A4 Avant spewing oil

[Joshua Van Tol]

This is a very common problem with the 1.8T engine. It happened to my wife's
1998 Passat 1.8T last winter, at -20F, in an airport parking lot. Consider
yourself very lucky, as in my case, it emptied the crank case in a few
minutes. Got it stopped in time, and no damage was done, but many folks
haven't been so lucky.

The problem is the o-ring seal between the oil cooler and its mounting. It's
about $5.00 at the dealer, and takes an hour or two to replace. You have to
drain the coolant, remove the oil filter, remove the water lines to the oil
cooler, then remove the big nut that secures the cooler to the engine.
Remove, replace o-ring, and re-install.

Those of you with 1.8t's that haven't done this yet, consider replacing this
o-ring preemptively. If it fails like it did  on mine, you've got a very
short time to get it shut down before damage occurs. The design of this oil
cooler is pretty poor. The groove that captures the o-ring is stamped, and
thus has sloped sides, rather than square sides, as is usual with o-ring
grooves. This allows the o-ring to be stretched out by oil pressure, and
eventually it fails catastrophically.

On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 1:02 PM, Bares, Vittorio
<Vittorio.Bares at nuance.com>wrote:

> 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 -
>
>
>
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