98-01 4cyl turbo engines

[Taka Mizutani]

What do you mean by "going?"

The real story is that there is nothing inherently wrong with the engine if
it
is properly maintained- a lot of people who bought these cars were not
familiar with turbocharged engines and proper warmup/cooldown procedures
as well as the use of proper synthetic oil at regular intervals. Due to this
lack of maintenance and an insufficient manufacturer's guideline (original
7.5k mile interval on dino oil is ridiculous), there are problems with
sludging
and resultant engine and turbo problems.

In our old A4, I used M1 0W40 exclusively once the car was out of the
break-in
period. When the head was pulled at about 55k, it was _clean_. No sludge, no
carbon, a very light yellow varnish, that's it. That's with 5k intervals
with M1
and proper warmup/cooldown procedure, running a chipped ECU pretty much the
whole time.

Taka


On 1/8/07, Alex Cagann <alex at symbolicautosales.com> wrote:
>
> Is it true that these engines are known for blowing up easily?  The reason
> I
> ask, I have just heard of the 4th one in the past year to go in my circle
> of
> friends. All of them have gone before 100k miles, and they have been A4's
> with the 4 cylinder turbo engine years 98-01. The latest one, a 98, just
> went last week, this one blew a head gasket and overheated. A good fried
> of
> mine who is a euro tech, told me he sees these engines going all the time.
> He said if the engine doesn't go first, then the turbo will...because you
> MUST use synthetic oil in these (again..these are his words).
> Well...what's
> the real story here?  If this is true...what can owners do to curtail
> problems?
>