Piston slap?

junkyard

I took in a customers 00 VW Bora with only 52k on the clock. There was a tappet noise in the engine so we proceeded to strip down the engine to replace a tappet or two. On stripping down the engine it became clear that it was in fact piston slap in the engine and not a tappet problem at all. We rang the dealer to get a second opinion and he told us that its a regular problem and the only cure is to replace the block and pistons. As most people here know I don't have any mass on VW cars in general except the older ones which, in fairness were great cars. I find this hard to except that a car with such a low mileage effectively needs a new engine considering its regularly serviced with the correct oil etc. How can VW get away with this kind of carry on? The first sign of the problem is oil consumption and as most of us here know this is "normal" according to VW. Has anyone else had similar problems? I'd love to here them.

Seth Brundle

After learning all about BMW and nikasil Im not surprised at anything!

crosstownk

Junkyard - my VW Bora (2000 with 46k miles) does the same. I suspected that it was either piston slap or small ends. Anyway, I'm just gonna drive it til it stops.

I'd be interested to know how you get on with the repairs and how much it costs.

stratos

My own experience of a vw transporter 99d, was a binking noise followed by a large bang. The front of the van actually jarred. When the mechs stripped the engine it had dropped a valve into the bore and nuked the engine everything was destroyed. A new engine was crated over from vw. It was fitted but the mechs could not get it to fire up. A vw engineer was sent over and it was discovered faults in the head of the new engine were the cause. A new head was fitted and of she went, then the suspension collapsed but thats another story.

IrishRover

Was looking for an article which would demonstrate that VW's reputation for reliability is based on nothing more than a clever marketing campaign from the eighties. Paydirt would have been something that irrefutably demonstrated that they are less reliable than an Alfa (or even a Rover)!

Not found what I'm looking for yet, but on my travels I found this interesting article on the history of the Golf and VW in general.
http://www.matey-matey.com/dis_6.shtml

One thing to note about the reliability factor is that VW operated a 9 year cycle for the Golf model for MKI and MKII at least anyway, and of course 30+ years with the Beetle and so it was this policy of long development and long lifecycle with constant evolution and refinement of the model, listening to feedback from customers and acting upon this to iron out any problems so that by the run out models, these cars could genuinely be considered to be fault-free.

The article mentions that this was in contrast to Ford's four year cycle at the time for the Cortina.

Anyways, VW seem to have adopted a roughly 4 year cycle these days. When did they change policy? Could this be why VWs are no longer the reliable cars that they once (perhaps) were?

AlanD

I totally agree with the sentiment here that VW's apparant reliability has been borne out of clever marketing and some sort of Irish refusal to believe that VW's could be anything but reliable. I think VW owners just don't advertise the fact that their car causes trouble.

My family has been in the motor trade for a long long time, we don't sell cars any more, but we do still do recovery (hobby for post retirement). The amount of Passats we brought in with flywheel trouble was uncountable. The amount of Golfs with coil trouble, uncountable. And even more surprising to me, last week, we had a 3 week old Passat 1.9 tdi with almost no miles on it, in which pretty much everything electrical failed. Parking brake wouldn't go off, doors wouldn't unlock, lights wouldn't go off, engine wouldn't start. It was as if all the parts were thrown at the car in the hope they might work.

VW quality? a misconception that would be hard to shake, but the lack of it is very evident. I think the manufacturers in the rest of the VW stable do a much better job in terms of quality, from my point of view anyway.

maidhc

What causes "piston slap" to occur? Prematurely worn journals? Crankshaft bearings?

Kersh

I commented in a thread a while back about seeing 2 new Passats parked with smoke billowing out of them, since than I have seen 4 more that needed recovery trucks - no visible problem... what are Vw doing??

AlanD

IrishRover wrote:

Anyways, VW seem to have adopted a roughly 4 year cycle these days. When did they change policy? Could this be why VWs are no longer the reliable cars that they once (perhaps) were?

interesting point, but what you should remember is that although VW may be going through a 4 year cycle, their engines have a much longer cycle. The 1.9 TDI engine has been iterated so many times in so many cars within VW and even outside of VW in Seat/Skoda/Audi, that the effective life cycle of their engines is pretty long in comparison to other manuafacturers.

This makes it all the more strange when it's their engines that cause problems. Now, I don't think anyone here is saying they are Renault bad or Alfa bad, but I think we're saying they are far from the bullet proof machines they, their owners and press make them out to be.

IrishRover

Yeah, true about the engines alright Alan. So really the "short development cycle" excuse is out the window then!

Yeah, dunno if they are as unreliable as an Alfa or Rover (I would love them to be worse!) but wherever it is on the unreliability scale, if only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen it'd be pretty risky out there!

maidhc

AlanD wrote:

interesting point, but what you should remember is that although VW may be going through a 4 year cycle, their engines have a much longer cycle. The 1.9 TDI engine has been iterated so many times in so many cars within VW and even outside of VW in Seat/Skoda/Audi, that the effective life cycle of their engines is pretty long in comparison to other manuafacturers.

The previous passat was around from 1996 with only a mild nosejob! The Golf MkIV from 1998 until 04.

I don't think any manufacturer changes engines much, too many unknowns potential problems with a new design.