Turbo failure, additional damage?

Hello guys, I know if i scoured i could probably find this information. Honestly it may not even take a TON of looking but i'm in a slight pinch for time and only able to look/post at lunch and breaks from work.

I've had my mk4 with a BEW for 10 years now. Treated me amazing that whole time. Just started having issues and am proud to say i was able to swap my camshaft and lifters on my own thanks to all of the posts found here and because of you guys! Honestly it was a big achievement for me.
The car ran the best it ever has for about 3 weeks.

Then driving down the interstate my power dropped fast, i heard a whizzing sound, and then a black cloud out the exhaust and the car shut off. The turbo seems to have died. My lifters and camshaft were extremely worn down and one even had a hole so i suspect that even though i changed the oil and filter afterwards some of that metal may have made it through and got into the turbo?

My question is: what are the odds that the engine is completely fine and i just needs a new turbo? The mechanic is saying i should get a new engine and turbo but i'm just not sure if they're saying that because it would be cheaper than them diagnosing and all that or potentially swapping the turbo and then finding that the engine was actually also damaged.
If there's a chance the engine is just fine and what tests can i do to make sure before i buy a new turbo?

Bonus question: If i decided to give it a try myself and needed to is it possible to lift the engine straight out the top of the engine compartment without having to remove the axle or anything? For someone who just changed a camshaft and lifters is it reasonable to think i might be able to swap the engine? I do have vagcom.

Thanks so much in advance and i am extremely sorry for posting before doing my own digging first. I'm just in a time crunch having to get a plan together in the next day or two.

TL;DR: the big question is if the engine ingested liquid oil... enough to bend rods.


Pull the lower intercooler hose, look for lots of oil. Pull the glow plugs, crank engine, look for oil.
Run a compression test, looking for one or more cylinders to be lower than the others.
Best search term: "runaway".

No way to TL;DR "swapping engines"... big job, you'll need to dig in and research carefully. A quick hint... most people find it easiest to pull the engine/tranny out the front, after rad etc cleared out of the way and the axles are disconnected.

That's a huge job. You need to do a timing belt with it and if I only had the experience you do, is be hesitant.
Definitely follow the advice above to be sure it needs a new engine.
Find a TDI specific mechanic and take it to him.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

eddieleephd said:

That's a huge job. You need to do a timing belt with it and if I only had the experience you do, is be hesitant.
Definitely follow the advice above to be sure it needs a new engine.
Find a TDI specific mechanic and take it to him.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

I've already done the timing belt once at the 100k mark and again when i did the camshaft so i'm confident with being able to do that. When i get a free minute i'll be able to do some more diagnosing to see where i stand. I was mainly just hoping to get a bit of a feel for what my odds were. But for now i'm proceeding as if it's tanked and buying another vehicle to get me by.

Thanks guys

Reading the OP it's possible the turbo is fine, but the engine damage caused the event.
I would further investigate, you may just need a head rebuild. Hard to interweb say.

Alright guys. I ended up having to buy another vehicle to get me by and have in the meantime had to not think about this.
A few days ago I started to pull things off the engine to try to diagnose further. Too many things the mechanic said just didn't match up.
The first thing i noticed upon starting work on it was that the oil level was WAY higher than it should be. Drained the oil and i'd say there had to have been an extra gallon or more worth of 'oil'. So...my theory at that point was a tandem pump failure and that the extra liquid was diesel. Tried to turn the engine over manually via the crankshaft and made it about 90 degrees and couldn't get it to turn any further so i thought maybe there was a bunch of oil above the cylinders hydrolocking it. So i pulled the glowplugs and still can't seem to get the engine to turn any further.
Just for good measure I pulled the air intake hose off and reached up in there to turn the impeller in the turbo and the impeller seems totally fine. All the blades seem to still be there and it spins freely without any apparent issues. So...near as i can tell, the turbo seems to be fine.
Can anyone think of what could have happened that would cause there to be so much extra diesel in the oil and not allow me to turn the engine over even with the glow plugs out?

"Tried to turn the engine over manually via the crankshaft and made it about 90 degrees and couldn't get it to turn any further"

Something broke internally, look for an engine.

LethalMindNinja said:

.......................... Drained the oil and i'd say there had to have been an extra gallon or more worth of 'oil'................................?

Click to expand...

Say what? What else did you do when you refreshed the cam? New lifters and stuff?

Unfortunately I think that ruse11 is correct, look for a new engine. It'll be cheaper and more straight forward in the long run.

Before all that you can pull the accessory belt and ensure that it's not the alternator, or the ac compressor, locking up stopping it from moving.
Another possibility is the oil pump having something inside it stopping it from turning.

If you think about the engine turning we have imposing valves so jumped timing fits.

Sent from my moto g(7) power using Tapatalk