Passat 1.9tdi se losing oil

[Carolina]

Hello ,im a newbie here hoping for answers.
My 1999 Passat 1.9tdi began losing coolant...took it to garage.. they replaced coolant but couldn't find leak...
I tracked it down to Rad...so replaced Rad, what a job!
Everything seemed fine on a long 2 hr journey no loss of coolant....only noticed a brown sludge ...have been on 60 mile journeys since ...now oil is appearing in the expansion tank its dark grey goin on black ....and engine oil needs toppin up.
The temp gauge reads normal at 90 degrees.
There is no difference in performance ...still gets to 65mph at 2200rpm approx
Have noticed on this forum that Headgasket is nearly always diagnosed as problem...and also the Oil cooler is mentioned...
Can anyone

[zollaf]

could be the oil cooler. best bet is to remove it and pressure test it. this can be carried out by an engine builder, where they will pressurise the oil side of it and see if the pressure leaks into the coolant side. if it does leak, youve found your problem. if it doesnt leak then your head gasket has probably gone, but test the cooler first.

[millinb]

Will be the oil cooler, just been replacing mine and I had the same symptoms as you have said.
It has been the most awful messy job I’ve ever done and I’m not quite finished yet, cleaning the coolant system has taken a very long time and now on the 5 flush and still pulling out oil

[Carolina]

Many thanks to all the oil cooler suggestions...however took the car to a garage ...and mechanic checked with VW ...and they never heard of such a problem concerning oil cooler ...which left the only option of headgasket...the mechanic worked on the car all last week...i went to the garage on Sat and was then informed all was well and i could pick car up on Mon afternoon.....only to find out on Mon that the car was in bits ...Mechanic said they had the car running well the day before ...but now something slipped and now he has to replace the valves...as well as gasket again....What next? How can this happen?

[kenney]

(quote)and mechanic checked with VW ...and they never heard of such a problem concerning oil cooler).That is a load of bull,this is a well known issue.Not only that, but compared to replacing the head gasket,(which i don't think it is),replacing the oil cooler is a lot cheaper job.

[millinb]

I agree with Kenney, my 1999 TDi did the same as yours coolant leak from the rad fixed that and then after 300 miles I notice a bit of oil appearing in the expansion tank brownish to start. This required the oil to be topped up but on going to collect a part the cooler gave up and the expansion tank filled with oil to the top. On removing the thermostat the coolant system was completely filled with oil. The oil cooler cost £108.00 to buy plus a number of hours flushing the system tiring to clear the oil. Was told by Peter Cooper my local VW dealer that it was common for these to go.

[macquatic]

...Mechanic said they had the car running well the day before ...but now something slipped and now he has to replace the valves...as well as gasket again....What next? How can this happen?

Looks like the timing belt was not fitted correctly.........jumped a tooth or few, pistons and valves out of sync.........result, bent valves. The head will need to come off again to replace the valves and a new head gasket must be used.

If this is the case, I would expect the garage to foot the bill. Mac

[Carolina]

Another week has passed and answers to questions are getting a little bit technical...
However I picked up the car on Sat....the mechanic informed me that when the cylinder head had been skimmed the engineers failed to measure...consequently skimmed to much off...He said they should have checked the measurements ...this altered the clearance for the pistons which resulted in the timing going out and the valves blowing ...he said it was a nightmare ...he ordered a new gasket and full set of valves ....the engineers had to replace cylinder head ....and now all seems well with the engine ...The mechanic asked me to bring car back so he can flush remaining oil in the cooling system in two weeks at no extra charge...I DID POINT OUT TO HIM MY CONCERNS ABOUT THE OIL COOLER...but yet he has been consulting VW and suggests that my car has been correctly diagnosed.
One more thing that might be important to VW owners is that ,the mechanic strongly suspected that the head might have been skimmed in the past more than once.
Also the fact is as he says... the head can only be skimmed a max of three times.
Hope this is the end of the matter.
Many thanks to all who contributed replies ...you made me feel like i wasn't alone in this....

[yorky19640]

Had a similiar problem with my Passat sometiime ago. Turned out only to be oil cooler, not a big job at all. Head Gaskets very rarely go on the TDI so would definately try oil cooler. My garage asured me it was head gasket, but they were wrong. My symptoms were oil in the expansion tank but no oil in the sump or on the end of the dipstick. If you do the oil cooler you will find you need to flush the cooling system a few times to remove all the oil deposits. When it was all gone I also replaced the expansion tank as the oil had badly discoloured tank. Its a very common fault on these.