BXE 1.9 TDI engine failure

Hi all, some conflicting information on the web, with some obviously from people with little knowledge but lots of opinion - hoping that this is the right place for facts and help...

Relation has had a major bxe engine failure - con rod out of crankcase without warning. The car is 58 plate 99k miles and full history although not VW, with oil change every 10k not long life regime, never had any problems etc.

It seems others have had similar failures with the bxe engine, the RAC man attending only had to look at the data plate and symptoms to diagnose what had happened.

So the questions:

1) What is the cause and is it completely random on any bxe engine between 2005-2010? I ask as sourcing a used engine, are there specific serial numbers to avoid, or is it just a question of luck for the inevitable that it happens again?

2) How much would you expect to pay for a secondhand engine plus installation? Ebay for example lists engines from £300 odd up to around £1,000. How much is the labour to fit?

3) Is there any reliable Diesel engine VW make for the B6 Passat? When buying the car dealers and the community advised to steer clear of the 2.0 PD which had injector, oil pump issues etc. Certainly the 1.9 was PD described on forums as one of the most reliable engines made - well not in our experience and many others! Is the later CR 2.0 110&140 engine and 1.6 CR any good or does that have problems too?

It's a negative post perhaps, but after such a bad experience of a VW after going to such lengths sourcing a low mileage and immaculate car at considerable cost, good advice is appreciated to avoid making any more costly mistakes and experiencing such unreliability.

Thanks and regards.

It's poor quality bearing shells .

The upper wear through and spot weld to the crank sending the leg out of bed .

By all means source another BXE or BKC , just renew all the bearing shells.

The Achilles heel is the modern con rod bearings, they are very hard to reduce wear but they eat through the aluminium layer and this picks up on the crank and the powdered metal sintered rods are brittle so when given unusual side forces, they throw their toys out of the pram. Upper right, lower left

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/d...psst9l4uye.jpg

Hi there,

Thanks for the replies and explanation... Hmm definitely seems to be a resident design flaw then, given description and the number of posts out there of failures.

Have had a replacement used engine fitted, garage didn't offer to do this change of shells suggested, but I guess it would have worked out significantly more expensive on top of an already hefty bill.

So... are there more reliable VW diesel engines for the Passat that are recommended, or are they all fragile in different ways? The same age 2.0 PD (was originally told by dealer to steer well clear of this engine) or the later 2.0 CR in 110 or 140 HP? Is the same engine also in a 1.6 CR version in later B7 Passats any good?

It is probably best in the long term to search out another model of better reliability, but as the fragility of the bxe 1.9 engine is probably known it will be a difficult sell.

Cheers

They are all reliable, when I started in this business 40 years ago, any car with 100K miles on it was a talking point, in the early days of Beetle production, you received a gold pin from VW if you managed 100000 KILOMETERS! In what was Safer Motoring magazine they had a 100000 mile register and you had special mention if this was on one engine! In the 80's we we regularly had to put new con rod bearings in Golf GTI engines and the 0.9>1.3 was terrible for rattling rods, the thing was that they were so much cheaper and faster to fix, I could do a Passat head gasket in a day including going to the engineers, going back to work and waiting back, going back to collect and rebuilding and out the door by end of play, now it's three days work if you are lucky and the cost can write off a 6 year old car. Much of the trouble is due to emissions regulations, these have made oil not what it once was, no matter what BS the oil manufacturers give us, it is why most engines have now moved over to roller follower cams as flat tappet cams are a liability. We literally nag our customers into 9300 mile oil changes and for us to see this con rod failure on a customers car is unheard of. At 100K miles we do recommend the BXE engines have their rod bearings replaced, not many people do but we still don't see any failures, as I have said on here we have NEVER seen this failure on any engine, just heard about it.... a lot!

Enjoy your 1.9 while you can.
Anything you will get next because you will have to apply for emission standarts of EURO 5 or greater will hit your pocket harder.

If you buy a diesel and want to avoid the low emissions zones coming soon all over Europe then it will have to be EU6, petrol engined cars are OK from EU4.

Hi sorry to drag up an old thread but I have a bxe engine 2007 1.9tdi on 68000 miles, I'm scared of the dreaded con rod out the side of the block issue and want to do what I can to prevent it. Are the new bearings from vw modified to prevent this happening?
Any advice appreciated, thanks
Regards

Never apologise , it's as important and still current as the 2.0 tdi oil pump drive debacle .

Hi mate, yeh I've seen a few but I'm just wondering whether to replace my bearings with vw genuine ones ? They seem to have a superceded part number for the upper bearings so do you know if they are modified to over come the issues of them wearing out so quickly and popping a rod? Thanks ��

I think they have , but Crash Bang Wallop will confirm .

No, the problem is and was the ridiculous long life oil change intervals combined with the low emissions oil; use long life 3 every 9000 miles and change the bearings at 100k miles and there is no problem.

I think I'm going to replace the bearings and bolts now, use the longlife oil as suggested every 9k then forgot about it, I've just brought the car so can't confirm what oil has been used, it has service history but from not dealer, do I use the bolts from tps specified for this vehicle?
Are there any known failures after the bearings are replaced?
Thanks for the replies ��

Yes, use the bolts TPS supply according to your VIN. I know Gaz incredulous when I say it but I have actually never personally experienced this failure on a customers car with or without new bearings but quite often we get asked to change them preventively and the upper shell is always heavily worn as in my picture earlier in this thread.

Hi guys so I've got the bearings from tps, does it matter which way the sputter top bearings face as there's a black line on the one end, not sure if this meant anything? So I've found that the 701 B bearings are the top sputter ones and the 701 C are the bottom ones

I have never used genuine bearings on these as I think they are too expensive but Glyco bearings go in either way.

Do I need to make any crankshaft measurements or do people just fit the standard spec bearings ? I know I have brought the tps ones now and was just going to fit them ,The car has only
done 68k so hopefully minimal crank wear
Thanks

Just get on with it!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mystic 8v

Do I need to make any crankshaft measurements or do people just fit the standard spec bearings ? I know I have brought the tps ones now and was just going to fit them ,The car has only
done 68k so hopefully minimal crank wear
Thanks

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Just make sure the rod surfaces are BONE DRY before fitting the shell bearings then lube afterwards before reassembly. Best done off engine as in situ it is very difficult to ensure the shells are fitted dry into the rods. I did that once in my youth but never again as the poor Corsa had its crank chewed as the new shells got a tiny bit of oil in behind them and they had a dance around the crankshaft as a result!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DMitch16

they had a dance around the crankshaft as a result!

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You spin me right round baby right round...:burnout:

Hi guys, replaced my big end bearings with genuine ones and also replaced the bolts at the same time, surprisingly the shells were showing very little wear even the uppers, they didn't have any signs of brass coloured material or much wear, they were still the older part number so replaced anyway this was at 68k
Filled with quantum longlife 3 and will keep to fixed service intervals
Thanks for all the advice

I’ve changed about 10 bxe engines this year. Interestingly I’ve only just seen my first 09 failure in a Passat estate. The rest are all 07/08 and never bkc engines ( found roughly in 05/06 cars) Mileage in the engine failures I’ve seen vary from 85k to 130k and some with a full history and some with no history.

The bxe comes in all the vag range and fail in seat alteas all the way through to the vw touran. The touran used the bxe up to 2010 where the golf seems to have got rid of it late 08 early 09

It is longlife servicing that is to blame, change the oil every 9300 miles, replace the bearings at 100k and they don’t fail, of our customers I have never seen a single failure.

Most with the BXE are reluctant to change the bearings as the engines second hand are so cheap. Most leave it to chance and stick to the service. Different story with the BLS engine though. Very rare I see a BXF. Maybe once in 4 years and it had failed.

Jon44w have you had any bxe engines fail that have had Conrod bearings and bolts replaced previously? Are the bearings bad in the bxe engine failures you see? Ive replaced my bearings and bolts with the latest genuine parts but there wasn't much wear on any of the bearings on the top or the bottom, the bearing part number had changed from an A which I had and the new ones were B for the top bearing though, my old bearings didn't look like all the ones posted that show the top ones a bronze colour, they were pretty good

If it has some miles on it I would say it has either been exceptionally well maintained with 5K oil changes or the bearings have already been done. Every car I have done them on has had worn uppers. I have myself never seen the failure anyway either done or not.

I don’t pay much attention to the bearings on the scrap engine but I will have a look the next time and post on here.

I doubt they have been replaced as there is no sign in the service book or receipts of any of the cars ever having it done. That I do check.

The reason crasher has never seen a failed engine is because his customers are replacing their bearings. A job which he has done many times and I haven’t. It can’t be a coincidence then that I have then replaced engines many times and he hasn’t.

Apoligise to bump this post

What sort of labour time am I looking at for these to be replaced? I sold my 2017 Leon for a 2008 1.9tdi not knowing this issue, I don't drive often so a cheap run around! (when I do drive it's usually 30 miles ish distance)
Only to find out about this issue, it's got 89k miles, full service history every 10k miles, but I have no idea what oil was used!
My mechanical skills are no where near on par with this, I can do brakes at best!
UK based

Edit:
Called my local 'go to' garage, they've never heard of this issue, so said they'd get back to me once they've looked it up (no vw specialist for approx 60 miles)

Do you mean the labour time to change the bearings or to replace an engine? The bxe can go for 250k no problems if serviced every 9k with 5w/30. Saying that though I’ve seen some fail with a full proper history. Good job you didn’t go for the 08 BLS engine as you’d have no end of problems with it doing short drives and it’s throws the rod too and costs lots more than the bxe.

Hi, yes I mean for the labour to change the bearings, not the engine 😂

I know someone with one on over 300k who has never had them done, but trust me, I'm cursed, if it can fail it will. Everything Ive ever owned cars, computers, phones, animals, something goes seriously wrong.

I do long runs mainly, but only about once every 2 weeks for about 60 mile round trip. And then drive about once a week about 3 mile round trip to my grandfather's

Edit:
My local fast food delivery driver had a mk6 1.6tdi which gave her loads of problems, she's now got the '58'(2008) 1.9tdi mk5 bls engine, last year she done 35k, no problems whatsoever, it's on nearly 200k! And as you can imagen that's mainly short runs

I’m not sure on the labour or cost of the bearing change - crasher would know better - because I only get to see them when somethings gone wrong and that normally means the rods out of the block. Most people I know are reluctant to even service their cars let alone anything further!

You can pick a good second hand engine up or a better but older bkc version for around £250. Then a day and a half to fit it with oil and coolant ( t/belt or clutch and whatever else you want as it’s easy at that stage) id be interested to see how that stacks up money wise to a 100k mile bearing service.

Keep in mind too there is nothing wrong with you car at this stage and I’m increasingly seeing 08 golfs (assuming it is a golf you have) with horrible rust just under the doors. Along with leaky shocks, seized rear callipers, rusty front arches, turbo veins stuck, flywheels ratting and oil leaks galore. The money soon build up to the point it’s not worth it. Again you need to balance this up too.

So out of interest, what sort of price is it to change the engine if bought?

It is a golf!
There's no rust viable on sills or underneath on main body, arches ect. Shocks appeared fine, recent new brakes with calipers all around, no oil leaks. I have no idea how to check the other stuff! Also had timing belt last year! I was always told growing up, ignore millage just service it every year or 10k miles, look after the engine and it will look after you! I sold my 2017 Leon as I do like 3k miles a year tops! So it was devaluing so fast I got fed up of losing so much money

Your car sounds like a well looked after clean Golf. Engine change cost is dependant or your mechanics labour rate which roughly would be 12 hours. Some mechanics won’t do it though as a second hand engines can give problems too like crank seals and they won’t take on the hassle. So that’s a benefit to getting the bearing change done. Hopefully crasher will give us some numbers on that.

Im hoping it's been looked after, although it's just a 'cheap run around' to me, I wanted a mk5 about 5 years ago when I had a polo gti 2007, and it's like I'm a '20 Yr old' again getting the car I wanted! And I don't want to spend any money for the next few years if I can help it, saving for a house!

A vw specilist I contacted who lives local ish, wouldn't give me a price but said 'it's more than the cars worth', I took that as he didn't want to do it, hense no price! And I actually expected engine change to be more than 12 hours! My local go to garage is £35 a hour +vat

£35 + VAT an hour! FFS, I hope he has low overheads and cheap living! Changing the bearings takes about three hours. We use aftermarket bearings by KS, Mahle or Glyco, the price of genuine VAG bearings is silly but we do use genuine bolts and sump sealant. When dropping the oil, if you suspect the sump thread is a bit ropey, get a new sump… aftermarket from Febi are cheap and perfect.

Brilliant thank you! I know the sort of amount I should expect to pay now, as Labour isn't to long!
Im still trying to find someone to do it, all my local garages have either said its gotta go engine referb company, or have said it will cost more than cars worth, and I've said I'd still like a price they won't give me one, implying then don't want to do it/don't know how!

I think that confirms it’s better to do the bearing change rather than roll the dice on the engine holding out.

I am surprised at the attitude of the garages you have approached, it is a job I could quite literally do blindfolded if I had to, mind that would make putting the sump goo on a pretty messy job!

I’m not surprised at anything garages come out with 😂 Most think they know everything and know very little. The most common one is the garages who haven’t a clue about doing a torsion setting after a timing belt change.

Yes, a lot of garages do give the rest of us a bad name, I feel the time to be a general garage has passed and each of us has to specialise.