My 2002 audi a4 tdi 130bhp has let me down.The coolant warning light illuminated and on checking the coolant level I found the coolant expansion tank almost full of oil!!! The car is out of warranty and the dealer is giving me the run around,has anyone come across this problem with Audi or any of the VAG tdi engines?If so,what causes it?or perhaps someone could kindly direct me to audis service bulletin site.Thanks in advance.
Alan wrote
Look on the bright side. Oil in your water is better than water in your oil....
could be head gasket, cracked engine or the heat exchanger at the oil filter gone..
JK
filter these always seem to cause trouble. Simple to fix but getting rid of the oil mess in the cooling system is a bit of a ****.
jag at bt.something
I thought they had a 3year warranty? Anyway that's either a blown head gasket or a cracked head, if you've run out of warranty then any decent engine reconditioners should be able to help.
Alan,
Because of the age of the car I would be expecting some assistance with the cost of fixing it from Audi. It sounds like the cylinder head has gone and needs re skimming and a new gasket.
As a matter of interest. An article on Watchdog this week regarding Landrover discovery engines revealed that car manufacturers are obligated to assist with repairs like this up for up to 6 years. This is most certainly true when I had a Vauxhall Astra where Vauxhall assisted financially on some major repairs on my car well past the warranty expiry date chipping in 70% on one of the repairs.
Give it a go.
Andrew.
Dude, a 2002 car can no way be out of warranty, all VAG cars have a 3 year warranty so I'd get back to your dealer and tell them you want it sorted!
Can anyone explain the apparent trend towards premature head gasket failure in modern car engines? One would have thought that superior manufacturing processes should reduce such occurrences.
Stuart Sharp
The message from Stu contains these words:
Too bloody clever for their own good. Or ours.
Time was when engines were overengineered, which was in some ways a good thing - plenty of margin for error and ability to cope with potentially damaging situations like overheating 'cos the metal bits were thicker and made of cast iron. That's not to say they were perfect - they wore out early 'cos of less accurate manufacturing and they were heavy and took ages to warm up.
Particularly to get round the last two prombles designers have moved towards lighter and lighter engines with smaller and smaller thermal masses and tiny water volumes. This means that when something goes wrong it goes wrong suddenyl and it's all over rather quickly.
OTOH, I think that modern cars are taken for granted. The general level of reliability designed into them, considering the complexity of the engineering, is quite superb, IMHO. When something finally does go wrong (relatively rare these days), we all seem to make more of a fuss about it!
Stuart Sharp
It's not exactly uncommon on older engines either, Triumph Stags, SD1s, anything made by fiat.
I blame it all on this crap they call petrol these days. Doesn't even smell like real petrol anymore. Especially if you're putting it into a TDI..... ;)
The message from Stu contains these words:
Because when it goes it's not easily fixed - or even diagnosed.
Ermm I don't think head gaskets have changed much guy :-)
The message from Duncan Wood contains these words:
Ah, yes, in this instance, but some problems with cars defeat even the authorised dealer with access to the proper diagnostic wotnots. There was a time I understood how every part of my car worked and could probably repair all of it. Actually, that's probably still the case with my diesel Maestro, but many modern cars are ridiculously complex 'cos of the fascination with gadgets.
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