boomstriker
Member
I'm new to the forum and though I've owned only one vw lately, I've worked on them and most brands for many years. I own a small 'Specialty Automotive' shop west of St. Louis where I do mostly larger, more complicated repairs on the more sophisticated nameplates. Even as a younger guy, I was very intrigued by the latest technology coming from the exotic euro badges, but I was never of a fan of how they implimented it into production vehicles from a service standpoint. Fastforward 30 years to today and I've watched the euros (epecially VW/Audi) turn into over-engineered, over-priced, under-built, snap-together pieces of plastic crap, but this latest takes the cake.
Over the weekend I got a desperate call from a longtime vw customer who's 05 Passat left him and his family sitting on the freeway with no oil pressure while on vacation in Florida. I've maintained all of his 5 or more different TDIs over the years so he trusted to ask me if he was being scammed when the dealer said his still running car had a broken timing chain and needed a new engine and turbo for a mere $10,000!!! After some more details and a little research I knew what happened. He was comming home early with his family stuffed in a U-haul truck and the Passat in tow when I called him with the bad news using all the typical new German car terminology - "common problem", "yes, it is made of plastic", "they don't sell that part by itself", "you have to buy the whole assembly", "parts are outrageous" "special tools and procedures", blah blah blah.
Thank you to all who posted info on the issues with the chain design and the gear drive upgrade, but I have some questions.
The dealer says they don't know of a problem with the chain drive (lol) yet they made a gear drive for other models?
They said the crank gear isn't meant to be removed and was only available with a new crank- $1600???
They said the chain was no longer available by itself, only with the balancer assembly- $1500??? ***!
If he opts to go with the gear drive, does the balancer assembly come w/oil pump and a beefier hex drive or is that going to be the next failure??
Since a chain/sprocket/tensioner set will fix this one, is there a heavyduty aftermarket chain set available???
I expected to find a broken tensioner or seized balance shaft that took out the chain, but after tear down it was obvious. While they quadrupled the speed and added many more lbs. of rototating counter-mass to the original ALH chain design, they didn't make the chain any heavier. This isn't a metallurgy problem nor a defective batch problem, it's an engineering blunder that will doom any with higher miles or lots of idle time -when the crank speed varies the greatest during rotation causing constant slapping impact to the chain.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks!!
Over the weekend I got a desperate call from a longtime vw customer who's 05 Passat left him and his family sitting on the freeway with no oil pressure while on vacation in Florida. I've maintained all of his 5 or more different TDIs over the years so he trusted to ask me if he was being scammed when the dealer said his still running car had a broken timing chain and needed a new engine and turbo for a mere $10,000!!! After some more details and a little research I knew what happened. He was comming home early with his family stuffed in a U-haul truck and the Passat in tow when I called him with the bad news using all the typical new German car terminology - "common problem", "yes, it is made of plastic", "they don't sell that part by itself", "you have to buy the whole assembly", "parts are outrageous" "special tools and procedures", blah blah blah.
Thank you to all who posted info on the issues with the chain design and the gear drive upgrade, but I have some questions.
The dealer says they don't know of a problem with the chain drive (lol) yet they made a gear drive for other models?
They said the crank gear isn't meant to be removed and was only available with a new crank- $1600???
They said the chain was no longer available by itself, only with the balancer assembly- $1500??? ***!
If he opts to go with the gear drive, does the balancer assembly come w/oil pump and a beefier hex drive or is that going to be the next failure??
Since a chain/sprocket/tensioner set will fix this one, is there a heavyduty aftermarket chain set available???
I expected to find a broken tensioner or seized balance shaft that took out the chain, but after tear down it was obvious. While they quadrupled the speed and added many more lbs. of rototating counter-mass to the original ALH chain design, they didn't make the chain any heavier. This isn't a metallurgy problem nor a defective batch problem, it's an engineering blunder that will doom any with higher miles or lots of idle time -when the crank speed varies the greatest during rotation causing constant slapping impact to the chain.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks!!