Accidentally drove 60 miles without air filter

N

najel

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Location
Madison Lake, MN
TDI
2002 Golf 5 speed
Hello All!

I had a leak in one of the EGR pipes on my 05 BEW, and in the course of fixing that had to remove all matter of intake piping. When I was putting everything back together, I ran into some issues and things took longer than expected, it was getting late, and I somehow missed one of the hose clamps on the elbow boost pipe.
Long story short, on my way to work the next day I was wondering why the car was so low on power, of course, it had zero boost because the hose just popped off. But that means my car was breathing unfiltered air for about 60 miles today.
It's an all interstate drive, and it was a rainy day. There did not seem to be any water under the hood so I don't think it ingested any water.

Is there anything I need to do now? Change the oil ASAP I would think? Anything else, other than be much more diligent next time :eek:
 
bubbagumpshrimp

bubbagumpshrimp

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2013
Location
Virginia
TDI
'13 Jetta TDI
Your car will be fine. I managed to hydro-lock a car years ago (snapped two piston connecting rods and bent a couple others). If your engine ingested any water, you'd have known about it in short order.
 
M

maxmoo

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2011
Location
Lakefield, Ontario, Canada
TDI
2000 golf, 2001 golf, 2000 beetle, 2003 wagon, 2004 golf, 2004 jetta, all diesels
Nothing much you can do now.....being a wet day was probably a blessing.....it's sand, dust and grit that will do the damage to the rings and cylinder walls.

Was the belly pan, side covers and engine cover installed?

Any sign of dust/dirt on inside of intake manifold?
 
N

najel

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Location
Madison Lake, MN
TDI
2002 Golf 5 speed
maxmoo said:
Nothing much you can do now.....being a wet day was probably a blessing.....it's sand, dust and grit that will do the damage to the rings and cylinder walls.

Was the belly pan, side covers and engine cover installed?

Any sign of dust/dirt on inside of intake manifold?
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That's what I figured. No signs of dirt or water under the hood. Belly pan was there, side covers are missing unfortunately. But this pipe is way at the top, so that hopefully helped. It started and ran perfectly this morning.

Thanks for everyone's input, now I can sleep better at night ;)
 
bubbagumpshrimp

bubbagumpshrimp

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2013
Location
Virginia
TDI
'13 Jetta TDI
najel said:
That's what I figured. No signs of dirt or water under the hood. Belly pan was there, side covers are missing unfortunately. But this pipe is way at the top, so that hopefully helped. It started and ran perfectly this morning.

Thanks for everyone's input, now I can sleep better at night ;)
Click to expand...
Yup. The only way that you should really have to be concerned about this issue is if you're running a filter on a stick.
 
AndyBees

AndyBees

Top Post Dawg
Joined
May 27, 2003
Location
Southeast Kentucky
TDI
Silver 2003 Jetta TDI, Silver 2000 Jetta TDI (sold), '84 Vanagon with '02 ALH engine
Last July on the Alaska Highway in a continuous pour down of rain, all of a sudden my ALH in the Vanagon lost power big time. Due to the rain, I just kept going. There were two or three DTCs per Scan Gauge. The terrain was mostly level with an occasional hill... would get down to 2 gear sometimes.

Long story short, after driving for about 100 miles and out of the rain I pulled over to find that the intake hose had popped off at the Turbo.

So, no doubt the Turbo was sucking road debris, water, etc......... I put the hose back on and finished the 12k mile trip with no worries or issues! (the Impeller on the Turbo did look nice and shiny...:D )
 
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