Alltrack World

Known as Juliette in our house. Driven sparingly to airport for commute, and in summer. Only have 55k miles on her now.

About 2004 I started getting oil pressure warnings at idle, Ambient temp >80F, after hard run, and in second half of oil life. I was running Castrol 10W-40 at time.

Blip of throttle would turn off oil light/alarm.

Since I didn't use the car that much I lived with it, and avoided driving at >80F temps (easy in upstate NY at cottage)

In 2010 (?)

Took to VW for diagnosis and the verdict was sludge/oil pump wear and a quote of 900 USD to drop pan, desludge, replace oil pump.

I switched to syntetic Castrol, and desludged with the Bell Engineering Product desludger. Im changing oil once a year at about 4500-5000 miles - not getting any worse and not getting alarm.

Someday Ill find time to pay myself and drop the pan, clean and replace the oil pump.

The specification is for 5-30W not 10-40 oil. and for the turbo you need the car to run for a full minute 'after' use before it is shut off... to cool down the turbo by circulating oil at idle.

Even though you don't drive the car a lot, the oil still needs yearly changing, because of condensation in the engine and oil contamination by the sweat inside the engine. A car with 55k would not usually have bad oil pump or sludge, unless it hasn't had an oil change in a few years. Which probably isn't the case. The dealer's tend to not be 'reliable' places to take cars if you don't know about mechanical things. (sad to say)

Always a good idea to get a engine good and hot then after a cool down (not too long) before change the oil...

I have a 2001 with 26k and have no sludge problem, I've always cooled down the turbo and used Castrol Edge Synthetic Oil in it.


These are the Audi specs but VW just the same...

http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/529/Audi_A ... _Chart.pdf

My 1.8T has a after-run coolant pump that circulates coolant on shutdown, but my last mile home is a nice 30 mph non-boost road that takes care of the that issue nicely.

I do change the oil annually on this car., though. VW changed the oil recommendation to synthetic according to my dealer - I moved all my cars to synthetic

Im not too worried about it in terms of longevity - right now Im just careful in hot weather and long runs, but eventually I will replace the oil pump as it isn't too expensive, and the labor is therapeutic in the spring summer fall.

Hi,
1.8T VAG's have always suffered with oil sludge issues especially on cars which do frequent short stop start journeys, or have been deprived of oil and filter changes.

As previous post mentioned it is vital to use 5W/30 in these engines. The 1.8T has a small volume of oil, only about 4L. The oil gets cooked by the turbo heat into coal like particles. This residue called sludge tends to plug up the oil pick up tube/screen.

You need to drop the sump and clean out any sludge.
Remove pick up tube which will be blocked with sludge/carbon, clean and reinstate. You can weld a wider diameter screen onto the pick up tube. Fit a larger volume filter.

I use Pro-tech engine flush during this process. Run the new oil / filter and flush for several miles and again drain and replace oil and filter. I recommend my customers renew oil and filter after 3,500 miles in these. Oil and filter change is cheap.

Regards,
Gary.

I dropped the sump and found very little sludge and the pickup looks unplugged

I'm going to replace the oil pump and clean up what little I found and go from there.

Pump and pickup arrived, 100 bucks in parts

Now to find the right sealer to use on the pan (no gasket)

I used Permatex oil resistant form a gasket - Ill post SKU

Pictures to come

This is a nasty, nasty job for one reason. There are two M6 pan screws that are interference and you need a ball end M6 hex driver to get these started, then you have to get a really low profile M6 socket onto them to torque them correctly.

The oil pump comes out when you relieve tension on the chain drive with finger, and 3 M6 bolts

The windage pan is secured by the inboard most oil pump screw - intuitive.

It took me 2 hours to install pump, pickup, set gasket cement, and torque pan and turbo return lines to spec, total.

Ill let it sit and load oil tomorrow.

Update

Juliette is freshly re-oiled and back on the road. No leaks from either the pan or turbo return line. I confess I didn't even renew the turbo line gasket as it is not under any pressure. Will monitor.

Another 900 USD + saved.

And now the oil pressure warning happens at 75F instead of 80F



I think this whole thing was a faulty oil pressure sensor that VW missed when I took it in. There is no way I have burned out the bottom end on this engine, and with no sludge and new oil pump, Im diagnosing by exclusion.

We live and learn.

Update - the oil pressure warning went away after a month, even in hot weather. I suspect the combination of pump and cleaning old sensor worked magic. Im still monitoring.