2.0 TFSI burning oil - new engine?

2.0 TFSI burning oil - new engine?

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iluvmercs

Original Poster:

7,541 posts

226 months

Tuesday 1st July 2014
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Evening all!

A friend recently spoke to me about a problem with 2009 Q5 2.0 TFSI with an S-Tronic gearbox and about 85,000 miles on the clock.

The car has been owned by only him and his Dad before, doing mainly city and motorway miles. Sampling his driving his style is smooth, gentle and not exactly speedy!
The car has the occasional slightly over due service and not all of it is Audi main dealer and the car is out of warranty.

Now his problem.
For about the last year, he's excessive oil consumption. Taken to his main dealer this time, they initially replaced a sensor, but to no avail.

Since then, they have replaced a couple of other engine items, the last costing my friend about £350, but again no resolution. The exact items so far replaced escape my mind at present.
They performed what was described to him as a 'consumption test', and he should have run the for about 650 miles.
The car managed only 240 miles before requiring a top up of oil.
The dealership have now informed him the car's bottom end bearings (big end) are on their way out, and they would have to replace the engine.
This has been priced at a whopping £9,500! He has an Audi UK contribution of £2000 on the table.

Now, a little bit of Googling showed up a batch of 2.0 TFSI engines from 2009 had problematic piston rings/pistons, which caused excessive oil consumption.

I told my friend he could try to bargain for a higher contribution from Audi with perhaps and additional good will from the local dealer, but I did suggest that may not be possible as the car hasn't always been serviced by an Audi Main Dealer.

I did also suggest he do some homework into local Audi specialists for a rebuild of his existing engine as it may be potentially cheaper.

What I am please after from the learned folks in PH's Audi corner is clarification or correction of my "bad batch" findings and wether or not my friend could get any thing more as a contribution from Audi - could be a known issue, and therefore a case of pride for Audi to offer more.
Is a replacement truly the only option, or are there specialists who could undertake some guaranteed work?

Any recommendations? My friend is in the Guildford and Wandsworth areas.

Many thanks in advance,
Darren

Edited by iluvmercs on Wednesday 2nd July 02:11

Rich_W

12,548 posts

211 months

Tuesday 1st July 2014
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
It's not, it's a chain driven engine unlike the Golf belt driven one. And also unlike a Golf the engine is longways so labour to get it out is extended.

Firstly, has the owner misheard the fault. Is it the big end?. Or is it the piston and piston rings. As you say there's a fair few of these going on at the moment.

Secondly. The car is well outside the 60K/3 year warranty so you are kind of at the behest of Audi UK. I'm guessing the car has had full dealer history and not missed anything? Hence the contribution. If it hasn't then sadly Audi will say "well you weren't loyal to us, why should we help you?"

Saying all that, 9.5K is a hill of money. And I suspect that for that the engine has to be completely finished. Lets guess at 25-30hours for a engine removal, (roughly 3K) strip change the pistons and rings and refit it all. Maybe another 1K on parts? He needs to be finding out exactly what the fault IS and what it needs to fix it.

Deerfoot

4,897 posts

183 months

Tuesday 1st July 2014
quotequote all
Rich_W said:
It's not, it's a chain driven engine unlike the Golf belt driven one.
So, like a mk6 Golf GTI then?

Grandfondo

12,241 posts

205 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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Webuyanycar.com!

morgrp

4,128 posts

197 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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First and foremost I'd be looking to change the oil used - Do you know if the car has been run on that daft green Castrol "longlife" oil from new?

TheRealFingers99

1,996 posts

127 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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Compression test, dry and wet. Take it from there.

Tom20v

79 posts

149 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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A friend of mine had a Leon TFSI and it drank oil like petrol. Compression test showed up fine too.

ManOpener

12,467 posts

168 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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Tom20v said:
A friend of mine had a Leon TFSI and it drank oil like petrol. Compression test showed up fine too.
Mine likes a bit of a drink- a litre per 3-4k miles- but nothing on the scale of the OP's. Which I'm trying to work out whether is a TFSI (belt cam EA113) or TSI (chain cam EA888)? Presumably an EA888.

imran9999

278 posts

121 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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Get rid of it and buy something else.

iluvmercs

Original Poster:

7,541 posts

226 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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Thank you all for the replies thus far. Very much appreciated smile

He is thinking about changing the car and Audi have offered about a third below what they would offer if the car was fine.

If he was to part ex it at another manufacturer's main dealer, I would assume their own checks will show the engine as being problematic as it's Audi's system.
I would further assume all kinds of legal implications if a car was part ex'ed but the owner didn't declare a known issue.

To answer some of the queries....

Audi told him the bottom end requires work, for which they have told him they would replace the engine.
My own Googling led me to discover a bad batch in 2009 where bad piston/piston rings caused his symptoms of excessive oil consumption.

As far as I know the car has used Audi recommended oils.

I think a compression was done as part of the tests.

Not ideal situation and I suspect he will be taking a bath on either part ex or rebuild/replacement.

Darren

Defcon5

6,161 posts

190 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
quotequote all
iluvmercs said:
If he was to part ex it at another manufacturer's main dealer, I would assume their own checks will show the engine as being problematic as it's Audi's system.
I can't see that being the case


Dr G

15,159 posts

241 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
quotequote all
Worn big end bearings don't cause excessive oil consumption; knocking and or poor oil pressure more likely.

Where an engine is using more oil than spec:

Audi will measure the exact consumption to determine the severity of the problem. Assuming consumption is outside of spec Audi will in the first instance replace the engine breather and update the ECU software to suit then re-measure consumption.

If still outside of spec the 'stage 2' repair requires re-designed pistons and rings.

If left unchecked for an extended period or exacerbated (incorrect oil, late servicing) in theory the worn rings/blow by will damage the bores. As I understand it, Audi at this point suggest a new block as a simple re-build will not restore the treatment applied to the cylinder walls when new.

At 85k and with non-franchise history I don't see Audi contributing much more in terms of goodwill.


Rich_W

12,548 posts

211 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
quotequote all
Deerfoot said:
Rich_W said:
It's not, it's a chain driven engine unlike the Golf belt driven one.
So, like a mk6 Golf GTI then?
SOrry, I was thinking of the older Mk5 belt driven.

Suspect the MK6 Golf and TT/A3 et al may not be the same engine though. Similar, but not the same engine code. Mainly because you don't hear about it quite as much as the A4/A5/Q5 cars

oldnbold

1,280 posts

145 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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I'd just trade it in to a non Audi dealer, most franchised dealers aren't generally to interested in having other brands on there forecourt (some will) and they will just punt it out via auction or to another trader further down the food chain.

If it's not smoking like a chimney and not showing any other faults they are never going to know, if they were going to retail it and discover its a dog after trade in they will just trade it out. Or let WBAC have it.

Get rid and move on.

Crafty_

13,248 posts

199 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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Audi stopped sponsoring (their term) repairs for this defect at the start of the current financial year (April) on cars that are out of warranty, so even a full audi history would get you diddly squat.

You'll probably get away with doing pistons & rings (thats what the usually do I believe) if its bad the bores will be damaged and will require a new block. Most are just pistons & rings though.

Labour is probably something like £120 an hour, so its pretty easy to get to £2k imho.

JTBUSH

625 posts

207 months

Wednesday 2nd July 2014
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I had this problem on my A4 2.0tfsi 2009. I bought from Audi independant specialist Lawson Cars in Middlesboro. The car was burning a litre of oil in around 100 miles. The car came with 80k miles on it but a full warranty and Lawsons ended up rebuilding engine with new rings. They tried all sorts before doing the inevitable but unfortunately non of it worked.

You'd think given the fact we've had over a century to perfect the art of design and manufacture of the IC engine that we would no longer be expecting issues with oil consumption due to piston rings/ bore wear.

Dr G

15,159 posts

241 months

Thursday 3rd July 2014
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You'd also think that BMW could make timing chains, Mercedes could make gearbox oil coolers, Toyota could make throttle pedals and GM could make ignition switches.

Apparently not wink

Crafty_

13,248 posts

199 months

Thursday 3rd July 2014
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JTBUSH said:
You'd think given the fact we've had over a century to perfect the art of design and manufacture of the IC engine that we would no longer be expecting issues with oil consumption due to piston rings/ bore wear.
Its no problem to build a decent engine, the problem is the bean counters get involved and cut costs, which means the engineering becomes a compromise, quite often that doesn't work out very well.

This is not a unique situation, there are plenty of issues like this with Audi products.

BFG TERRANO

2,172 posts

147 months

Wednesday 9th July 2014
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I have nothing technical to offer but.. A colleague had just got shot of an 11 plate A4 with a 2 litre petrol because it was burning oil. So much so the company quizzed him on his fuel card oil buying. It actually stained the rear bumper black. It was on 138,000 motorway miles with full Audi history.

Chippo1

344 posts

122 months

Wednesday 9th July 2014
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Crickey 25-30 hours to change an engine , frankly I don't believe it . And what difference longitude or transverse makes I can't believe in a fully equipped work shop . Either my car or my sons, we will take one of the engines out in the next year or so , it's a tight fit and longitudinal we expect to have it out in half a day at home.

Rings and or bores are the likely cause of this sort of excessive oil consumption not ends and mains , although if they are bad and knocking there will be additional heat generated as it gets closer to seizure or rod failure .

But 9.5k for a factory engine mass produced and I assume a bare engine without ancillaries seems steep, it only a 4 pot and I dare say not that sofisicated in the basic design of the block .

Does this block not have dry or wet sleeves or is it cast iron ? But even if the block is cast iron can it not be re-bored ?

The 60k warranty from Audi is pretty poor by comparison to most of the premium ands most budget brands , say a lot about thier own opinion of the products they sell. I will certainly exceed 60k in 3 years.

But it seems to me best thing is get shot of the car pronto , through a non Audi dealer PC or just stick it in auction and cut losses.