2006 Jetta, bad cam, new plan needed

I am in a funk now and thought commiserating with others who love and hate these cars might be helpful.

My Florida 2006 MKV 5-speed Jetta appears to have finally succumbed to cam failure at 147K miles. Only additional item is the Panzer plate. I acquired this silver sedan from the first owner in February of 2010 when it had about 50K miles on it. For awhile, I was able to get up to 50MPG, but that did not last long. The MPG had been disappointing but still way better than a gasser for the last several years. At present, its only 6 other significant issues appear to be: aging plastic and rubber parts, something making a noise in the interior A/C air blower, yet another tempermental A/C RCV, a coolant thermostat stuck open, the usual stock radio deterioration and the port rear door lock non-functional. She's due for a timing belt at 160K, so there could be worse times for a cam expiration.

Items replaced over the years include:
trunk latch
Driver door lock assembly
Driver door switch assembly
Other window switches too
MAF
Alternator pulley(s)
Idler pulley
Successful timing belt replacement including everything required at 80K miles
Driver door wiring harness
Starboard rear door lock assembly
Valve cover gasket
The coolant hose to heater (that gets oil dripped on it by the leaking valve cover gasket)
EGR Valve Air Regulator Flap Throttle
Engine cooling fans
DMF & Clutch
Engine rear seal (preemptive with DMF job)
Headliner (VW company provided)
other things I don't happen to remember
... pretty much everything on the problems list except the cam

The car has never been hit except for me backing into a mailbox post, so paint body and interior are all still pretty good.

So if I decide to keep this car because both my wife and I greatly enjoy driving it and not having to buy ethanol contaminated fuel for it, I am looking at yet another significan VW repair project, which would now take place in a Florida summer in my garage, which lacks air conditioning. I can do it, but having just signed up for medicare, I am somewhat losing enthusiasm for this sort of thing. On the other hand, if I go through renewing and replacing all the problematic items, I would have a really nice 2006 Manual 5 speed Jetta TDI when I am done, which is enticing.

So I am throwing my thoughts out here to the group that made owning this car only possible in the first place, as it apparently consists of those who are both psychologists as well as mechanics, and I am conflicted.

Suggestions?

Steve
-Safety Harbor, FL

Florida cars are just so absolutely wonderful to work on. No rust on anything! I say fix it, if you just signed up for Medicare and you live in Florida can I assume you’re retired? We all know that folks who are retired have nothing to do. (Sarcasm)

Seriously, wait a couple of months till the weather cools then tackle it. I’ve been to Florida during the summer and worked on a car in my mother-in-laws non air conditioned garage so I know exactly what you’re talking about.

The cam replacement is really not that hard. Have you taken off the valve cover and looked?

Have not yet looked, as I have company this week and no time for further investigation, but the distinctive bad cam sound is definitely present, together with vibration and poor engine performance. I also need to shovel out a spot in the garage again to work on it. I am hoping Franko6 still sells cams.

Will go ahead with an overhaul

Rx7145 said:

The cam replacement is really not that hard. Have you taken off the valve cover and looked?

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June 9th:
Franko6 still is in business helping TDI owners, and since he is there, I decided to go ahead and refurbish this previously great car.
This thread is now not currently out to solicit advice or assistance, but rather to share my bad cam experience with others similarly attached to VW TDI cars

I was finally able to create a very functional work space in my garage, get the car front up on 2 jacks and begin the camshaft replacement process. So far, I have only got the valve cover off, and sure enough, the cam is destroyed. Curiously, the worst two are #3 and #4, with the lobes being extremely deformed. I have not yet been able to determine if the lifters are holed or not yet, but will do so on the morrow.

That this car ran as well as it did as long as it did with such serious flaws just reminds me how much resilience is engineered into this drive train. It had not been throwing any engine codes, rather, its ECU simply accommodated the flaws. I was still getting over 35 mpg, running the AC and in city driving.

The resilience of this car reminds me of my 1979 VW Van that was in a garage fire that shattered the left rear window, deformed all the metal in the left rear quarter panel, melted the left rear tire, the spare tire, some of the headliner and the rear seat cover, but it still started right up and ran without so much as a hiccup. I put plywood where the window had been, wiped all the soot off the interior and windows, put another tire on it and drove it like that for a couple months until I was able to get a different van. Yes, it looked ridiculous, and it strongly smelled of smoke too. My 3 year old daughter called it the smokey van. 23 years later and I still miss having the van that it was prior to the fire.

June 10th update:

I was finally able to get the camshaft out, mostly using Franko6's procedure, but with a catch. Since I could not get the crankshaft pulley center part off, I had to remove the cam with it still being attached. The camshaft and lifters were a curious mix. Half of the cam lobes were clearly worn past acceptable levels, but some looked good. Most of the lifters looked used, but still in fairly good condition. The #3 exhaust cam lobe and lifter were both very badly worn, with a very small hole in the lifter. This cam wore in a very inconsistent manner.

The cam hub (center part) is easily removed. Before removing the cam, loosen the cam center bolt several turns and then smack the hub with a brass drift from the back side. You leave the hub bolt in some so the hub doesn't go flying when you smack it.

Only one lobe being FUBAR would require cam and lifter replacement. So being a "curious mix" is irrelevant, really. Bottom line, the cam and lifters need to be replaced.

Work on it early in the morning and later at night when it's cooler out.

Ol'Rattler said:

The cam hub (center part) is easily removed. Before removing the cam, loosen the cam center bolt several turns and then smack the hub with a brass drift from the back side. You leave the hub bolt in some so the hub doesn't go flying when you smack it.

Only one lobe being FUBAR would require cam and lifter replacement. So being a "curious mix" is irrelevant, really. Bottom line, the cam and lifters need to be replaced.

Work on it early in the morning and later at night when it's cooler out.

Click to expand...

Good removal suggestion, but it initially did not work for me at all. However, after the application of Liquid Wrench and waiting a couple hours, it worked great with just 2 gentle hits.

Of course, I know I need to replace both the cam and all the lifters. What is to me a "curious mix" is that a couple of the cam lobes looked very good, most were bad but only one was extremely worn. As for the lifters, one of the lifters was holed and badly worn, corresponding with the extremely worn lobe, while the others looked much better and two even looked almost new. Although I do not remember seeing it mentioned, I wonder now what sort of quality control and specification deviations VW allows for its valve springs.

After examining the cam again, I again marvel that the car ran as well as it did for the past few years.

So today, June 12th, I successfully ordered Franko6's repair parts so I can get this car back on the road. As typical, my repair job entails elements of mission creep, as it now includes replacing the probably damaged oil pump, together with replacing an already known bad egr cooler. While I await receipt of the parts for these issues, I will work on the bad door lock, faulty thermostat and front brakes.

Funny I am looking at Medicare later this year, but still working. And I just bought a 06 with 343,000 miles on it. Wife and I drove to Panama City beach last week in one of our 06 Jettas and on the way back bought another 06 in Asheville NC. When I started it it sounded like it was running on 3 cylinders, just hoping it would make it home to Va. At highway speeds it ran fine, just starting off it sounded rough. So I too am replacing cam and belt. Had everything here but injector shaft bolts, waiting on them now(dealer doesn't stock them, wonder if they replace them or"Sorry Mister you need a engine") I love my Mk5s best VWs I've owned.

So I have all the parts I thought I needed and began working on it. I discovered more problems. What a surprise. The CV joint boots on both axles are torn completely apart from the rest of the boot just adjacent to the small axle clamps. I have rebuilt CV joints before on my late 1978 VW Rabbit gasser, but if I remember correctly, I concluded it made more sense to simply buy new or refurbished ones at the time. This job is replete with mission creep.

sptsailing said:

So I have all the parts I thought I needed and began working on it. I discovered more problems. What a surprise. The CV joint boots on both axles are torn completely apart from the rest of the boot just adjacent to the small axle clamps. I have rebuilt CV joints before on my late 1978 VW Rabbit gasser, but if I remember correctly, I concluded it made more sense to simply buy new or refurbished ones at the time. This job is replete with mission creep.

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Keep at it, those fixes will make a great car.

I got on Medicare 9 years ago and restored a few TDI's since then (2003 Jetta, 2005.5 Jetta, 2004 Jetta), etc). Now that I screwed up a knee restoring a 1971 Beetle last year, I am officially out of the garage except for little things like oil changing.

More repairable problems

In order to continue with my repairs, removing the wheel well plastic was in order. Doing so resulted in my being able to collect about a half bushel basket of leaves and dirt. Although I knew this car collected leaves there, I did not expect quite that quantity.

So trying to take the CV axles off, I broke my K-D 2305 triple square wrench that I have had since needing to repair the CV axles on my late 1998 VW Rabbit. Researching various methods, I used the air hammer approach, pounding to the sides of the single recalcitrant 8mm inboard starboard bolt. It worked like a charm. In order to facilitate keeping the axles from rotating while removing the bolts, I fashioned a 2 foot long piece of 1/2" x 1/18" steel like a large tweezer, but with a 90 degree bend on the longest end. The short end went into the brake disk and the long end went into one of the brake disk's various holes that corresponded with the wheel lug bolts. It kept the steel in place to hit the brake caliper mount.

If you use enough long extensions, as I did, you don't even need to be under the car at all to remove the drive shafts. The inboard passenger CV and the outboard driver side CV make suspicious sounds when being put through tests, so since replacing the axles completely with 'lifetime guaranteed' new ones from NAPA will add about another $220 or so to my VW refurbishment project, that has now been added to my plan.

As for removing axles, Bentley and even youtube videos cite the need to remove the 3 nuts at the bottom of the swing arm in order to remove the axles. I did not need to do this at all, as there is plenty of room above and to the stern for positioning the inboard half of the axles with zero issues, provided of course that the steering is turned to port or starboard as needed to create the outboard removal space of course.

So now with the axles out, I checked the condition of the front wheel bearings. 147,000 miles, and the front driver side wheel bearing is grinding, so it definitely needs replacement, while the passenger side makes enough noise that, to me, warrants preventative maintenance replacement on a preemptive basis.

While examining all these things, I observed that the flexible dirt and dust protective bellows on the shocks are completely disintegrated, so perhaps I need to replace the struts as well? Maybe I should also dismantle and examine the turbo while I am tearing everything else apart?

I solicit encouragement and advice from this highly esteemed community.

Wow you’re really getting into it. I wouldn’t worry about the struts if they seem to be working fine just because of the boots.

Unless the turbo is giving you problems I’d leave it. Tearing it apart might borrow trouble especially if it’s been working fine.


I like rebuilding the axles as opposed to replacing them, but if you’ve already got the new axles then I would assume you’ve turned in your old ones for the core charge. Idparts sells the ends for each axle, that way you can keep the shaft itself, which seems to be the problem with aftermarket axles. With the originals one is hollow one is not, replacement axles tend to both be solid, resulting in problems.

Yes, keeping the OE shafts is the correct thing to do. I had a vibration in the front end of my 2005.5 MKV that me and the tire dealers could never figure out. I rebuilt the entire suspension and it still had the vibration.

Consequently, a TDI shop found an aftermarket axle was put on my car before I owned it and THAT was the PROBLEM. Bought a used OE shaft, put a new joint on it and all was good.

My 06 Jetta TDI is finally restored and running. The engine ran well for 30 minutes per Franko6's cam break-in procedure. I now have 115 miles on it with no issues.

The total number of refurbishment steps included:

1. New cam (BEW) and lifters from Franko6, including his detailed install procedure
2. New timing belt and water pump
3. Modified EGR cooler from Franko6, which included blocking the vacuum to the now removed EGR cooler flap control.
4. Complete refurbishment of both OEM axles by http://cvaxles.com/
5. New driver side front wheel bearing (Bad bearing had begun to wear front tire inside tread)
6. Removal and inspection of turbo, which needed nothing
7. Removal and cleaning of intake manifold, using "Heat 'n Kleen Kettle Cleaner", which I found to be a great product
8. Walnut shell blasting the cylinder head intake ports clean to like new condition
9. Replace broken coolant thermostat. (The original's frame had simply snapped apart.)
10. Re-engineering vacuum hose to the brakes, as the original plastic hose (Part number 1K0612041GQ) had developed a leaking crack
11. Replace front brake rotors and pads
12. Using Quicksteel Extreme Heat Epoxy putty and part of an old aluminum lawn chair to repair a broken brake pad wear sensor connector
13. New oil pump, which necessitated removal, cleaning and reinstallation of the oil pan (reservoir)
14. Clean and re-install original oil cooler with new gaskets
15. Replace defective driver side (port side) passenger door lock
16. Cutting and hammering the turbo component, 'air duct/heat shield' into just a heat shield, and re-installing
17. Clean EGR valve by soaking in "Red Line High Performance Complete System Fuel Cleaner Synthetic Additive SI-1" and mechanically cleaning
18. Cleaning ASV
19. Replace several original coolant hoses (aged).

I will post observed fuel economy and observed performance results once obtained.

Observations and conclusions so far:
1. If a magnetic drain plug has any metal shavings on it during oil changes, investigate further (suspecting the CAM) and correct the cause whether the car still runs well or not
2. Tail pipe smoke and a sooty rear bumper also require investigation and repairs
3. Once the EGR Cooler, Turbo and Intake Manifold are off, Walnut shell blasting cylinder head intake ports gets them very clean and is not particularly difficult with a special fitting on a shop vacuum, a suitable air compressor, abrasive blaster tank and a home made 1/4" soft copper tubing blasting nozzle.
4. The axles can be easily removed and replaced without unbolting any suspension parts, contrary to Bentley

Follow up 2 months later:
1. Repairs cost about $3000 for parts, many of which are just expected maintenance, now also including a replacement battery that it needed but an injector harness that I later realized it really did not need
2. Car is working great now, with 43 mpg for city driving with air conditioning during Florida summer
3. A 2006 Jetta with a 5 speed manual continues to be a great car

good job.

I'm at about 184K miles and haven't looked at my cams yet.... bought it in 2014 with 90K miles on it...

my fuel mileage has stayed steady at about 42mpg, mostly rural driving at 60-70mph....

petee_c said:

good job.

I'm at about 184K miles and haven't looked at my cams yet.... bought it in 2014 with 90K miles on it...

my fuel mileage has stayed steady at about 42mpg, mostly rural driving at 60-70mph....

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I changed my cam at 88K miles when I did the T/B because when I checked the cam it had the tell tale copper streaking and one lobe was knife edged. My reasoning for changing it early was that with the wear just starting to show, I didn't need to drop the pan and replace the oil pump and also inspect the crank bearings for abnormal wear like some have had to do if they wait until a lifter is worn through.

Anything in the pan goes through the oil pump before it goes through the filter so it makes sense that if you have abnormal wear going on and fix it before there is a chance of metal getting into the oil, the oil pump will not be damaged and need to be replaced.