distributor rotor question

[QSHIPQ at aol.com]

Doh?!!!!  I call that part of the CBTSB, similar to the UFO debacle, tho this 
one has no such CBTSB documentation attached to it.  Customer bitches loud 
enough, new gear and distributor goes in.  Many times, I've seen old invoices 
where it went in AND customer charged.  No question (in my opinion) that audi 
was aware of this problem.  I think the 11mm tip was to design in gear wear 
tolerance.  It's single application design tends to reinforce that claim.

In terms of "how it would 'otherwise' manifest itself?"  By a rod exiting the 
block in a prejudicial method.  I think these plastic gear electrically 
arched pretty early in their service life, but that a bit of arching really didn't 
tax the really strong rods in a stock motor.  Add some software HP into the 
equation, like popcorn...

Every single 20vt 3B I service, has that plastic gear inspection done unless 
documented so already.  I think that was the stupidest idea someone at audi 
had to reinvent the toothbrush.

HTH

Scott Justusson


In a message dated 12/8/2003 11:04:21 AM Central Standard Time, 
pjrose at frontiernet.net writes:
>...guess what I'm wondering is: yes, the plastic gear begins to wear and 
>presumably to develop "slop", but how does that show up in engine 
>performance so as as to force Audi/Bosch to develop a metal-geared 
>replacement? My guess is that it was the gears' catastrophic-failure 
>mode ( and not simply the gear wear) which led them to the 
>replacement gear.

>Also, wasn't the narrow (3B) rotor introduced at the _same_ time as 
>the 3B plastic-geared distributor? If your analysis is correct, it 
>would imply that Audi knew from the start that they had a gear-wear 
>problem in their brand-new distributor configuration. Shame on them!

>Phil