Low oil Pressure - STOP! Loss of power

[fat controller]

Yep, a 55 plate 2.0TDI 140 bhp.
Will check the engine code tomorrow, but knowing my luck, it won't be covered.

fat_controller, I love this car, and I assume you do to but if I were you, get shot of it asap, it's not worth the hassle. At 4 months, you should get close to your money back

I do love it, and so far (other than the noisy rear tyre issue) I can't fault it - it just worries me that I could end up with a hefty bill for a failed engine. I can't get rid, for no other reason than I have had to get a loan to buy it, and that loan is a FSA secured on the car itself.

[kunaalv]

Had to relay the vehicle to my local garage as dealership is too busy to even look at it.
My mechanic will be stripping the engine out tomorrow to see the extent of damage. If it's repairable at a reasonable cost, which oil pump can I put in to avoid this happening again? I understand that there's a re-designed oil pump released in 2007, will this fit into a 55 plate BKP engine?

[dilun]

Basicley all that gose wrong on the pump side is that it's driven off the balance shaft via a straight 6mm allenkey,the allenkey is harder than the socket in the pump and eventualy rounds out the pump.I thought after I'd paid to get mine repaired that if I could machine out the oil pump shaft and press and braze in a 6mm 6 point socket,really wish i'd given it a go but at the time I was stuck for a car.The main cost of the job though is the conversion to the balance shaft drive,they change it from chain drive to gear type,the kit is over £700.Hope some of this helps.

[the surfer]

I own a '55 reg. 2.0 TDI, so obviously this is something that concerns me.... Although *touch wood* my car is running sweet at 58k.

The knowledge I have of this issue is as Dilun explained (hex drive rounding off due to poor case hardening).

When I arranged to potentially book my car in at the dealer, the workshop manager said my car wasn't affected so it was a pointless exercise. He said some of the early gear-driven oil pumps are faulty, but the earlier chain type is OK. I'm not saying I believe this at all, but wondered as to why they would turn away an expensive job like this.

So, I've still not done anything to prevent this disaster waiting to happen. I'm in two minds: either keep driving care-free, hope it never happens, then if it does just get a low mileage, used replacement engine and turbo; or pay someone around £1500 to fix something that might never happen.

At the moment I'm leaning towards the first option. I can get a new engine and turbo fitted for free, excluding parts of course. I'm guessing this will be roughly the same price as paying someone to install the revised BS unit and oil pump?

If you look at used MY 05/06 Passats for sale on various websites there are plenty with 150k miles and more. There are approx. 70,000 Passats built within the *affected* range of dates, probably more than half of those with the BKP engine so it would be interesting to see failure rates. If it's considerable, which I expect it is, then this should really go to Watchdog or the like, although it'll more than likely never see the light of day.

This is a shamefully bad piece of engineering on VAG's part and completely unacceptable considering the potential consequences. Poor design and faulty manufacturing shouldn't have to be something the customers need to account for. We all know VW customer services is shockingly bad, though.

125k miles is pretty good going under the circumstances. If you look on the B7 A4 section on here (or elsewhere), there are numerous posts about the 2.0 TDI BLB engine suffering oil pump failure. The Audi A4 seems to have the exact same problem, just more frequently.

I will continue to maintain my car to a level exceeding VW's guidelines and keep my fingers crossed with regard to the oil pressure problems. If it happens, it happens. I'd rather get this fixed when/if it goes wrong than pay out a huge sum for something that might never happen. If I'm honest, though, it still worries me...

[DSG4ME]

As an indicator for you, the bloke I know who it happened to with a 56 Skoda had done around 80k when it went, and he's mid 50's and not a jockey.

[kunaalv]

Just an update, my engine has been stripped out and it's confirmed the balance shaft 'messed up' and was no longer turning the oil pump. Unfortunately, the price is the same, £700 + Vat + fitting. Looking at around 1K.

The_surfer, I would agree with you, you shouldn't replace it uneccesarily. It maynot even happen. Mine did, but at 125K.

The only bit that annoys me, is that 700 for the new unit, doesn't guarantee that this failure won't re-occur. VW Deisels are supposed to be bullet proof!

[aliaz]

hi guys im new to this,
my passat 55 plate says stop three times on the dash and says engine oil pressure off! and the oil symbol flashes in red with the message, its not coming up on the diagnostic machines ive encountered, i've been to many garages and they all come to different conclusions because its not showing and the car stopped pulling i cant go over 2 revs, the message only displays once the car is driven.
can you help shed some light please.
thanks . bil

[kunaalv]

My friend, I'm sorry to write this and I truly feel for you as I've had this very recently.
I'm assuming your engine is a 2005 - 2007 2.0 TDi passat.

- Stop driving your car, don't even drive it to your mechanic, this loss of pressure will result in no brakes after a few mins because you need vacuum power for brakes
- Get the mechanic to take of the balance shaft and oil pump, bottom end of your engine. They'll see the balance shaft no longer turns the oil pump.
- Bad news, it costs £800 brand new. I'm unsure if you can get a re-conditioned part for this, but please do say if you find one.
- Get a new turbo on their too, I've put a re-conditioned turbo from
www.turbocharger-solutions.co.uk
you'll need a £320 turbo + £10 gasket + £8 [some other part, they'll tell you], in total around £380 incl VAT.
- Replace the turbo as well as I didn't and after 120miles, it blew. This low oil pressure screws up your turbo.

Once again, sorry but your looking at a bill of around £1500 (using an indy mechanic), VW is much higher.