Recalls

[Quatrelle]

Took the car into my dealer yesterday for its second annual service. Had to take a 'technician' for a test run to demonstrate the noisy front suspension, at the same time telling him the only way that this can properly be cured (in my best French), and that this is a well-known problem in the UK. He didn’t seem convinced.

I was told they’d need the car for two days because there was a recall to replace two pinions on the balance shaft in the engine (pause here to acknowledge a certain contributor to this forum).

Collected the car this afternoon, armed with a badly translated printout of this forum’s ‘creaking front suspension’ thread ready to complain because they’d probably only greased the bushes…. to discover they’d changed the lower wishbones on both sides and replaced the engine pinions whilst doing the service. I was given a ‘bill’ with many items on it, but all I paid for was the service, and they gave me 15% off that! The rest was for the two ‘recalls’, neither of which VW seem to have made public, the suspension only when someone complains, and the other they do quietly when the car goes in for service. I haven't seen any mention of the balance shaft recall anywhere.

I have to say the dealer has been up front on all of this, so absolutely no complaints. The Skoda Fabia they lent me for the two days was quite impressive for a small car.

At the same time I extended my guarantee for a further two years. VW only guarantee their cars for two years here.

[tommyweaves]

Glad to hear you had a good result. The pinions is a new one on me. What's that all about?

[mikecb1]

I'd be interested in learning more about this recall, and which cars are affected, too.

Mike

[Quatrelle]

I am very reliably informed that it's a couple of gears attached to the balance shaft in the engine that have to be replaced. The sump and timing belt need to be removed. It's interesting because the only engines that I know that use a balance shaft are (mainly Japanese) 4-stroke twin cylinder engines.

What use modern car engines make of them I don't know. I have no real working knowledge of the interior of any car engine designed after 1970!

It may be engine/transmission specific (mine are engine code BKP, trans. code JLU). As with most VWs nowadays, they're made all over the place, so it could be vin no. specific also. Yours may well have been done during a routine service.

The best I can decipher from the invoice is that it is recall 13D8. I have no labour times, but they 'charged' 7 hours to do the front suspension and the consequent front and rear tracking. The remainder of the two days was spent doing the service (30,000kms, although I've only done about 21,000) and presumably the balance shaft work took up the rest.

I reckon they only did it to frighten me into taking out another two years' guarantee!

[james_tiger_woo]

Is this a general recall as my Passat was never fixed (and is now out of warranty) despite being taken in 4 times for to be checked....

I hope it's extended to the UK...

[mikecb1]

Oh dear - something else to worry about! :D

Incidentally, my old Porsche 944 also used balance shafts (two of them). Like the Tdi, it was a large (3 litre in the case of the Porsche) 4 cylinder engine, and the balance shafts counteracted the inherent unbalance of the four cylinder layout. The shafts are driven by the crankshaft, and carry eccentric weights. The claim was that they made the engine as smooth as a 6. Did seem to work. The idea is quite old, and originated with Lanchester (anyone remember them), who filed the original patents. The only penalties are the extra cost, and something else to go wrong, which is where we came in.......

Mike

[tommyweaves]

I googled 13D8

Anyone speak Italian??!!

http://quattroruote.it/forums/index.cfm?Page=1&action=messages&threadid=152032

http://www.live2drive.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9042&sid=bc996cb227ace219126b348c653feff5

[Quatrelle]

Presumably then it's the gears that drive the balance shaft.

It is interesting that the engine does seem a lot smoother than my old Lag, but I thought that was the DMF at work....

As I said, it may be that this has been done during a normal service.

James, are you saying that you specifically asked for this particular recall to be checked?

The Lanchester engine was unusually smooth - didn't it also have a preselector g'box/fluid flywheel?

P.S. don't forget this is not an actual 'recall' - car makers have another expression for this sort of non-publicised thing, which escapes me at present.

[Quatrelle]

I googled 13D8

Anyone speak Italian??!!

http://quattroruote.it/forums/index.cfm?Page=1&action=messages&threadid=152032

http://www.live2drive.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9042&sid=bc996cb227ace219126b348c653feff5
No, and Google's translation is even worse for Italian/English:(

[GeoffW]

I googled 13D8

Anyone speak Italian??!!

http://quattroruote.it/forums/index.cfm?Page=1&action=messages&threadid=152032

http://www.live2drive.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9042&sid=bc996cb227ace219126b348c653feff5

Well I used to...

Doesn't say much more than the English above.

There appears to be some confusion about whether it relates to only 170s. It is clear that it only relates to SOME cars.

[Quatrelle]

There appears to be some confusion about whether it relates to only 170s. It is clear that it only relates to SOME cars.

Mine's a 140.

The interesting thing is that no one else seems to know about it, hence my mentioning it. I was hoping that someone else could throw some light on it.

[kenney]

Hi Service Campaign 13D8. Technical background. On some vehicles with 2,0l engine the bearing free play of a gear wheel is reduced on the balancer shaft module because the hub is deformed.In ISOLATED cases this may lead to the premature wear of the gear wheels.Not all vehicles are necessarily affected by this campaign.Before a repair, it must be checked with the Sevice Online or Fish system whether the vehicle is affected by this campaign.There will be no active customer notification.Make sure that all affected vehicles are checked and repaired as part of a workshop visit.

[Stuart W]

P.S. don't forget this is not an actual 'recall' - car makers have another expression for this sort of non-publicised thing, which escapes me at present.

That'll be this one then :p



There will be no active customer notification.

[mikecb1]

Kenny

Thanks for your post, which largely sorts this one out.

-be nice to know which cars are affected though, and if there any warning symptoms/noises? Clearly Quatrelle's 2.0 Tdi was affected, and since mine is almost exactly the same age I fear the worst.

Mike

[kenney]

Hi It is not possible to say which vehicles are affected by the campaign with out checking online.Ring your VW dealer and give them the VIN and they will tell you if your vehicle is affected.To be honest i can not understand why,the customers are not notified,especially when they know exactly,which vehicles are affected.I have seen what happens when the gears fall apart,

[mikecb1]

Thanks Kenney, I'll give my dealer a call and see what they say.
:beerchug:

Mike

[Quatrelle]

I'd be tempted to go and see the dealer, and look over his shoulder when he taps your car's details into the computer.

Either way, ask him for written confirmation that your car isn't going to be affected by this. If it then is, and you are out of guarantee, you will have a leg to stand on.

This was going to be my approach regarding noisy front suspension, since the guarantee was due to expire a few days later, but they fixed it anyway.

As we've seen with other problems here (e.g. fleet cars), word of mouth doesn't count for much.

[mikecb1]

Very good point. It's a bit of a pain visiting my dealer because he's 15 miles away, in a direction I don't normally need to travel, but I guess I should make the effort.

Mike

[satshah123]

just had my 2.0 TDI (56) 140 SE in for the 13D8.

its as mentioned by one of the earlier posts - gears/balancer shaft etc.

when it went in I think they remapped or updated the software as well - the car has totally different driving characteristics.

for example - true it is smoother in First gr/takeoff - however teh low end torque has virtually dissappeared and the fuel consumption has gone down the drain. can anyone attest to this? is it a remap?

im going back to the dealer next week for dash rattling (2 day job) under warranty so i'll speak to them about this drop in performance.

also can anyone tell me how may revs they are sitting at when doing 80mph constantly on motorway? mines about 2700, and i think before it went in for the balancer gears it was just above 2k....

very strange

[Quatrelle]

im going back to the dealer next week for dash rattling (2 day job) under warranty so i'll speak to them about this drop in performance.

also can anyone tell me how may revs they are sitting at when doing 80mph constantly on motorway? mines about 2700, and i think before it went in for the balancer gears it was just above 2k....
Dash rattling in my case was a 2 min job to lubricate various points.

The balancer recall was to change the 'gears/pinions' to the shaft and should not affect the gearing.

From memory mine's just a fraction over 2k at 114km/h (=70mph).

[satshah123]

thanks for reply!

2 mins you say? they want it for 2 days ...does it take that long to get to those components?

also would a software update change the driving characteristics that much?

[Quatrelle]

Most people have had squeaks, rattles etc from the dashboard. I cured mine myself, as did a lot of others I reckon. Try a search for 'squeaks', 'dashboard' or similar on this forum.

A lot of posters have had software updates - mine's had one or two, which have left me with a car that I am completely happy with and is really driveable.

[Stuart W]

thanks for reply!

2 mins you say? they want it for 2 days ...does it take that long to get to those components?


They wanted mine for a week!

It won't actually take that long to do the work - what I suspect they wanted to do was have the car sitting so they could do it when they'd completed all their immediate work for the day - servicing etc - or they would just leave it if they were tight for time. Of course, that's not quite how they put it, but they never really convinced me!

As it was they managed to find the problem fairly easily, so I think I got it back same day.

As for the lubrication, that'll work on more superficial items, but clearly not everything.

[johnloaderuk]

just had my 2.0 TDI (56) 140 SE in for the 13D8.

its as mentioned by one of the earlier posts - gears/balancer shaft etc.

when it went in I think they remapped or updated the software as well - the car has totally different driving characteristics.

for example - true it is smoother in First gr/takeoff - however teh low end torque has virtually dissappeared and the fuel consumption has gone down the drain. can anyone attest to this? is it a remap?

im going back to the dealer next week for dash rattling (2 day job) under warranty so i'll speak to them about this drop in performance.

also can anyone tell me how may revs they are sitting at when doing 80mph constantly on motorway? mines about 2700, and i think before it went in for the balancer gears it was just above 2k....

very strange

Checked my 2.0TDI 140 on the motorway this morning, 70mph in 6th is 2000rpm, and 85mph is 2500rpm in 6th (had to find a private road for this one, of course), so 80mph must be about 2300ish, forgot to look. Are you sure you were in 6th and not 5th ?.

[satshah123]

positive mate - going to double check tonight on the way home from work.

dont know what time it'll be though - they're replacing the windscreen after a gritter spat out a rock and smashed my windscreen. :-)

[henley_regatta]

Checked my 2.0TDI 140 on the motorway this morning, 70mph in 6th is 2000rpm, and 85mph is 2500rpm in 6th (had to find a private road for this one, of course), so 80mph must be about 2300ish, forgot to look. Are you sure you were in 6th and not 5th ?.


I can confirm that at 74MPH Indicated (70MPH actual, according to Mr SatNav), my 2.0 TDI 140 pulls a shade over 2100 RPM in 6th gear, which confirms your observations (within experimental limits!)

[Quatrelle]

I can confirm that at 74MPH Indicated (70MPH actual, according to Mr SatNav), my 2.0 TDI 140 pulls a shade over 2100 RPM in 6th gear, which confirms your observations (within experimental limits!)
Mine too. Checked this morning.

[jimgironde]

Can confirm 2300 at 80mph in 6th

[gazza007]

Just dropped mine off for 3 year service & 1st MOT, note on file to replace sump balance shaft. Also cold running jerkiness has returned so looking at that, I also asked them to look at tops of B pillars which squeak when hot(Fat chance of that at the moment) :aargh4: