Catastrophic Engine Failure with Shrapnel Aluminum?!

Catastrophic Engine Failure with Shrapnel?!

Long story short, House-mate has been searching for the perfect TDI for 6 months, after becoming a expert hunter she purchased a 2003, MKIV Automatic with 130K on it. It had been meticulously maintained by a 60+ yr old VW enthusiast. The stars seemed to align in her favor and she hopped on a ride share 400 miles away. Drove it back two days later.

Car is immaculate. Its essentially a brand new car to me. Body is a 8.5 out of ten. Every joint lubricated, Lithium grease on all springs you name it.

She got it back a little less than two weeks ago. 5 Days later she was driving downhill into town and heard a sound as if something had fallen off the car and bounced under it a second later heard a 'bang', immediately lost power, increased resistance and all the lights came up. She got it off the road and called me, I called a friend to intercept and inspect it. She left a trail of oil a few hundred yards down the hill before pulling off. Oil had seemingly been sprayed on the exhaust since she had actually thought she had fire due to the smoke after pulling off and shutting it down.

Had the car towed back to our place and a few days later I put it up on stands preparing for this weekend to figure out what 'exactly' had happened. I keep finding metal fragments all over the engine bay. But from the top front/back of the motor and from underneath. I see oil, but NO sign of a hole or something being torn off the motor. Oil pan looks good and she swears she didn't see or hit anything. It felt like it 'came from the car'.

The oil pan is coming down tonight or tomorrow and we are just going to start removing stuff until we find 'it'.

Theories have included detonated turbo, Transmission toss something out the side? Just no clue. I think the block on the ALH is cast right? but everything else is Alu? The fragments I am finding just shredded. As if you put ALU in a blender on high for 30 seconds. I've never seen anything like it.

Below is a picture of the biggest piece I found sitting near the CV axle on the drives side last night.

She is heartbroken. She spend some serious dollars and time to find one this nice and low miles. The previous owner wants updates as we figure it out but is technically not liable in anyway.

I think I will know tonight or tomorrow, but just look at this...

that is a big chunk of aluminum! at this time, you should pray it's just a turbo. I;m sorry I'm not techy enough to offer a legit diagnosis. Good luck.

Oh wow... subscribed.

Can a turbo even blow up into metal chunks like we see on the pictures? While going downhill??

There are more forces at play in the transmission; I'm willing to bet it's where the chunks came from.

The turbo cold side doesn't even have chunks that large.

My money is on the transmission as well.

While there are areas of the trans that are that thick I don't see them coming apart.

Also it looks like it spent some time rolling down the road.

Detonated DMF that blew out the bellhousing that blew scrapnel through the turbo and killed it? Or else simply a conrod that blew the head to pieces?

Without that pieces of aluminium and just the oil and smoke out of the exhaust I would have said a turbo that went south... Or what about an uncontrolled engine runaway due to turbo that failed?

Please keep us up to date on your findings.

Sorry...

How is engine oil level on dipstick? Was it engine oil lost or tranny fluid.

Headscratcher, this!!

Looks like the first aluminum Meteorite I've ever seen!

Hopefully it was the trans. Time for a 5 speed conversion!




I jest.....The good thing here is noone got hurt. Count your blessings, anything else we can fix!

The oil level is above full, but looks to be very clean oil as if it was just changed. And i think it was. Im going out to look at it now.

Ski in NC said:

How is engine oil level on dipstick? Was it engine oil lost or tranny fluid.

Headscratcher, this!!

Click to expand...

Okay, We figured it out... Behold something I have never seen before....












My Mechanic friend described this as a once in a family per generation kind of failure.

Cylinder #3

It looks like the valve got smacked by the piston upwards, (bent the cam it looks!) The valve head itself fell into the chamber where it proceeded to 'shatter' the piston and both the valve and the piston pieces fell into the bottom end. Where the crank/rod arm decided the 'foreign matter' from 18 inches above needed to be ejected out the side of the block inches above the oil pan, right behind the oil-dipstick spout.

Complete destruction from the top down. This is worse than I had imagined and my friend (whom just signed up on here to read this) is likely to not even get a 'core' out of this motor.

This is pure damage control, she exhausted her savings to buy this car thinking it was going to last many years of economical driving.

What to we do now? This is entirely beyond my skills, and the location we have. Do we buy a quality-looking used motor and drop it in? do we buy a Reman?

Anyone want some work?!

AACK...link no worky...

Ok, we are sitting on the edge of our seats.....

Can you share a link to your picasaweb.google album?

I have been having troubles viewing pictures lately so I have learned to right click the box and open the picture in a new tab.

Lifter came apart and it appears to be a window in the block.

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Time to look for a used engine.

I'm still in disbelief. Its got 130k on it, previous owner said no top-end work had been done, Just a new #3 injector and a injection pump. The oil pan was changed also (not sure why)

I'm sorry the photos are not the best, I was using a major telephoto lens, and there was just no good way to get a picture of the hole, its all the way down there.

Apparently that mangled shredded piece of ALU is part of the piston.

I'm still *very* new to TDI community, I'm not really sure where-abouts to start with putting all this back together. What are my options here?

greengeeker said:

Wow. Wow. Wow.

Time to look for a used engine.

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If you're not up to the task just contact one the of the guru's in your area and they will help you get it back together.

To source a used engine you can either post a WTB (want to buy) in the classifieds for a longblock or you can contact Franko6 who might have a rebuilt shortblock and head sitting around.

whitedog said:

I have been having troubles viewing pictures lately so I have learned to right click the box and open the picture in a new tab.

Lifter came apart and it appears to be a window in the block.

Click to expand...

that's a nice way to put it "window in the block"

130k? Was the timing belt ever changed? If not, I'm thinking that something in that path may have failed, thus starting the chain reaction that the OP is seeing the results of. Regardless, the old engine is now just a giant paperweight or boat anchor.

I would agree.. check your timing belt system. This type of failure is commonly associated with a broken belt.

For some reason I assume this was just done, I will ask her and maybe follow up with the previous owner. The timing is intact though and looks good. (so far as I can tell)

FlyTDI Guy said:

I would agree.. check your timing belt system. This type of failure is commonly associated with a broken belt.

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It seems the local vw junk yards have short blocks (500) for one in my neck of the woods. These hardly ever go bad, so not that expensive. After having my head worked on twice, I would actually buy a reman one, don't remember which one, but a vendor on here sells them for 800-900 complete. Don't buy any parts from Prothe engineering! (look them up on here) I made that mistake and had to do a head job again after 15k miles. I recomended diesel geek for t/b kit (i'm sure others are good, but I have used their parts and was mucho impressed) I did basically this same rebuild on my Jetta (motor was bad when I bought it). It is not that hard and well worth the effort.

What do you think is the total cost of a rebuild with a short block the complete DIY way you did?

deep_sea said:

It seems the local vw junk yards have short blocks (500) for one in my neck of the woods. These hardly ever go bad, so not that expensive. After having my head worked on twice, I would actually buy a reman one, don't remember which one, but a vendor on here sells them for 800-900 complete. Don't buy any parts from Prothe engineering! (look them up on here) I made that mistake and had to do a head job again after 15k miles. I recomended diesel geek for t/b kit (i'm sure others are good, but I have used their parts and was mucho impressed) I did basically this same rebuild on my Jetta (motor was bad when I bought it). It is not that hard and well worth the effort.

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Did you guys get service records w/this car? Look for a timing belt service and when it was performed.

You should be able to find a short block for $500 (I can in central Texas) $900 for reman head (complete) $300 to T/B kit (complete) need a new oil pump and other misc doo dads, might need new injector nozzles $250 or so (go ahead and upgrade) Texas diesel shop has good prices on nozzles, Diesel Geek for T/B kit, research vendors on here for a head (I found one somewhere on here for $800 and change) and junk yard short block. Again stay away from Prothe Engineering!

Bora parts has head for $898 and head install kit for $398 (t/b kit and all gaskets for installing head.

I think there is more to the story than the engine simply "stalling out" when going downhill.. That thing had to raise all kinds of h&ll on its way out.

joe4324 said:

Long story short...

She got it back a little less than two weeks ago. 5 Days later she was driving downhill into town and heard a sound as if something had fallen off the car and bounced under it a second later heard a 'bang', immediately lost power, increased resistance and all the lights came up.

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There is the audiory feedback. When hearing a witness statement second hand from someone else, things get blurred and mixed. That is why heresay is usually not considered evidence.

But I wonder what caused the sound that sounds like something had fallen off the car and bounced under it before the bang.

I'm betting there are some paint marks on that cam pulley. Such a shame...