Catastrophic double failure - advice needed

[A1Dan75]

OK, so here's a tale of woe for you...

4 weeks ago my Passat (2007 170bhp tdi) dropped a valve - about a quarter of one sheared off, and did its worst to the cylinder, piston and cylinder head. Absolute mess. Looking at the price of a new cylinder head, engine refurb etc, I came to the concludion that the cheapest option was to buy and fit a 2nd hand engine. Did this for a total of around £2,200 for the engine, labout and associated bits and peices (new timing belt etc).

At this stage you were looking at one pretty peed-off A1Dan75 - £2k is a lot of money to suddenly have to spend on nothing. But that was nothing compared to where we are now.

Having had the car back foraround 10 days, I was dirving it on Saturday when, as far as we can tell (mechanic will only get to look at it this mornign to confirm) the turbo blew. Big puff of smoke out the back, lost power for a second, and then huge burst of smoke from uner the bonnet, while teh revs went crazy (presumablyas it started vapourising and burning it's own oil). Managed to kill the engine within about 5 seconds, so desperately hoping it's not taken everything else out with it, but preparing myself for the worst. I don't even really want to think about the potential costs this time round, on top of the £2k I just spent.

So, now that you're feeling your Monday morning isn't so bad after all, a bit of advice...

Essentially, I'm trying to work out if the replacement of the engine could have led to the turbo failure, or if it was just an insanely unluck coincidence. And beyond that, if there was a problem with the engine swap, whether it would be something wrong with the engine we got, or some failure in how it was fitted.

I should make clear that the mechanic who replaced the engine is a guy I've used for years, and have always fully trusted. He goes to great lengths to talk through anything he does to my car, and always tries to find the best way to sort problems out at the lowest cost etc. For exampple, I've had hundreds ouf pounds worth of advisoires from a VW dealer when it had to go in for injector recall, and he managed to work it down to a few essentials, and lauged at most of it. Obviously at that point he had the opportunity to fleece me for as much as the VW dealer wanted to, but didn't.

But at the same time, even the most trust-worthy guy is going to find it hard to fess up and say "Sorry mate, I screwed up, it's my fault" when there are hundreds or thousands of pounds on the line. The temptation would obviously be to keep shtum, do the repair and move on.

Of course, the other possibility is that it was the engine itself, in hich case I'm screwed really, as it was cheap, out of a write-off being stripped down, and came with no warranty beyond the fact that it worked, which it did, for a hundred miles or so at least.

So, not really sure where I stand or what to do. Any advice whatsoever would be welcome!

[zollaf]

ouch, thats a sad tale of great expense. a few questions. how long have you owned this car ? do you know if a timing belt has ever failed ? (timing belt failure can lead to valve damage that goes un noticed and later leads to valves snapping ).
now, the revs going crazy indicate the turbo didn't blow due to oil starvation and apart from that, nothing else can really cause one to go that can be put down to anything other than wear and use. if it is over spooling then the ecu will be aware of it and stick you into limp mode so as not to damage the turbo. so no, i don't think your mechanic can be blamed for this and it does sound like you have been very unlucky.
so, what history do you have or know of ???

[A1Dan75]

Hi Zollaf, thanks for the rapid reply!

I bought the car a little over 3 years ago, with full VW service history (ex company car). It was fully up to date with timing belts change at appropriate services (can't remember whihc ones they are off hand) and has had one since too (must have been somewhere around 110,000 miles). So, as far as I am aware, it's never had a timing belt failure. The mechanic did say he's never seen a valve just go like that, though apparently he was talking to an Audi specialist about it afterwards and that guy said he'd seen it once or twice.

Anyway, it's re-assuring about the turbo. A mate did suggest lack of oil if they had failed to connect it up properly, but I though much the same as you - if it's not getting oil, then it doesn't go bat-sht crazy and try and rev itself to the moon when it fails. So it's good to know if that's the only real human error that could cause it.

[DSG4ME]

Gutted for you mate,

As Zollaf said it's simply a wear thing rather than your guy messed up, personally I would've written the car off when the last engine went pop as the car itself is only just about worth what the engine cost you and an absolute liability of a car,

Your experience of VW dealers should've been enough to tell you just how things really are owning one of their cars now, they built a good rep mechanically over 30 years then simply destroyed it with what they came up with from 2005 onwards, the later CR engine may reverse that trend for them but looking at the build of Skoda's and VW's I'd say they are trying to remain competitive while maintaining their margins by buying cheaper components than they would've in years gone by, the turbo's are dreadful and too small for the 2.0 engine and as for reliable I'm constantly hearing at work about Octavia and Passat engine failures and other things going wrong that cost an arm,

Sad to say but this German bulletproof rep they have is a fantasy brought on by a media hell bent on keeping this uber image going, we have two Toyota T27 Avensis at work and neither has seen a ramp yet for anything other than an oil change, both owners are glowing about them so what does that say,

Personally I'd try to get hold of a second hand turbo at a cheap cost and then sell the car before anything else happens and put it down to experience, try to see you had 3 years out of it,

As for turbo's, GSF is £850 or you can take a chance and get an eBay re-con for around £300, personally I think I'd rather take one off another car that is known to be good.

[Doctle Odd]

I'd go for the known good second hand turbo and then let it be someone else's trouble adding new oil first of course! New engine and turbo are good selling points!

[A1Dan75]

DSG4ME and Doctle Odd... I'm one step ahead of you there.

What I didn't mention in the original post was that when the turbo blew on Saturday, the massive irony was that I was on my way to test drive a Mazda 6.

I'd already decided to sell after the engine business... the stupid piece of junk only had to run for another week or two!

[paulthefox]

did u go and buy the 6 and if u did what are your thoughts on it?

[A1Dan75]

I have bought it actually, and so far I'm pretty pleased. It lacks a little of the quality feel of the Passat - ie doors don't clunk as heavily etc. But the engine is probably a little livelier, epsecially at the low end (it's the 163bhp 2.2 tdi) and the handling definitely lighter and sharper.

Just praying that it proves a little more reliable than my Passat, whihc in the little over three years I had it needed:

New Dual Mass Fly Wheel
New Fuel Pump
New Electric Brake Calipers x2
New Boost Pressure Sensor
New Injectors
New Engine (!)

Turns out this last time the turbo hadn't actually gone - it was the breather that had got blocked. The crazy revs had broken and bent a couple of valve rockers, but fortunately the garage still had my old engine and got replacements off that. I've told them to hang on to the rest of that engine until I get it sold!

[Doctle Odd]

I'd be tempted to keep the Passat instead of hairy japanese ! - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRgU_VTlCQg)