More ruined cam followers using VW oils & VW OCI

[saaber1]

A couple more examples to add. This one was at 35,500 miles and had oil changed at dealer every 5k. Looks excellent.

This one has 12,500 miles and changed every 3k. looks pretty good. An aftermarket fuel pump was used the last 2k miles and these have been speculated to accelerate wear so that may have had some effect.

 

[saaber1]

Here is another one to add to the list. This one was at 79k on the car and he: "always changed my oil every 5k with mobile 1 0w40. The problem is I never checked the follower until today"

This example appears to give credence to what some posters said above that an oil with stronger additive package is needed for this application.

 

[meb]

I began changing the oil every 2,000 miles in my wife's 2008 2.0 Passat. Still using 5W40 Mobil 1 TDT. She drives about 3 miles to work every day and most of her day-off driving is never long enough to get out of the warm up cycle. I haven't performed a UOA yet but the oil visibly looks beat up; poor color and quite thin for an oil only 2,000 miles old. Perhaps Redline after this change...

 

[saaber1]

Originally Posted By: meb
I began changing the oil every 2,000 miles in my wife's 2008 2.0 Passat. Still using 5W40 Mobil 1 TDT. She drives about 3 miles to work every day and most of her day-off driving is never long enough to get out of the warm up cycle.

ReTDT: The M1 TDT fortunately has 1200ppm zinc which is good for the follower. It has shown very high shear rates on other 2.0 FSI even with 95% highway use unfortunately. Metals in the UOA were low though as I recall.

Re short trips: I noticed a big difference in oil condition (via UOA) when making all short trips with inadequate warm up vs. long trips. The increased fuel dilution (presumed) elevated TAN, reduced TBN, flashpoint and viscosity at a higher rate than UOAs done with normal driving. So changing out earlier is probably a smart move.

Re OCI: IMO it would be great if you could move to 5k intervals using another oil (or perhaps the TDT can go that long? -a UOA would tell you).

 

[saaber1]

Here is one at 67k which looks good overall. 5k interval. Oil used was:

0-25K miles: Castrol Syntec
25K - 50K miles: Total Quartz
50K - 60K miles: Royal Purple

 

[JAG]

Wow, that follower using M1 0W-40 is terrible! I wonder what the driving habits and climate were like. The one that used Syntec...what viscosity grade was it?

 

[saaber1]

Originally Posted By: JAG
Wow, that follower using M1 0W-40 is terrible! I wonder what the driving habits and climate were like. The one that used Syntec...what viscosity grade was it?

Re which syntec, since it is from 0-25k miles the Syntec used I assume would have been dealer-supplied syntec 5w40 which is the most common (I'm guessing that is what was used).

Also regarding the M1 0W40 photo above it should be noted that there are higher mileage followers on M1 0w40 which look good. These are just a few snapshot photos I post as I see them but if I were to dig up all the photos and post here (which I hope to do eventually) there would be some good higher mileage m1 0w40 followers. No info. on driving habits/climate as of yet.

 

[JAG]

Thanks. There seems to be a very large variance in the wear/failure rates from what you've said and shown. That's not surprising since there are numerous factors affecting that and the variance in at least some of those factors is very large. The photos sure are eye candy and it is fun to try to find correlations with the affecting factors.

 

[nitehawk55]

I can't help but wonder if it's a QC issue with metal hardness variation . If some are soft you will see premature wear . I really can't believe oil types are the issue here , not with the OCI's the owners are doing .

 

[buster]

I wonder how Royal Purple or Redline would do in this engine?

 

[Pete591]

If I had that vehicle with that engine I would run M-1 Racing 10W-40 4T Motorcycle Oil.

ZDDP in high levels are needed.

Need synthetic/viscosity/zddp around 1600 or so.

I know I am right!

 

[Mokanic]

Originally Posted By: JAG
Wow, that follower using M1 0W-40 is terrible! I wonder what the driving habits and climate were like. The one that used Syntec...what viscosity grade was it?


Yeah,But it's so nice and clean inside...

 

[ProStreetCamaro]

All I can say is the follower problem does not surprise me after what I have seen first hand with 4 or 5 different friends and family's VW's. I am glad they are all gone now but one. I was getting tired of working on that junk. Actually I have to work on my sister in laws jetta in the next couple weeks.

Anybody need a 2.0 coil? Got one sitting in the garage. Dealer made her replace it with an OEM before they would warranty the catalytic converter even though the aftermarket STI coil was working fine.

 

[meb]

Redline has proven to be quite good in this engine...royal Purple was - from memory - not that good. Saaber will know off hand I am sure.

I have a tuff time buying two gallons of Redline; 4.5 quarts per change and it is only available in 1 gallon containers. I suppose buying two gallons every 8th oil change isn't bad if the wear is kept in check...I'll stop complaining now.

 

[FowVay]

Originally Posted By: ProStreetCamaro
Anybody need a 2.0 coil? Got one sitting in the garage. Dealer made her replace it with an OEM before they would warranty the catalytic converter even though the aftermarket STI coil was working fine.


That is Classic and typifies the problems with Volkswagen in this country. I truly love their products but I'm sick of dealing with attitudes that are noted in this quote.

At this moment VW has some serious quality issues. The PD TDI's are eating themselves alive and now the gasser 2.0 Turbo is grinding itself to a halt and many of the CR TDI diesels are grinding their high pressure fuel pumps to shreds while VWoA is laying blame on the owners. It's not the sort of business model I'd put my money on.

 

[meb]

I was thinking about a TDI...I am unaware of the fuel pump problems and such...? how can an owner be blamed for this? Is this an oil related failure? I know it's a fuel pump but I am not sure if it is actuated by oil pressure...

 

[ProStreetCamaro]

Originally Posted By: FowVay
Originally Posted By: ProStreetCamaro
Anybody need a 2.0 coil? Got one sitting in the garage. Dealer made her replace it with an OEM before they would warranty the catalytic converter even though the aftermarket STI coil was working fine.


That is Classic and typifies the problems with Volkswagen in this country. I truly love their products but I'm sick of dealing with attitudes that are noted in this quote.

At this moment VW has some serious quality issues. The PD TDI's are eating themselves alive and now the gasser 2.0 Turbo is grinding itself to a halt and many of the CR TDI diesels are grinding their high pressure fuel pumps to shreds while VWoA is laying blame on the owners. It's not the sort of business model I'd put my money on.



I am glad I didnt get blasted for the statements I made. I have seen some stuff out of VW that really makes me scratch my head wondering what they were thinking. Case in point is the plastic water neck on the block. Common sense tells me a plastic water neck is not a good idea. Well it left my friends gf on the side of the road after cracking erroding and spewing coolant all over the place. I had to go get my car trailer and tow the car to my place so we could fix it. Then there is the plastic impeller on the water pump. Yeah that's a genius idea. Again her car overheated big time. I can go on and on about these stupid design and material flaws.

 

[oliveoil]

Ya I'll NEVER buy another VW. It was all I drove in the 70s and 80s until I bought a new 88 Golf GTI. Ran fine but the engine developed a piston slap at highway speeds. VW said there was nothing wrong and refused to fix it. Evidently thousands of them had this problem and there were lawsuits and such. Yet with less than 5K on it I traded it for a Honda civic and never looked back. Bad buisiness decision to write me off. I have since owned over twenty cars and not one VW. And guess how many family friends have asked me about new car purchases (I was a german car mechanic through college and law school) and NONE of them have purchased VWs. From reading this thread I guess I was right!

 

[ffhdriver]

My first VW an '07 Eos will be my last. In 30 months it had 15 warranty repair. It was always fixed but the 50 mile round trip to the dealer got old. I looked ahead at the coil recall, potential problems with the cam follower and sludging intake valves and said I better trade this car and I did. Someone told me it's a VW you have to do lots of repairs to keep it running.

 

[robertcope]

My family has driven VWs since the 60s. I have had quite a few of them. The 'recent' ones: '88 GLI, '98 Jetta, 2003 Jetta, 2008 Rabbit. All have performed well, without any major issue. Not trying to say that your collective experiences are wrong, but plenty of people have the opposite experience, too.

I would agree that my experience with dealerships has been rough. Fortunately, I rarely, if ever, have to take my car to them.

robert