BIG Problems for CKRA owners when Cylinder Head Fails!!

[Jaytechqu]

Hello! I Have a CKRA Passat with a crack in cylinder 2 and a crack in cylinder 3! Car actually ran normal as far as performance goes but it would run Hot. Never over heated just ran a tick above the center on guage. I had heard these heads cracked and eventually confirmed it when I removed the head. NOW, the issue is, if you have been lucky enough to not have major failures, VW has discontinued production of alot of TDI parts INCLUDING, wait for it........CYLINDER HEADS!!!! Don't you just love that dedication VW has to it's TDI customers! With that being said, last couple heads left in the country are going for over 2k once all said n done. I'm not putting 2k + into this car. So I am currently looking for a machine shop bold enough to weld it! Any suggestions would be appreciated and I'm willing to ship it. Why not get a used engine u ask?? Cause these heads are prone to cracking and I'm not going to spend 2k on an engine when I just need the head only for it to be cracked or crack in the next few months. Smarter move is to repair what I have. Hope no one else is going thru this but know u aren't alone if you are!! Once I figure out how to post pics, I will!

 

[pedroYUL]

@Franko6 is your man!

 

[oilhammer]

The other issue we are seeing with the CKRA is the little steel ball pressed into the oil galley at the belt end of the head starts to leak oil. In addition to the cam seal leaks they already have a TSB about on this engine, and the fact that the plastic inner cap on the hub cracks and falls to pieces. The valve covers bake and turn to crispy brittle things and start leaking all over, too.

I think the CKRA in particular, at least for this market (probably has some other engine codes elsewhere that are similar), has a bad issue with the cylinder head just running too darn hot. So I am not surprised that cracking is a thing for them, either.

I am not sure if it is due to the high pressure EGR going right back through the casting of the head, or what. But that is unique to the CKRA. The CBEA/CJAA do not do that, they have their high pressure EGR exiting at right angles from the turbo/manifold, going into a pipe, and running outside and around the head... not straight back through it. Because the other engines also do not have the oil galley plug start leaking (at least I have never seen one), nor do they have the plastic on the hub crack, nor do their valve cover leaks happen so quickly and be so crispy when you take them off that they break into pieces. And there are a LOT more CJAAs out there than CKRAs.

I think the CKRA is turning out to be a dumb, dud, stop-gap, experimental turd of an engine. They were trying to introduce some new things (SCR, liquid-cooled charge air, solenoid injectors, etc.) that just didn't work, and ultimately resulted in a major makeover of the engine platform which brought us the CRUA/CVCA engines. Which sadly, we just got for 2015, but a version of is still being sold today in Europe in 2022 I suppose.

You add in the CKRA-only super fragile plastic oil filter/cooler housing that spontaneously starts spewing coolant out and the software glitched random DEF warning nonsense that Volkswagen cannot seem to figure out, and it really turns me off to the 2012-14 NMS TDI. The one thing it had going for it, was that it was a relatively large car that was still available with a proper manual gearbox (even though these were not big sellers), but most of those got bought back and crushed because they could not figure out a suitable "fix" for them for the Dieselgate fiasco.

And I don't know if it would even be possible to put a CJAA in these, as so much of the rest of the car is different.

 

[seahawkdodge]

How often are these cracking? I just took my 2013 (111k miles) in for a bad head gasket, and they should be pulling the head and replacing it next week.

It was leaking significant oil out the back of the motor and coolant was disappearing, with no visible leak or signs of water in the oil or vice versa.

 

[greengeeker]

Well, they clearly state one of the reasons for the aux coolant circuit on the EA288 is to boost coolant flow through the head. Mostly likely due to lessons learned on the CKRA.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Our VW dealer tells us there are CKRA heads available at the RDC (Regional Distribution Center). Cost is about $2K. I don't know who told you they were no longer available, but it's not true. Part number is 04L103064E.

I now see that the dealer could get you a head. That's also a complete head, with cam and valves. If you remove the head, pay someone to disassemble it, pay someone (maybe someone else) to weld it, include shipping back and forth, and reassembly, I wonder how much money you'll save. And you'll have a repaired head with used parts instead of a new one.

 

[seahawkdodge]

Our VW dealer tells us there are CKRA heads available at the RDC (Regional Distribution Center). Cost is about $2K. I don't know who told you they were no longer available, but it's not true. Part number is 04L103064E

Every Google search result for that part number comes up as "Not Available".

At least in the US. I found some in Europe.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

I don't think VW parts depots are visible on Google. But they have them. Long blocks are available, too.

 

[eugene89us]

This is a very curious thing. I continue to see coolant slowly drop, went from max line to the min line over the last 10k miles. Of course, in the process, I have replaced timing belt and slowly leaking water pump, which I was hoping would stop the dissipation. However, it is also the first time we got cool weather in the South, so there may have been some air pockets in the heater core circuit, who knows. I topped off the coolant and will keep monitoring. I have not seen temperature move from the middle any at all. Wonder what the risk of continuing to run with cracked cylinder head as you had, I guess outside of major failure when this will inadvertently get worse. The other question is - did you have a chance to test the presence of combustion gases in the cooling system? Harbor Freight has those color-changing kits, wonder if your level of crack would have been caught on that tester?

 

[eugene89us]

In terms of car running hotter, of course the dummy gauge will always stay in the middle until car is significantly over the temperature. I am curious to know whether you had a chance to verify actual coolant temp when car was running hot. How high was the true reading?

 

[seahawkdodge]

My coolant went from full to well below the minimum line in 10k miles.
As far as oil goes, I put about two quarts in at about 5k miles after my 100k oil change. At the 110k oil change, I had about 2.5 quarts drain out.

The dealership verified the oil was leaking from the head gasket area and the car is waiting on parts now. No idea where the coolant leak is.

 

[Dalon]

I am not sure if it is due to the high pressure EGR going right back through the casting of the head, or what. But that is unique to the CKRA. The CBEA/CJAA do not do that, they have their high pressure EGR exiting at right angles from the turbo/manifold, going into a pipe, and running outside and around the head... not straight back through it. Because the other engines also do not have the oil galley plug start leaking (at least I have never seen one), nor do they have the plastic on the hub crack, nor do their valve cover leaks happen so quickly and be so crispy when you take them off that they break into pieces. And there are a LOT more CJAAs out there than CKRAs.

Were you able to confirm anymore info regarding the theory about the EGR causing excessive heat causing the head to crack? I have gauges for oil temp as well as polarFIS to read exact coolant temperature so I will keep an eye on things and see how the temps look. Granted my vehicle will be stage 4 malone so it won't have the EGR and DPF anymore if anyone has any exact temperatures that a stock CKRA reaches I can try and compare. I sent you a message about this as well but wasn't sure if you have messaged enabled, thanks again!

 

[oilhammer]

Just a theory, no idea if it is the case or not. The CKRA is just becoming such a worthless turd of a TDI as of late, nothing surprises me. Someone needs to make a way to retrofit the CJAA into one of these, but not likely to happen. Such a limited market.

 

[IndigoBlueWagon]

Seems that if the head on these engines is that fragile it might not be the best idea to modify it to significantly increase the power output. Just a thought.

 

[Dalon]

That certainly sucks given I’m building one lol hoping since mine has low miles and only gets driven 1500-2000 miles a year that I don’t have these issues for quite some time…

 

[Dalon]

Your theory about the EGR is still very interesting. I know of a ckra with 450k miles that’s been deleted for the majority of those that hasn’t had any issues and I know of a couple “bigger turbo” builds that are deleted and don’t have head cracking issues either. The head Darkside sells says it is compatible with the ckra head part number and I’m assuming the notion is that it isn’t compatible with emissions equipped vehicles…so I am curious if the only difference from the other oval port motors (engines in Europe) is that the EGR is routed through the head

 

[oilhammer]

The last time I was looking around in ETKA, the CKRA engine seemed to be fairly unique in a lot of its parts.

 

[Highwaylizard]

Hey guys new to TDI's and have a question about the different types of engines and the years. I have tried the search function here but it doesn't return anything helpful. Has anyone done a writeup or a sticky that explains what the classifications stand for and what the differences are?

What do all these classifications stand for and what years were they in?

CKRA​

​

CBEA​

​

CJAA​

​

ETKA​

​

CRUA​

​

CVCA​

​

​

​

​

Are there more classifications?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[greengeeker]

Hey guys new to TDI's and have a question about the different types of engines and the years. I have tried the search function here but it doesn't return anything helpful. Has anyone done a writeup or a sticky that explains what the classifications stand for and what the differences are?

What do all these classifications stand for and what years were they in?

CKRA​

​

CBEA​

​

CJAA​

​

ETKA​

​

CRUA​

​

CVCA​

​

CRUA​

​

​

Are there more classifications?

Many thanks in advance.

US TDI offerings chart

Made this quickly for a friend and thought it could be useful for others explaining the engines/transmissions to those not familiar with TDI's. Please correct any errors that you notice. Red lines denote change in body styles.

forums.tdiclub.com

 

[Highwaylizard]

US TDI offerings chart

Made this quickly for a friend and thought it could be useful for others explaining the engines/transmissions to those not familiar with TDI's. Please correct any errors that you notice. Red lines denote change in body styles.

forums.tdiclub.com

Thank you!!! This is exactly what I was hoping to find!

 

[eugene89us]

But folks, with cracked head, won't we see other symptoms outside of oil and coolant loss? Won't there be engine performance changes and changes to combustion performance that would otherwise not only change the smooth performance of the combustion but also show up on some of the emission sensors? Since the engine will be burning coolant as well in the cylinders? Won't we also discover combustion gases in the coolant expansion tank, allowing us to use some of these color changing dyes to determine their presence?

 

[turbobrick240]

It depends where the cracks are. The coolant could be leaking into the combustion chamber, into the oil galleys, or externally. But yeah, I would generally expect to see contaminated coolant in the res.

 

[eugene89us]

Thank you, Turbo Brick. So if the coolant leaks into oil galleys, we should see either milky contamination in the oil for larger leaks or some sign of coolant contamination if we did oil analysis. I believe there are some electrolytes that will be elevated in oil analysis. So maybe it is prudent to send oil for analysis for those that are seeing coolant loss, especially after 100k miles? And then use color changing dye to ensure no combustion gases are present in the expansion tank? At least these tests can either confirm or disprove the suspicion of cracked head gasket or cylinder head. And then going from there to diagnose. Understandably, even sensitive labs can miss minor leaks, but it is better than shooting in the dark otherwise. Is there an anticipated coolant loss and/or oil loss from evaporative lossess in otherwise well performing vehicle north of 100k miles?

 

[AverageAndy]

Granted my vehicle will be stage 4 malone so it won't have the EGR and DPF anymore if anyone has any exact temperatures that a stock CKRA reaches I can try and compare.

Driving around today in my bone stock CKRA, highway speeds, ambient temp 65F, values as measured through VCDS while at operating temp:

Engine oil 121-122C
Coolant 105-106C

Hope this helps!

 

[Dalon]

Thank you so much! My ckra is in storage until April but I’ll definitely post and let you know! Won’t be the same test environment but I’ll try and drive it whenever it’s around that temp as well

 

[eugene89us]

Dang, Andy, the coolant is running mighty hot. Since my timing belt job, the coolant temp hardly crosses 99. But I am on a tune and there are some dynamic EGR changes. I guess with EGR wide open, that adds another 5 to 6 degrees! Dalon, I'd be curious if yours are similar to mine with your EGR completely shut off. I regret not tuning the car sooner, frankly worrying about warranty was a dumb idea, probably shortening car's lifespan. I have not found a way to monitor oil temps, none of my non-Bimmer apps support it, I guess. I will need to check with VCDS.

 

[turbobrick240]

Thank you, Turbo Brick. So if the coolant leaks into oil galleys, we should see either milky contamination in the oil for larger leaks or some sign of coolant contamination if we did oil analysis. I believe there are some electrolytes that will be elevated in oil analysis. So maybe it is prudent to send oil for analysis for those that are seeing coolant loss, especially after 100k miles? And then use color changing dye to ensure no combustion gases are present in the expansion tank? At least these tests can either confirm or disprove the suspicion of cracked head gasket or cylinder head. And then going from there to diagnose. Understandably, even sensitive labs can miss minor leaks, but it is better than shooting in the dark otherwise. Is there an anticipated coolant loss and/or oil loss from evaporative lossess in otherwise well performing vehicle north of 100k miles?

Yes, it is normal for some oil to evaporate/be consumed between changes. The coolant level should not change. If it's losing coolant, there is a leak somewhere. Not necessarily, and most often not in the head. Though the CKRA does seem to have a bit of an issue with head cracking. Sodium/Potassium levels will be elevated in the oil analysis of an engine that's leaking coolant internally.

 

[Dalon]

I actually had about an hour conversation with Frank regarding the CKRA head cracking and I did mention Oilhammer’s hypothesis regarding the EGR causing excessive heat and Frank had some interesting input regarding the internal construction of all the CR heads. I did ask him to summarize it in an email so I can share without mincing his words or interpreting him incorrectly.

 

[calimustang]

from what I know.... deleting the CKRA will help tremendously on reducing the heat and strain on the CKRA head and EGR would be gone and such?

I know this isn't possible for some of you guys living in the emission testing areas.

 

[calimustang]

Just a theory, no idea if it is the case or not. The CKRA is just becoming such a worthless turd of a TDI as of late, nothing surprises me. Someone needs to make a way to retrofit the CJAA into one of these, but not likely to happen. Such a limited market.

it can be possible if someone being brave spends a ton of time on the wiring and CJAA to wire up in the "former CKRA" NMS Passat... such as one guy on here actually did the CJAA swap into the Tiguans (one was DSG and other was 6MT)

Tiguan with CJAA

complete

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Kraftwerx Auto Inc

Just a few more bugs to work out and the TDI Tiguan will be road ready. There was no corners cut here, commonrail swap from 2009 Jetta, 4motion, 3.6 brakes,H&R suspension, Darkside DPF delete, Malone...

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