A4 Avant spewing oil

[LL - NY]

That sandwich cooler was on my A2 GTi.  At least on the vintage of my GTi,
('85) they seemed to last about 2-3 years or about 30K miles, the thing that
tended to fail on them was the actual exchanger part itself, the oil tended
to leak into the cooling system. Here's to hoping that they improved that
aspect of the design and that it's only the seal between the engine and the
cooler. In my car's case, the seal never had a chance to fail, it was
replaced too often...

LL - NY

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Thomas G. Leppke-Hennig <
printhead at usinternet.com> wrote:

>
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:02:30 -0500
> > From: "Bares, Vittorio" <Vittorio.Bares at nuance.com>
> > Subject: A4 Avant spewing oil
> > To: <quattro at audifans.com>
> > Message-ID:
> >       <624BC75DA4460545849070E141EBCD6B06D2C951 at BN-EXCH01.nuance.com>
> > Content-Type: text/plain;     charset="us-ascii"
> >
> > Hi List:
> >
> >
> >
> > Today the A4 Avant started spilling oil like it was going out of style,
> > which I suppose in the big picture it is.
> >
> >
> >
> > Followed my wifes oil trail to where she was parked xmas shopping, about
> > 2.5 miles from home. Drip started in the driveway...
> >
> >
> >
> > We put oil in it and drove home. Looks like its coming from around the
> > oil cooler - not the filter. I cleaned the oil and ran the car - oil is
> > definitely coming from north of the filter.
> >
> >
> >
> > Its been bad cold up here in NE the last week.
> >
> >
> >
> > Any experience in terms of common failures around this - what should I
> > expect to find when I start taking it apart?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> >
> >
> > Vittorio -
> >
> >
>
>
> You didn't mention the year or the engine, so we cannot be sure, but the
> most common cause of such a leak is the o-ring behind the oil cooler. (No
> oil lines on these coolers, just coolant lines.) The oil-cooler is also
> the mount boss for the filter on some/most (unspecified) years and models
> of VAG products. After many on/ off cycles of the oil filter, they can
> come loose.
>
> The fix is: Take off the filter, tighten the thin 'lock-nut ' that is
> under the filter, holding on the oil cooler, re-install the filter, start
> it and see if the leak stopped. Really, it should all get disassembled and
> checked out and a new o-ring put in, but that is up to you how much of a
> project you want to make of it.
>
> Actually, take it apart to make sure the o-ring isn't cracked or slipped
> out of position. Make a project out of it.
>
> Tom LH
> 1995 90q
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> quattro mailing list
> http://www.audifans.com/mailman/listinfo/quattro
> http://www.audifans.com/kb/List_information
>