generic A4 questions

[Grant Lenahan]

Nah, Its lack of maintenance.  Those motors require synthetic, regular 
(5k or less) changes, and careful warm up. The vast majority of owners 
do none of the 3.  Sludge can be a problem if oil remains too long - 
note that AOA issued a TSB and lowered the change interval. Turbos and 
the oil return lines can fail if synthetic is not used (the oil cokes 
and coagulates on the inside of the return line - same as S4s).  These 
risks are well known - although Audi as usual tried to ignore them and 
did not warn customers (long oil change intervals, blah, blah). The 
head gasket issue I'm unaware of. The lower main bearing is quite rare, 
but would be tied to sludge buildup, whcih is well documented - even 
with TSBs.

This is maybe VW's most proven motor - dating in part back to the 1980s 
VW 16V.

Don't believe that these issues were not 100% foreseen.  I called these 
problems ages back, as did many others.  In fact, its amazing that 
people dont anticipate these issues in any turbocharged motor. Temps 
are high at the impeller, and this has a ripple effect if you dont keep 
fresh oil with a high flash point.

Take care of it and it will take care of you.  And reduce polar moment 
of inertia, along the way.  And deliver better fuel economy.  And take 
added boost happily.

Grant
On Feb 4, 2007, at 3:35 PM, Alex Cagann wrote:

> I agree completely here.  The V6 is very smooth, IMO, much more than 
> the
> 1.8t. Also, and I brought up a topic on this late last year, but the 
> 1.8
> engine is showing problems arise. Most didn't agree with me at all and 
> said
> they were all due to user errors (no preventative maintenance) but I am
> going to have to disagree here. While some may be the case, I am 
> seeing and
> hearing the stories build up. I visited my tech friend the other day, 
> and he
> had 3 of them just come in. I had another talk about these engines 
> with him,
> asked him about it. He said among his peers, they are seeing these 
> come in
> like crazy. I asked him if he thinks it is due to lack of proper
> maintenance...he said no, not in most cases. He told me they are 
> blowing
> head gaskets quite a bit, and he is seeing a lot of them with lower 
> crank
> bearing failure. There has to be something here, or these tech's 
> wouldn't be
> seeing so many of them.
>
> Alex
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Tom Love [mailto:theloves at localaccess.com]
>> Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 1:24 PM
>> To: Grant Lenahan; Alex Cagann
>> Cc: 'Q-list'; kf21857 at comcast.net
>> Subject: Re: generic A4 questions
>>
>> The refresh was 99.5 and still had a throttle cable.
>> IMO the NA 2.8 30v is about as fast as the stock 1.8T  (drive
>> them both) but smoother and far more trouble free. You can
>> get a lot more power out of the 1.8T with mods but again, you
>> are open for more problems down the road.
>> If I bought another Avant I would be looking at a B6 if not
>> another 99.5 B5 and still stick with the V6 and sport
>> suspension.  My 2 cents
>
>
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