Con Rod Through Engine Block

lewyman633 said:

Well i had a used engine (same engine code BXE) with 30000 miles fitted 2 years ago and now this engine has blown after 80000.(serviced at regular interval with specified oil) My mechanic has taken top half of engine off and the cam shaft shells are showing signs of wear and the cams themselves have a lip on them. He said it is signs of oil starvation.
i've had a mechanic friend of mine looking online at engine design and he said what is happening is the oil pump is run by a chain that drives a hex key off one of the pulleys and these get rounded off over time causing the oil pump to fail

Does anyone know what/if any other engine codes will drop straight in to my car that will be compatible with my ECU ?

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A friend took his good BLS apart to check the big ends, and replace and fit new rod bolts in a vain attempt at preventative work.

Whilst there was some odd wear on the big end bearings, generally everything was in good condition with no obvious signs as to what may lead to a rod failure


more importantly, what actually failed on yours ? as the things you've listed are in no way related to the common rod out the side of the block failures

Hi,

I know I'm bumping an old thread here but I'm sure more people are going to come along as their mileage heads towards the 100k mark with this engine.

It appears that it was mostly 07/08 models that failed for some reason, independent of maintenance schedule and I was curious as to what the difference, if any, exists with these engines.

Something that was never mentioned before, or is apparently not well know, is that these engines came with three different pistons types from factory. They all varied slightly in diameter. The following are the part numbers, manufacturers and diameter of each of the 3 types of pistons (for cylinder 1+2 group). All this is relevant to the BLS engine also.

038107065LC ALCAN 79.45mm
038107065LG MAHLE 79.44mm
038107065LE Kolbenschmidt(KS) 79.48mm

My engine that failed had the 79.45 ALCAN piston and I also see (after searching ebay for a replacement 79.48mm piston for my replacement block) that the majority if not all of the pistons for sale in sets of 3 appear to be the ALCAN 79.45mm type (obvious conrod failure engines). I have seen 2 engines with the KS piston that had very high mileage and no severe big-end bearing wear. I have not seen a high mileage BXE with the ALCAN piston. I have not seen an engine with the MAHLE piston yet.

I know this is unscientific to say the least but I would be very interested to see if this difference in the engines was in any way related to BXE engines failing at ~100k mark due to conrod issues.

My reason focuses around the point that the bare ALCAN piston although smaller in diameter is ~20 grams heavier than the bare KS piston. The ALCAN piston comes (generally) with a heavier weight con-rod for crankshaft balancing. I don't have a Mahle piston to examine.

Apologies for this post being so verbose but I would be very interested if anyone who does have the unfortunate experience of a BXE engine fail to find out the part number for their no. 1 piston and compare to above part numbers to see if there is any correlation. I know this approach is very unscientific but some examples from BXE owners will give a greater sample set to see if this very loose theory/observation is going anywhere.


jim

Hello Jim.

Interesting information about the piston types used on the BXE engine. Do you know of a way of knowing which piston type an enginw has without removing the head?

Carlos

On a friends that broke, the pin was ripped out of the piston, one rod was completely broke in 2 pieces....and 1 rod bolt broken and the rod/cap completely splayed apart.

A little bit more than chicken and egg going on to find out what went first.

Another friend has a BLS, he took his apart to fit uprated rod bolts and new bearings. For most part everything looked pretty good inside. No loose bolts, bearings in decent condition for 100k or so although not perfect. But nothing that would cause concern relating to what happens these engines.

For 2007 ~ 2009 Mexico/South America year models, VAG used the BXE engine in the TDI.

While the production numbers do not match Europe's, there easily a couple of tenths of thousands sold, mostly in Chile/Argentina

I periodically search spanish speaking VAG forums looking for BXE con rod fail cases, but i have found just one documented case

Either the deffect ratio is very low (BXE sales in europe are signifficantly big to have a couple of hundred conrod fails??)

Or

This problem is a parts batch problem that for some logistics/allocation condition didnt reach latin/south America.

I am interested because my own '09 TDI has a BXE with 80k miles and counting..

Wow, another catastrophe for many people....good luck folks. Once my 2006 dies, Toyota here I come...albeit sadly

Carlos_TJ said:

Hello Jim.
Interesting information about the piston types used on the BXE engine. Do you know of a way of knowing which piston type an enginw has without removing the head?
Carlos

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Hi Carlos,

I'm not too sure about that. I would imagine either through the dealer or using ETKA (if that would even tell) as I'm sure only VAG would record what piston went with which engine number. There doesn't appear to be any rule of thumb way.

Have to agree with stevieturbo as regards identifying the initial failure point. I'm not sure of the sales volume in the UK but I know its high and in a few different types of VAG vehicles.

BXE's are very well known for failing in the UK.

Jim

Any idea how many of these connecting rods have failed? This is the only thread on the issue that I've seen.

Just google BXE failures....there are more threads elsewhere.

Locally after it happened my friends and we searched....heard stories of at least half a dozen others and that's not even asking too far !

Adding to the shame on vw responsibles. I am in france and this problem is also happening here, and here as in other countries, vw doesn t do a thing to help customers.
I would just react to the argument about the way rods are fractured in the build, if i understood correctly, it seems pd 100 rods to 160 are made this same way and only 105 shows this problem.
I think of a rod or rod screws failure.

Just happened to me. Touran 2007 serviced every 10k, 117k miles, conrod just blew a hole in the block BXE engine code.
I need to get the thing back on the road asap, i dont want to just drop in another BXE, can i use a BKC without issue?

I'm nearly sure it was a BKC a friend swapped his with and there were no real problems.

Hi new here. I just blew a piston threw my block in my 2014 Passat tdi. Had 60k miles on it. Iv had the vehicle since 45k miles and changed the oil every 10k miles with the recommended full synthetic oil. I’m completely baffled why does a 60k mile car throw a rodd? And no it’s not under warranty

Mcbee104 said:

Hi new here. I just blew a piston threw my block in my 2014 Passat tdi. Had 60k miles on it. Iv had the vehicle since 45k miles and changed the oil every 10k miles with the recommended full synthetic oil. I’m completely baffled why does a 60k mile car throw a rodd? And no it’s not under warranty

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Just poor quality/design really.

stevieturbo said:

Just poor quality/design really.

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How can I prevent this from throwing a rod again?

Either fit aftermarket rods and pistons, or a different engine that does not have that reputation. Or get another car with a better engine.