How long would a new camshaft last on a BEW PD?

I talked to a mechanic specializing in tdi's and he says even with a good aftermarket camshaft and kit (an amc brand I believe) that it would only last around 150k kms because the engine has a design flaw. I do believe there is an issue with the design of the engine, but in past posts I've read on the internet I thought that a new camshaft should last long than that or even for the rest of the life of the engine.

Does anyone have any experience with the longevity of a new camshaft on a pd engine, specifically the BEW code?

I really don't know if I should keep this car anymore...can't make my mind up!

I have seen OEM camshafts last close to 200,000 miles or 320,000 kms on BEW engines. If you use incorrect oil you might see a failure as early as 100,000 miles or 160,000 kms but with 5w40 505.01 spec oil it should last much longer than that.

Interesting, thanks for the reply! It really is different in every car.

I changed my cam at 88K miles because it just started to show the tell tale wear signs for BRM cam wear.

I didn't want to change out the cam between T/B changes. I'm sure the cam would have easily gone 150K miles.

Your mechanic is partially correct. It is true that the cam has some design issues, but a cam replacement every 150K miles or so isn't all the expensive compared to problems that some other car brands have.

Member Franko6 has engineered some oiling improvements to the weak VW PD design. Give him a call. He is extremely helpful and can help you get some extended life out of your PD engine.

http://forums.tdiclub.com/member.php?u=31923

IDK how long Frank's improved oiling, cam, lifters and bearings will last. If his re-engineering last at least 2 T/B changes, I will be pleased.

my 05' golf BEW 345k miles original perfect cam ... and it has less to do with oil type than folks claim ... when i bought the car the PO handed me a stack of receipts from the local oil change place and corner garage ... they basically used whatever synthetic oil was on special that week ... wear is less of a problem with the BEW cams but the BRM cam's drop like flies

A few thing come into play here on cam wear.
the hardness of the cam and lifter must be matched
spring pressure at seat and full lift
oil spray on to the contact surface
cam lobe ramp shape
and oil speciation
The things you can control are oil and oil spray on the contact surface.
I just did a cam replacement last week it was so bad it cut through the lifter
till the center pop it valve inside it came out. I have some pic will upload later.
I have cut a small grove on the back side of the lower bearing to spray more oil on the top of the lifter in the past . It can not hurt and those engines are still running with the new cams.
I used a cam kit from www.IDPARTS.com on the last one the price has dropped a lot
and it had very nut and bolt you need to do the job right.
Bob Mann

My BRM has 194,000 on the original cam and it is still in good shape. I am the second owner of the car. The First owner ran the car with 10-30 505.01 up and until 100,000 miles.

This is when I picked up the car and I have used T6 5-40 in it. now I also add 4 ounces ZDDPlus to the oil at every oil change.
Fastly approaching 200k miles and I think that it will go to the next tb change.

I am definitely posting picks of the cam when I remove it here in the spring.

a replacement cam will wear out , too. Some factory cams fail earlier than others.
Using 40W or heavier oil with additives definitely helps. lagging the engine in higher gear will kill the camshaft faster. A co worker always lagged his jetta and I replaced his camshaft at 200K ( badly worn , coppery bearing shells, scratched injector lobe, too )
Mine had very slight wear in one of the lobes , it was actually still usable at 275K. It still had chamfer on all the lobes and the lifters were not dished and the bearings had minimal wear too
I put in an ESTAS cam but I don't think it will last as long as the factory one

jimbote said:

my 05' golf BEW 345k miles original perfect cam ... and it has less to do with oil type than folks claim ... when i bought the car the PO handed me a stack of receipts from the local oil change place and corner garage ... they basically used whatever synthetic oil was on special that week ... wear is less of a problem with the BEW cams but the BRM cam's drop like flies

Click to expand...

Pics ?

Many posters in this thread have a BRM which is different from your BEW. The BRM is famous for cams, the BEW, not nearly as much.

I'm at 240k on my original cam.

Tdi_Jetta_94 said:

I talked to a mechanic specializing in tdi's and he says even with a good aftermarket camshaft and kit (an amc brand I believe) that it would only last around 150k kms because the engine has a design flaw. I do believe there is an issue with the design of the engine, but in past posts I've read on the internet I thought that a new camshaft should last long than that or even for the rest of the life of the engine.

Does anyone have any experience with the longevity of a new camshaft on a pd engine, specifically the BEW code?

I really don't know if I should keep this car anymore...can't make my mind up!

Click to expand...

I would be suspect of anyone who calls AMC good quality. That may be why he only sees them last 150k...

Back on topic, BEW cams don't have anywhere near the issues the BRM does.

I have 310k km on a bew cam but it is showing signs of wear now. It is now past the chamfer on two lobs. I wonder how much metal has gone through the pump and the engine? will be replaced with the tb job this week. I am replacing with a colt stage 2

I changed my BEW camshaft (2004 Jetta) at 177K miles when I did my 2nd timing belt. I just wanted to be sure that it would go another 90K. After I removed the old cam, lifters & bearings; everything looked like new & probably would have made it to the 3rd TB without issue. There are a few vendors in here (Frank06 is one) that sell cams that are an improvement over OEM (in my opinion). When I had done my last camshaft inspection, I should have removed the rocker arms (they sell reusable hod down bolts) because you just can't see what you need to see on the cam with those in the way. That is one of the things (inspecting the cam) that really needs to be done occasionally on the BEW & BRM engines so you can make good decisions on what & when to do the replacement.

There are four BEW engined Jettas in our households.
I replaced the cam on one of them at 758,000km. Wore through the lifter just like CNGVW said.
The other three are at 479,000km, 365,000km and 340,000km with no observable wear.

Yes, I am aware that the BRM engine is way worse than the BEW.

I would like to check the camshaft myself first just for fun, I am not 100% sold it's worn out, however the blue smoke has gotten worse over the winter and now that it's warming up the idle is mostly smoothed out, but still stutters occasionally. I was starting to think maybe the turbo is starting to go, but there isn't any weird noises and I can still feel the turbo kicking in.

So should I really be concerned he is using the AMC cam? He seemed to think that it's a good one and that it has the black coating on it so it's a bit better (sorry I don't know the actual name of that).

Is there anything else that would go hand in hand with the idle issue and blue smoke? It uses about a litre or so of oil every 10k kms, basically every oil change.

Hello here are some pic of the one I did with 165,000 on it

You can see the lope is gone and the lifter came apart.
the lifter on the right is junk to and the one on the left is just starting to go. and the bearing is junk too.


You can see the top of the lobe is gone.

This one is still good.
So if its ticking the pin has been pulled from the hand Grande.
Bob Mann

CNGVW said:

Hello here are some pic of the one I did with 165,000 on it

You can see the lope is gone and the lifter came apart.
the lifter on the right is junk to and the one on the left is just starting to go. and the bearing is junk too.

You can see the top of the lobe is gone.

This one is still good.
So if its ticking the pin has been pulled from the hand Grande.
Bob Mann

Click to expand...

That's exactly how the lifter and camshaft looked after 758,000km on my engine. It would be interesting to compare the maintenance and driving history.
My was the lobe #1

It's interesting how some of these go really early and some go later.

My engine actually sounds ok, I think I can vaguely here it starting but no ticking, it's more of a thud. I think that sound though may be coming from the air box but not sure...it's just the oil usage that's the issue along with the idle sometimes.

Dimitri16V said:

Pics ?

Click to expand...

i did not take pictures and not gonna pull the vc to satsfy your disbelief ... i know the difference between a good cam and a bad cam... both chamfers intact on all lobes last year when i did an injector swapout ... not all cams are created equal

CNGVW said:

Hello here are some pic of the one I did with 165,000 on it

You can see the lope is gone and the lifter came apart.
the lifter on the right is junk to and the one on the left is just starting to go. and the bearing is junk too.

You can see the top of the lobe is gone.

This one is still good.
So if its ticking the pin has been pulled from the hand Grande.
Bob Mann

Click to expand...

Some thing you must keep in mind is the Harding of the cam and lifters
only goes a few thousands deep in to the metal. So if you have gone to the chafing of the cam its junk.

A few thing come into play here on cam wear.
the hardness of the cam and lifter must be matched
spring pressure at seat and full lift
oil spray on to the contact surface
cam lobe ramp shape
and oil speciation
The things you can control are oil and oil spray on the contact surface.
I just did a cam replacement last week it was so bad it cut through the lifter
till the center pop it valve inside it came out. I have some pic will upload later.
I have cut a small grove on the back side of the lower bearing to spray more oil on the top of the lifter in the past . It can not hurt and those engines are still running with the new cams.
I used a cam kit from www.IDPARTS.com on the last one the price has dropped a lot
and it had very nut and bolt you need to do the job right.
Bob Mann

jimbote said:

i did not take pictures and not gonna pull the vc to satsfy your disbelief ... i know the difference between a good cam and a bad cam... both chamfers intact on all lobes last year when i did an injector swapout ... not all cams are created equal

Click to expand...

Relax ...it's not that I don't believe you . The only thing that was weird with my factory camshaft is that some of lobes bases had scratches on them but the tips were fine. I was wondering if yours had those scratches too

Dimitri16V said:

Relax ...it's not that I don't believe you . The only thing that was weird with my factory camshaft is that some of lobes bases had scratches on them but the tips were fine. I was wondering if yours had those scratches too

Click to expand...

your right Dimitri...sorry my response was a bit defensive ....I believe mine has some light scuffing along the base circle, yes ....

My 2004 Golf has 208,000km on the original camshaft. I wouldn't even consider inspecting it. The car runs perfectly.

05 Jetta wagon, 282,000km. I inspected the cam at 270,000km; No signs of wear.
I'm of the opinion BEW cams do not have any issues at all. Because these engines sometimes end up filled with the wrong oil and then develop cam issues, It may seem like they have cam issues when they don't. Just my opinion there.

I have a 2005 Passat with a BHW with 200K on it in the shop doing another cam kit.
One lobe started to go. I am going to pull the front cover to see if the balance shaft up grade has been done. I have the delete kit on hand so if it is needed will do it do now.
Bob Mann

trailhead said:

I'm of the opinion BEW cams do not have any issues at all.

Click to expand...

Based on your car....there are MANY reports of BEW cam failure so clearly there is an issue. It seems to be a crapshoot, some wear, some don't. Maybe there are slight engineering differences in the cam bearing journal alignments, maybe something with inconsistency in lifter hardness, I'm just guessing.

Mine has had excellent oil throughout and is wearing at about 100K miles.

I agree that there was a bit of PD hysteria when the cams started showing wear prematurely, and most of that hysteria has passed, and it's not that expensive as long as you change the cam at a TB change. But it's not fair to say there are no issues just because you've had good luck with yours.

We'll I don't want to turn this into an oil thread but I used the same oil type 505.1 and grade 5-40 and make . As the previous owners. I've owned the car for 50k km. and my cam was worn out. The lobes were about 1mm smaller on the worn lobes. I believe I got to it just in time as the two worn lobes had dished lifters and the cam was shedding metal slivers. The cam bearings were through the Babbitt and into the copper.
Now the new colt cam stage 2 is really smooth no more power serge at 2200 rpm but nice smooth strong pull from 1500 - 4000 very happy but will have to wait as my tandem pump has a bit of a leak .

Thanks for all the input, I agree, definitely a crap shoot with these engines for sure!!

One thing I've noticed just thinking here is that I've had the car for 1.5 years now. Hasn't started using any more oil than before and it doesn't run any worse (idle, power). Blue smoke has gotten slightly worse but that's it. So I'm wondering if maybe it's something else, goes to the mechanic this coming monday, hooray!

170K mile BEW with 130K mile of unknown history. OE cam still looks great. I use T6 and change it every 10K.

the BEWs in general seem to do decent with the cam wear. Its it cousin, the BRM that is a cam eater.

145k miles on my OE BEW cam. It and the bearings were as good as new when it came out. I swapped it for a Franko6 with drilled bearings and black nitrided lifters. Engine now has 200k miles and all is well. Honestly I think the OE cam would be a complete non-issue for as long as I desired to operate the car.