinc
968 - Phos
1 - Barium
1 - Moly
0 - Antim

15 - Silicon
12 - Sodium
1 - Boron
0 - Potassium
0 - Vanad

72.3 - V40c
11.8 - V100c
2.93 - TAN
440 - Flashpoint
13 - Oxidation
13 - Nit
511 - KF
4.2 - TBN
0.00 - Fuel
0 - Soot
0.54 - Glycol
160 - vndx
21 - Sulfate By Product

 

[gnosis]

Make-up oil: 1.5 quarts. I lost a whole quart in the last 1000 miles. I'm not going to GC for at least the next 15k miles anyway, so hopefully a 5w30 or 5w40 will help.

 

[teven7492]

You ran this oil for 5,000 miles your wasting your money, go with Havoline , Valvoline, Motorcraft and get the SAME results.

 

[VeeDubb]

Quote:

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You ran this oil for 5,000 miles your wasting your money, go with Havoline , Valvoline, Motorcraft and get the SAME results.

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NO. This is not a 1995 Toyota. It is a turbo with a small sump and a history of sludge problems. It requires synthetic oil at 3-5k intervals to prevent sludge and a clean pcv.

To Gnosis, is this a Dyson report? Also, 1.5 qts in a 1.8T is an extradinary amount of consumption as these engines can go up to 10k without make-up oil. I haven't seen this much consumption in one of these engines, even with GC. Something is up.

 

[teven7492]

VeeDubb i disagree with you 100% at 5,000 miles the brands i mentioned can easily protect this engine from sludge and wear. Many on this site have been brainwashed in to thinking if the engine has a turbo it must have synthetic, this is not true.

 

[gnosis]

I drive 20k+ miles/year, so if I keep losing a whole quart every 1000 miles, that's $10/month on make-up synthetic oil. "No thank you" to that! Like I said, hopefully a thicker oil will do the trick.

 

[gnosis]

I've read that one quart every 1000 miles is still considered normal for these engines.

 

[teven7492]

gnosis use one of the oils i mentioned , then top off with Delo 400 15w40 that should slow your consumption down.

 

[gnosis]

Quote:

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To Gnosis, is this a Dyson report?

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Yes this is from Dyson.

 

[artificialist]

I have worked on dozens of VW turbo engines that didn't get full syn, and they leaked oil. I occasionally see a VW turbo engine that doesn't leak, and it is dealer serviced with VW-Approved synthetic.

Maybe it is different on other cars, but not VW engines.

I will never put non-syn in any turbo engine that I own, or owned by people near me.

 

[VeeDubb]

Quote:

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VeeDubb i disagree with you 100% at 5,000 miles the brands i mentioned can easily protect this engine from sludge and wear. Many on this site have been brainwashed in to thinking if the engine has a turbo it must have synthetic, this is not true.

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And how are you so enlightened that you are above the "brainwashing" and know exactly what is good for this engine? The problems with the VW 1.8T engine is so well documented and all over the internet that for you to recommend a conventional oil for 5k tells me only one thing: You have not looked into the history of this engine at all.

It is not just about the turbo. It is about the turbo combined with the small sump capacity and the fact that there is are class action lawsuits against VW for all the 1.8Ts that have run conventional and sludged up. In fact, some folks on the VW forums have reported sludging even with synthetics. A poster here JAG has had problems with his PCV even though he has run synthetics. VW now recommends not only synthetic, but ACEA A3, VW502 synthetics. So please do some research before making off the cuff recommendations.

 

[Gary Allan]

VeeDub, are these VW engines exchanged? I would have a hard time understanding how you could tax an oil, just due to sump size, if the cooling system is adequate and an exchanger is in use. The oil temp should be fairly buffered along the contour of the coolant temp. Naturally extended hammering can surely trump this ...but there should be no inherent penalty due to the small sump temp-wise. Just trying to understand the defect.

 

[harrydog]

Quote:

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VeeDub, are these VW engines exchanged? I would have a hard time understanding how you could tax an oil, just due to sump size, if the cooling system is adequate and an exchanger is in use. The oil temp should be fairly buffered along the contour of the coolant temp. Naturally extended hammering can surely trump this ...but there should be no inherent penalty due to the small sump temp-wise. Just trying to understand the defect.

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Logic tells me that there would be an inherent penalty due to the small sump size. Less oil means that the same oil is coming in contact with the hot turbo bearings more frequently than if the sump capacity were larger. After all, one of the functions of oil, even in a water cooled engine, is to carry heat away from hot engine parts.

 

[Gary Allan]

Sure, harry ..but laminar exchangers, which are installed on most VW/Audi, tend to lock the oil temp to the coolant temp ..or some indexed deviation above it. It's usually rather buffered. That's why I said that unless you engage in extended hammering of the throttle, the oil temp would remain quite stable. As long as the cooling system is up to the task of soaking up the excess btu's of the oil without overheating ..all should be well. The coolant flow is about 10X that of the oil flow. You can soak up gobs of oil temp without altering your coolant temp hardly at all.

So, yes, the dwell time is shorter with a 4 quart sump ..but it has to be some other characteristic of the setup beside JUST a 4 quart sump. It may be inadequate cool down after high speed driving, or whatever.

 

[VeeDubb]

Gary, yeah I believe there is an exchanger though I'm not 100% sure. I think the sump has a lot to do with it because the sludging problem is primarily isolated to the longitudinal version of the engine which has a smaller sump than the transverse version of the 1.8T. Passat's and A4s have the longitudinal version while Jetta's/GTI's have the transverse. I haven't heard of a transverse engine with the dreaded sludge problem, although I have heard about clogged pcv's. Other theories are the turbo feeder lines are routed poorly in the longitudinal version, though I'm not an expert.

 

[hillclimber]

Quote:

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I drive 20k+ miles/year, so if I keep losing a whole quart every 1000 miles, that's $10/month on make-up synthetic oil. "No thank you" to that! Like I said, hopefully a thicker oil will do the trick.

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I burn about a quart every 5,000 miles since switching my '03 1.8T from dino to synth, a couple of years ago. I keep some wal-mart 5w-30 synth on hand for topping off purposes.

Currently running Syntec 5w-40. Engine seems to consume a little less of this than the 0w-30, but take that with a grain of salt. Thanks for posting the UOA, btw, I've been meaning to do one myself.

 

[gnosis]

Quote:

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Currently running Syntec 5w-40. Engine seems to consume a little less of this than the 0w-30

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Nice, that's the oil I'll try for the first time in a few months after my Auto-RX rinse cycle. I just started the clean phase.

 

[VeeDubb]

Gary,
There's some good theories about what causes sludge in these engines in this thread: passat sludge

if you're interested. I will warn you that there is some aimless speculation so read at your own risk.

One guy does seem to think that it has less to do with the sump and more to do with improper cool down after hard driving, although I'm not sure why this doesn't also apply to the transverse versions.

 

[StoicDude]

Since you got Dyson to do the analysis, he should have given you some nice hints and suggestions on how to fix your problems.

As for oil consumption, you might want to check your PCV system. On the vortex oil consumption has been linked to PCV.

As for sludging, I would say that a multitude of factors contributed to the problem. The longitudinal 1.8T, if I remember correctly, had a sump that could hold 3.7 quarts. Transverse sump capacity was 4.5 quarts.

The bigger filter gave you another .5 quarts of capacity.

VW dealerships also used dino and people were going for longer intervals than the recommended 5000. Add to that short distances, stop and go and you have a nice sludge recipe.

 

[jsharp]

Quote:

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Make-up oil: 1.5 quarts. I lost a whole quart in the last 1000 miles. I'm not going to GC for at least the next 15k miles anyway, so hopefully a 5w30 or 5w40 will help.

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Was this green GC or gold? I had substantially higher consumption with the gold. Enough that I'll never use it again...