Nightmare!

[Tom.S92]

Took the car in for a service, oil pick up change and cam follower change today to future proof it and put my mind at ease of any common faults occuring. Feeling positive and exctied to pick the car up again this evening with all the above completed I get a phone call from my local garage with some hefty news .

While the mechanic had the sump off to fit the new pick up pipe he noticed it was full of swarf and debris and that the belt or chain (can't remember exactly what he said) that runs the oil pump had completely worn. The pulleys/cogs that operate it had more or less worn down to nothing and the belt was more or less just falpping around serving near to no purpose at all. He said it's the worst he's seen and it's a miracle how the engine hasn't been starved of oil and packed in. The current pick up pipe was full of the metal shards and has hopefully caught most of them before they could circulate around the engine and the oil pump itself has worn because of it all.

All in all £1500 for the parts and god knows how many hours of labour on top. Luckily I only bought the car from Evans Halshaw 2 months ago so I have a case to argue that it's their responsibility. On top of that I don't know if any of you remember a post a created when I first got the car about a knocking noise and engine light I had on which Evans Halshaw determined was due to a faulty cam sensor? It turns out this was the knocking noise all along meaning the fault has clearly been sold with the car.

Time for days of back and forth with Evans Halshaw trying to get this all resolved now. Only problem is I live 1 1/2 hours from the nearest E.Halshaw garage and apparently they don't offer a pick up service ... ha.

Absolute nightmare

 

[Tom.S92]

Wear on oil pump:

Debris in sump:

Other half of one of the cogs and the wear on it:

Mechanic has said if it was his car he'd be after a refund due to the shards of metal circulating the engine now causing premature wear on all components.

Absolutley gutted

 

[WesternFreight]

Wow that's bad news personally wouldn't want that engine in my car now dude would be looking for a reconditioned one, seems you can pick one up for a little less than the 1500 you been priced for parts, that's fully recon with uprated oil pump new timing belt etc, or the money back

 

[Tom.S92]

Wow that's bad news personally wouldn't want that engine in my car now dude would be looking for a reconditioned one, seems you can pick one up for a little less than the 1500 you been priced for parts, that's fully recon with uprated oil pump new timing belt etc, or the money back

Doubt the dealership would do a reconditioned engine would they?

 

[Charlie Farley]

you'd pay more than £1500 for a recon BUL engine, and very few sources for a decent recon one aswell, still available new from audi in various forms from full to short motor but you'll need a deep pocket as they are thousands...

 

[Charlie Farley]

Took the car in for a service, oil pick up change and cam follower change today to future proof it and put my mind at ease of any common faults occuring. Feeling positive and exctied to pick the car up again this evening with all the above completed I get a phone call from my local garage with some hefty news .

While the mechanic had the sump off to fit the new pick up pipe he noticed it was full of swarf and debris and that the belt or chain (can't remember exactly what he said) that runs the oil pump had completely worn. The pulleys/cogs that operate it had more or less worn down to nothing and the belt was more or less just falpping around serving near to no purpose at all. He said it's the worst he's seen and it's a miracle how the engine hasn't been starved of oil and packed in. The current pick up pipe was full of the metal shards and has hopefully caught most of them before they could circulate around the engine and the oil pump itself has worn because of it all.

All in all £1500 for the parts and god knows how many hours of labour on top. Luckily I only bought the car from Evans Halshaw 2 months ago so I have a case to argue that it's their responsibility. On top of that I don't know if any of you remember a post a created when I first got the car about a knocking noise and engine light I had on which Evans Halshaw determined was due to a faulty cam sensor? It turns out this was the knocking noise all along meaning the fault has clearly been sold with the car.

Time for days of back and forth with Evans Halshaw trying to get this all resolved now. Only problem is I live 1 1/2 hours from the nearest E.Halshaw garage and apparently they don't offer a pick up service ... ha.

Absolute nightmare

you'll need to be a bit carefull now as the garage you bought it from may try and wrangle out of any warranty payout, they will try the " you should have let us do the work" clause .
it happens a lot, owners have issues and go to get it sorted then the garage you bought it from says sorry you should have notifed us and brought it back for us to fix first and then your left to foot the bill, hope it doesn't happen to you tom , but be prepared just in case.

 

[carlcall]

I want to know how you drove it there with the gear snapped in half.....

 

[Tom.S92]

you'll need to be a bit carefull now as the garage you bought it from may try and wrangle out of any warranty payout, they will try the " you should have let us do the work" clause .
it happens a lot, owners have issues and go to get it sorted then the garage you bought it from says sorry you should have notifed us and brought it back for us to fix first and then your left to foot the bill, hope it doesn't happen to you tom , but be prepared just in case.

No work was carried out. Mechanic literally just took the sump off and was met with this.

I want to know how you drove it there with the gear snapped in half.....

I've been driving it like this for 2 months and it's been like this for longer they reckon

 

[Charlie Farley]

the problem you have is that the car was running albeit not perfectly, a third party has opened up the engine and found this issue, but the clause that gets used a lot is that it was a "pre - existing condition" so it was already like that before they took it in and sold it to you, and not an engine failure even thought its a bad case of parts wear and tear.
99.9% of used car warranties wont cover pre -existing conditions ...., make sure you stick to guns and you'll get it sorted , good luck
I had it with my avant within the first year first time with the turbo and then the power steering rack, I had to get a bit stroppy with audi and state a few facts , they agreed to the fix afterwards.

 

[Tom.S92]

the problem you have is that the car was running albeit not perfectly, a third party has opened up the engine and found this issue, but the clause that gets used a lot is that it was a "pre - existing condition" so it was already like that before they took it in and sold it to you, and not an engine failure even thought its a bad case of parts wear and tear.
99.9% of used car warranties wont cover pre -existing conditions ...., make sure you stick to guns and you'll get it sorted , good luck
I had it with my avant within the first year first time with the turbo and then the power steering rack, I had to get a bit stroppy with audi and state a few facts , they agreed to the fix afterwards.

I'm arguing they've sold the car to me with the fault already there as I've been complaining about the knocking noise it's been giving off literally from day one. But they fobbed me off saying it was a cam sensor. Don't expect it to be easy but I'm not going to stop at them regardless. Thanks for the help.

The only thing I'm left wondering now is. If all goes well with Evans Halshaw, do I take a repair and flush the engine and move on or just call it quits and say goodbye Audi?

 

[Charlie Farley]

how much do you like the car chap, if it was me i'd stick with it , I've had way more issues than most and that you can shake a very big stick at and still have it, when the problems have been sorted its a brill car.....but your descision at the end of the day.

 

[Tom.S92]

how much do you like the car chap, if it was me i'd stick with it , I've had way more issues than most and that you can shake a very big stick at and still have it, when the problems have been sorted its a brill car.....but your descision at the end of the day.

I love the car more than any other I've had. Been looking on ebay at others and just can't find anything I like to replace it. It looks, drives and sounds great and is excellent quality (apart from this rather serious fault haha) compred to most other cars. In my price bracket and for my age I think it's definitley the best in it's class BUT i'm always then left with the worry of the metal flying around the engine and other possible issues which may arrise from it. Tough one.

 

[Charlie Farley]

sound very much like myself chap, I could have parted company with my old bus a long time ago, but at the end of the day it ticks all the boxes for me, it's not new and most certainly is not the cheapest car to run but then if you like a car a lot and it does what you want then the answer is obvious.
I have looked at new ones for ages and as nice and trick they may be , they just don't look as good as by old B7 avant, I've said it a few times before on hear chap, in my opinion the B7 a4's are the best looking to date and moreso in avant format for me.
I look at this way, I wanted an estate car that looked good and not just like most other boring estate cars, also one that went like a proper performance car with a decent interior, my avant ticks all of them.

 

[Tom.S92]

Will have to think this one over for some time, I know what I want to do but that's not always benefitted me in the past . Thanks for the help once again.

 

[Tom.S92]

Said goodbye to the car on Saturday. Got it recovered back to the dealership.

Phoned them today and have been told it needs a new engine, bent valves etc. Getting a full refund in the next few days. Sad to say but it's goodbye to you all and thank's for all the help during my short 2 month stay.

 

[DieselJake]

Sorry to hear about this.

Looks nice even on the tow truck, what a **** take, hope it all works out for you.

 

[Charlie Farley]

sorry to hear it's terminal engine failure Tom, good luck with whatever you choose to replace it with now.

rob

 

[Charlie Farley]

Its a sad situation frankly when this happens but its becoming an all to common occurrence now with a lot of A4 B7's just hope mine doesn't go bang just yet.

 

[Sturat]

Are you contemplating doing the work yourself or are you going to get a garage to do it?
If you can't get any joy out of Evans halshaw and want to have a go yourself, you could do a balance shaft delete. That involves removing the balance shaft oil pump and replacing it with an oil pump from a different model that has no balance shafts, replacing the cog which is knacked with a different size, tapping and plugging a hole which allows oil to enter the balance shafts and adding an oil pan. The advantage of this is that the new oil pump is only pumping oil and not moving large pieces of metal to counteract the piston movement, therefore is very very unlikely to fail in the future. Plus it is much cheaper than buying an upgraded balance shaft pump unit.
It all sounds daunting but I managed to do it on my blb engine and I'm not a mechanic.
If you are interested I could dig up some part numbers and send you some pics.

 

[Tom.S92]

Are you contemplating doing the work yourself or are you going to get a garage to do it?
If you can't get any joy out of Evans halshaw and want to have a go yourself, you could do a balance shaft delete. That involves removing the balance shaft oil pump and replacing it with an oil pump from a different model that has no balance shafts, replacing the cog which is knacked with a different size, tapping and plugging a hole which allows oil to enter the balance shafts and adding an oil pan. The advantage of this is that the new oil pump is only pumping oil and not moving large pieces of metal to counteract the piston movement, therefore is very very unlikely to fail in the future. Plus it is much cheaper than buying an upgraded balance shaft pump unit.
It all sounds daunting but I managed to do it on my blb engine and I'm not a mechanic.
If you are interested I could dig up some part numbers and send you some pics.

Thanks for the info but the car went back to the garage and they refunded me. Appreciate the help.