[2.0 TDI] How to know if your cylinder head will Crack (if it hasnt yet)?

amgad

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Basically, there are 3 references for the cylinder heads on your 2.0 Tdi BKD engine.

Open the hood, remove the engin cover, and to the rightof the cylinder head, under the metalic fuel lines, you will see a references written upside down, with a letter at the end. Over in another forum, a survey was made with the following results.

03G 103 308 A years 2003 to 2005.55 allmost all cracked
03G 103 308 B
years 2005.5 to 2006.6 only a few cracked
03G 103 308 C years 2006.5 to 2007.5 none cracked cracked

This means that for those of you who have had theirs replaced, or even with a new car, check out the letter on your reference for peace of mind.

Hope this helps
 
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Cheers mate, that is very helpfull and is consistant with the problems I have seen others post on this forum.

Annoyingly, they do tend to take some time to crack which often extends beyond the warranty period!
 
Basically, there are 3 references for the cylinder heads on your 2.0 Tdi BKD engine.

Open the hood, remove the engin cover, and to the left of the cylinder head, under the metalic fuel lines...

Sorry small mistake there, its to the RIGHT side of the cylinder head that you can find the reference written.
 
would be worth it, best piece of info i have found about my care, sure sleep well now.
 
so are you saying that 56 plates never cracked? if so, your wrong coz mine did!!!
 
Your car has 56 plates? wow, where do you fit them.? Just joking,

How about a year of production as a measure of time.
 
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As already stated, this should be made a sticky as very useful info for us diesel people.
 
for the enginely immature people what does this mean?

Every engine has a code. The engine code for the PD140 engine is BKD. The PD140 ( BKD ) engine soon got a bad reputation for the head cracking and or head gasket seal leaking. The earlier models where worst as the list above shows. The list is only a ruff guide though from people responces as i have known of 2007 BKD engines having head gasket issues. Hope this helps.
 
is there anyway of stopping it or is it inevitable? or should i get them changed how much etc? just bought a:
55 plate sline 2.0 tdi DSG sportback
 
is there anyway of stopping it or is it inevitable? or should i get them changed how much etc? just bought a:
55 plate sline 2.0 tdi DSG sportback

This info is not about the head gasket, its about the cylinder head itself.

There is nothing you can do to prevent the head cylinder from cracking if it is going to crack, check your reference and you might be lucky. in spain, the head replacement is around 2500€, in UK at your hourly labour cost, probably more expensive.
 
Just out of curiousity, what is it that actually causes them to crack?

Poor manufacturing? Poor materials used?

Wall thickness or rather, "thiness". Audi had to redesign the structure of the head and reinforce a few areas. Sound like the origin of the resto of the problems Audi has COST CUTBACK.

So eager to make a cheap producing car and sell it with a premium name and price tag. Other recurring problems in spain at least are,

- DMF cheap and feable, when sachs has high torque ones, replacement is 1200 € and they fail over and over.
- Electronic fan control goes south, fans dont stop, killing the batter 600€
- Turbos, although this is not as bad as the cylinder head.
 
Guys i have the question, if the cylinder head cracks what can happen? How does this effec manifests?
 
Hmmm, now you got me shitting myself

Mines a 55Reg BKD, i'll see what code i have after work

What are sysmtoms of the cylinder head cracking?
 
And in adition what can we do if we habe the cylinder head cracked. How can they be repaied?

Mnay thanks.
 
Symptoms are: constant low coolant level, basically the coolant leaks into one of the cylinders and gets evaporated upon combustion. Eventually all coolant will disappear.

Another symptoms is hard starting with lots of white smoke from exhaust during morning start ups and cold... this is due to coolant in cylinder.

Final most noticable, is one cylinder locking up due to too much coolant.

Only fix, is to replace cylinder head with a new one, C referenced.

Hope this helps
 
My car doesn't loose any coolant BUT in the morning it start pretty hard, i need to hold the key at the contact position for about 2sec, after that the car start normal. Can this be the cause?

Another thing how ca i determine for certain that the cylinder head is cracked?

Does anyone have an ideea of the price for a new one?
 
Hmmmmm, is there a way of checking whether it has been replaced or not?
 
My cylinder head is being replaced now under an extended Audi warranty.
Sent car in for a routine service (70k) and asked them to check out excessive smoke under load / acceleration.
No coolant loss but thinking back there has recently been a small amount of white smoke when cold starting, but not lots of white smoke.
Audi now have a list of checks to be carried that will eliminate various other possibilities.
Only then will they remove the cylinder head and send that away for testing.
Car is 2005 - "05" plate.
 
Every engine has a code. The engine code for the PD140 engine is BKD. The PD140 ( BKD ) engine soon got a bad reputation for the head cracking and or head gasket seal leaking. The earlier models where worst as the list above shows. The list is only a ruff guide though from people responces as i have known of 2007 BKD engines having head gasket issues. Hope this helps.
Hi,i have one of this famous engines PD140 or BKD...engines that do things very niçe but have this Aquiles `Heel of the heads cracked in a unusual number.My is from 2007,March and have a 03 103 308 G R and in last November 2009 with just 85.000kms start to over heating.Head out at the plaçe i buy the car new and it was not cracked but the headgasket burn,I read very few here on cyberspace about the heads that dont crack but burn the gasket,and was this my case.Theres lots of material abiut cracked heads but for the ones of 2007 and newer that burn headgasket,very little.Can you help me if was just bad luck or there are more like me has you say in your post.By the way,the warranty pay the repair but i am a bit concern about next...if next 80 kms i get the some f*** problem..thanks for your time.
 
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Hmmm, mines a B and it's using oil and water like it's going out of fashion!! but nobodys mentioned anything about oil usage??, just water usage??
 
Just checked mine and its a C :? its a 2004 model and I have no service history record of a head swap.
 
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how do you get the cover off ? lol mine dise spit black sh*t out every now and then is this normal?
 
took the 10mm nut off but cant get it off??????? dont just wanna rag it off
 
you have to! I know its unnerving the first time, but just pull it gently on the three corners (excluding the top left!) and then slide it off the rubber bung on the top left (by pulling it towards you 20mm ish), you'll need to put that nut back on!

to put it back on, just slide the topleft on as it came off and just align with the 3 black torx head screws that are sticking out with the rubber bungs on the underside of the cover.. and press down till they pop in.

The plastic is stronger than you think!!
 
As Jonay says - yank it up vertically holding the front and right hand side ! It WILL pop off.

Then pull towards the front to slide off the bit that you have taken the nut off !

If necessary have a couple of pints first to pluck up courage :beerchug:

Don't worry - you will NOT break it. :happy:
 
cheers i broke the one on my 206 hdi gti (but it was french ) ill have a crack at it tomorrow hope i dont have the one that ends with the letter A
 
guys,

im thinking of buying a march 2008 with this engine,

being this new, will it have the 'C' (no worries) head..?

cheers

Garry
 
guys,

im thinking of buying a march 2008 with this engine,

being this new, will it have the 'C' (no worries) head..?

cheers

Garry