Passat loss of power, over rev, white smoke an collant coming out of exhaust

Passat loss of power, over rev, white smoke an coolant coming out of exhaust

2013 passat tdi 6 speed, 105k. month ago i had the temp gauge go 220f or so with the car idling an ac on. first time i ever seen the gauge go above 190f, ever.


today traveling about 75mph i had a loss of power then a full acceleration, clutch in went to neutral an rev banging off 5k redline. white smoke pluming behind. shut motor off an coast to break down lane.

let it sit a min, starts up for 2 seconds an blowing white smoke. shut it down. flatbed to garage. notice coolant coming from exhaust tip after tow.

where should i begin.......

you will be getting (at a min) a new engine, turbo and DPF under the 120K extended turbo warranty- what happened is called runaway- the turbo blew (common), feeding the engine with plenty of oil that a diesel uses as fuel and redlined itself until the ecu closed the intake throttle when you turned the key off- Here is a video of a chevy experiencing the same thing, but the chev doesn't have the intake throttle so they run until the oil is all used up and seize up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRG_T580Heo

Jrm thanks for the reply .

Any info on where I can find out more on the turbo warranty?? Oh man that would great if they covered that. Somehow I feel I won't be that lucky.

Should I just call a local vw dealer tomorrow? Gonna do some searching now.

Appreciate the response

http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=419468

hopefully they don't ding you if you missed any service campaigns.

also could be the EGR cooler breaking, coolant in the exhaust would be caused by that but it wouldn't redline your engine.

No black smoke???

White smoke sounds like unburnt fuel possibly stuck open injector or coolant steaming off.

Any word OP?

Turbo failures are usually accompanied by oil smoke, which is blue/white/gray depending on a person's eyes. A failed injector would likely be black smoke. EGR cooler failure wouldn't cause a run-away.

Soooo the plot thickens. At this point I do not think it was coolant coming from the exhaust .

Not sure if vw is pulling a fast one. An not wanting to swap the motor. To many coincidences . Let me try to explain.

They may have saw my receipt for an oil change from the day prior, the oil change place could have over filled the oil. Or is vw using this ?

Wouldn't vw have checked the dip stick for cloudy/coolant in the oil? But how vw missed that 2 days in an 2 test drives later I don't know? They scanned it, put a new glow plug in, a new glow plug module Then 1/2 the day later they call an say the oil was over filled an it bent this an that , that's why the car is smoking an running rough. Or did they just then find the receipt an tried to blame it on an over oil?

Vw claims the turbo is fine

Or did the oil change place never drain the oil an added 4 quarts? An change the filter. Vw said there was 7an 3/4 quarts in there

The oil change receipt was on my passenger seat as I picked up car the day prior. I drove 3 miles home. Car sat the night an I drove 8 miles the next morning when the incident happened.

Weird thing was service guy over phone was telling me it bent this an that. But they never opened the motor to know for sure. Everything he said sounded text book of a bad turbo then ruining the motor.

I call the oil change place an they deny that they would let the car leave without checking the oil level.

Can an oil analysis tell if there are 2 different oils? Old oil would have been Mobil one, an I think the shop I juts went to used something different, Castro synthetic? it was on the receipt. That's if vw didn't drain all the oil already

Looks like I'm gonna buy a ckra out of a wrecj an have it installed elsewhere. Found a ckra with 21k on it for 1400 7 miles from me. Only tdi place I know is 80 miles from me. Think it's time to lawyer up

Another question is I opted for the payout. Wondering if I should change to buy back , tow it to different dealer an drop it off a block or 2 away , an then drive it in since it still drives

Would they have entered service records on the car?

I just spent 2 k on new tires an all 4 slotted rotors an pads

yes service records are written to the vin, and I would highly suspect the oil change place as its all to common for them to mess up- my friends prius ate a rod due to a loose filter. And yes, to much oil can cause exactly what you described as the oil mist will be transported to the crankcase vent that's then sucked into the intake- prob wont bend a rod but its possible if you had 7 quarts in there and yes that's very possible with a quick lube place. Document this to the oil change place- vw oil filters alone shouldn't be touched by a quick lube place and the dude probably put in the amount of oil for a 2015 EA288. Years ago I helped a friend move and drove across the country twice, stopped into iffy lube for a quick dump and refill on his gasser 5.4L F250 truck, overheard the most incompetence chat between them- holy F balls it was bad, the dude wanted to torque the drain pan to 60ft pounds and the other guy yelled NO that's for the Cat powered F550 diesel not his truck. Yikes!

Service records are recorded to the VIN, but "in my experience" the buy back specialist don't have access to them, they just have access to their appointments and checks they cut to you. This will probably be the least painful options, but again not sure how BB specialists have changed.

If VW is stating too much oil time to document everything and have the oil change place pay up.

It wasn't a fast lube place. My normal garage.

But I suspect it could be them just as well.

I'm prob gonna pay out of pocket to get this done then see if I can get a lawyer that will represent this

Why not have the car towed to your "normal garage" and have them take a look.

I would think it would take a pretty significant amount of excess oil to cause engine damaging problem as you say the dealer is claiming. And I only say this because I get cars driven in here all the time with WAY overfilled crankcases, including TDIs. If it were that big of an issue, I would think we'd see more blown up engines because of it.

Turbo failure takes all of 5 min to diagnose. It is pretty obvious.

Vw pulled some covers and or the oil pan I forget atm,I'm spent, they claimed to see bent rods an some other damage.

Claim the turbo is boosting correctly.


Found a COMPLETE 2014 ckra motor with 19 miles on it in eBay. Looks like the car was damaged on the car carrier. Recycling place said they had 5 cars that where totaled out on the car carriers. Some still wrapped in white plastic. 1400 shipped to my repair guy. Everything , turbo, starter, alternator, flywheel.

Hoping it's not a "to good to be true" situation. Will know in a few days

Well, here is a little news flash: if the engine is that mechanically tooefed, there would be no way to check how the turbo is boosting. But you could check the turbo shaft condition.

Boy I would loved to have been a fly on the firewall when they pulled your car in that shop.

Regardless of who pulled the Failtrain out of that station, though, it does sound like a used engine assembly is your best bet to bring it to a halt.

smoking, but car still drives.

ya not to happy when things like this happen but i cant do everything.

hoping the current tech can get to the bottom of this an let me know if it was the the turbos fault in the first place. would sit better with me knowing the vw wasnt pushing this aside or creating this run around cause they refuse to put a motor in it

It doesnt take that much extra oil to take out a passat tdi engine, i have seen one with a hole in the side of the block and one running similar to the op's, both were around 3 quarts overfilled. With the tdi situation, i would be VERY careful with who i allowed to touch the oil of a tdi, no motor = no $$$$.

this is why I cannot stand people who knock the Cummins engines in the dodge rams, over or under a few quarts and your ok. those long skirt pistons and forged rods where designed by case way back before cummins bought the rights to the B engine back in the early 1980's for farm combines to run all day and all night for the entire summer and are indestructible Our Passat engines are cute, burn diesel but are closer to a gasser than a diesel like it or not.

Don't think anyone ever compares a cummins to a TDI, but I get what your saying.