Valve timing issue.

[pburgess22]

Hello all.

I posted a few days back about an engine misfire and the garage has been looking into the cause for a good while now.
They seem to have decided its a valve timing issue. Is it likely the standard timing chain issue ?
If so what is the likely hood the the engine has been severely damaged ?

Lastly how painful is the bill going to be ?

Thanks
Phil

[Paradox1]

Hi,

if the engine was damaged you wouldn't be able to drive it and it would be making a racket!
The chains can stretch but I haven't heard of one stretching on a TSI engine yet. What mileage is your car? Do you know what the error code is? It would be quite expensive for them to change the chain. You should also replace the cam chain tensioner if you do go along with the job. No hard im getting a 2nd opinion though from another garage

[pburgess22]

Yeah its still driveable just has the miss fire issue so it runs lumpy as hell. It gets significantly better once its warmed up by the idle revs fluctuate a fair bit. Cars got 92,000 miles on the clock and has been well looked after. Don't have he error code yet as im heading to the garage this evening to find out what's going on.

I struggled to get it in a garage in the first place as so many people are on leave to make the most of the bank holiday so im hesitant to take it elsewhere but totally understand your point.

[Paradox1]

Do what you can. its worth having a diagnostic scanner in the car so you can pull the code. it will give you an idea of what is at fault.

When I had a timing issue on my previous car my revs were fine. but when driving the car would surge then cut up.... scary moments. may be different from on the TSI engines though. When you do take it to the garage ask him for the error code. he should be able to clear it temporarily. Dont get me wrong it could be a valve timing but id always like a second opinion when its something that is going to cost you big to replace

[Harry_VW]

get it looked at ASAP if your timing chain tensioner is failing and the ratchet mechanism is not working and timing getting significantly better once warm with the hydraulic pressure tensioning the chain. It could only be a matter of time before valve to piston contact

[pburgess22]

The garage has finally decided its probably a stretched chain and that they wouldn't touch it as they haven't changed one on that engine before and didn't want to use my car as an experiment. Which is fair enough I guess and they only charged me "a couple of drinks".
Drove straight to (but very gently) the local vw Robinsons garage in Lowestoft where its now going to have to sit and wait until the 2nd of may before they can look at it. I asked about good will as its a known engine fault and they said they will have to talk directly to vw once they have done their own diagnostic. I seriously hope there isn't any piston/valve damage but only time will tell now.
On the up side im heading offshore for a month soon so what ever the bill is I can cover luckily.

[pburgess22]

Just an update. After MUCH google foo I think the actual issue is the PCV valve as my car suffers from all the symptoms of it being stuck open such as the lumpy idle and revs moving about on their own. Also using a lot of oil and engine running lean as the pcv valve is allowing a lot more air to be sucked into the engine and its forcing the oil out somewhere. Its still at VW so hopefully that's what they diagnose to as its a hell of a lot cheaper to fix than the chain.

[pburgess22]

After VW finally got round to looking at it yesterday they also concluded that its the pcv valve and are replacing it for a total of £217.00. Didnt think the price was to bad considering it included the diagnostic, new part and a least an hours labour. Asked for them to MOT it at the same time as it is due at the end of month so it will come back to me in the best possible condition I hope.

[C00kie]

Glad to hear you got it sorted and didn't cost an arm and a leg!

[peterallibone]

After VW finally got round to looking at it yesterday they also concluded that its the pcv valve and are replacing it for a total of £217.00. Didnt think the price was to bad considering it included the diagnostic, new part and a least an hours labour. Asked for them to MOT it at the same time as it is due at the end of month so it will come back to me in the best possible condition I hope.

Hi. Glad got it sorted. Was going to say i have a very late 2009 2.0 GT tsi on <50k which had the exact same symptoms, un driveable almost until up to temperature. Mine was down to well known issue of carbon build up, sticking valves etc, complete​ engine strip and clean, head skim including​ new chain and tensioner and now perfect. Cypress motors did mine in Lowestoft , would definitely recommend.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[pburgess22]

How much did they charge for the carbon clean up ? At 90k I would guess the carbon build up is pretty gnarly by now in mine.

[peterallibone]

Cant reply to PM btw so pm your email mate

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

[Paradox1]

valve cleaning is about 350-400 quid

[pburgess22]

So I picked up the car and its still as bad as ever. The rep said they changed the pcv valve and it didn't change anything as they had hoped it would. He suggested that they would probably have to replace all the fuel injectors as they found a significant amount of fuel in the oil sump. They drained all the oil and fitted a new oil filter which cost me 188 quid. The assumption is that one or more fuel injectors are cracked and are leaking fuel into the cylinders when the car is not used. What has caused this they don't know but I strongly believe its probably due to a severe carbon build up. Other forums people have seen carbon build ups causing one or more injectors to crack but im not really sure what the logic is behind it.

I drove it around to cypress autos in Lowestoft and the lead tech there said carbon build up as soon as I started describing the symptoms and that they deal with it a fair amount. However they couldn't look at it for a couple of weeks so im still stuck in limbo. I dropped the car back at vw the next day and said I believe its a carbon build up but the rep said they didn't offer a cleaning service which didn't make any sense as they must have to deal with it pretty often. I guess he didn't know what I was getting at but the garage techs will hopefully.

Bit of a wall of text but it maybe helpful to someone if they have get into the same situation.

[Addymk2]

Look into getting it blasted with walnut shell if possible, if it's not under warranty get it out of the VAG dealerships and go to an independent.

VAG refuse to use the walnut method and instead do it by hand, which takes a LOT longer therefore costing a whump more. I've heard of people using BMW dealerships to do it instead as they have the tooling to do so and it works out considerably cheaper than the VW method.

[pburgess22]

Currently offshore and its still with the dealership. They are replacing all of the fuel injectors tomorrow after doing a manual shaft timing check and that came out fine so that's one less thing to worry about.

So yeah all new fuel injectors and hopefully that will be the end of it as its taken far to long and cost far to much.

I have asked for them to take a video of the intake valves to see what the carb build up is like and they are doing that for me while the manifold is off.

Ill post the video on here when im home so anyone can see what state a car with 90k miles on the clock is in when in comes to carbon build up.