Here are a couple of pics of a problem that will occur on most every gasoline powered car with direct injection and the repair is cleaning of the intake valves and intake manifold. This happens to be an Audi S6 V10 that has been an ongoing home project for the last several days. The dealer price quote was $2800 for the cleaning. and another $2k for the water pump.
The water pump is on the 4th photo down - on the right in the picture.
The serpentine drive belt on this engine only drives the alternator - nothing else. everything else is driven via shafts on the engine (PTO).
The ac compressor is also shaft driven and is mounted above and behind the water pump - that won’t be a joy to ever replace!
3Depending on driving habits i.e. stop and go /city or mostly highway/long distance at highway speed etc it varies but typically 70k to 80kmiles average is where symptoms start.
This is where a generic “scan tool” is worthless, and will cause the owner of the car to spend countless dollars on uneccessary parts and repairs that will never resolve the actual problem.
This is typically only found on modern “direct Injection” fuel systems gasoline and diesels with egr.
Common complaints are reduced power, idle problems, random misfires without codes
Well, Tom, that’s because it will NEVER need replacing, #GermanEngeering unless you just drive an ABSURD amount of miles #overonehundredthousand.
It DOES make you wonder why the alternator, though…
I don’t (get to?) work on stuff like this anymore, but I’m intrigued that the “harmonic balancer” is bolted on like a flywheel. The German marques moved to “backward” motors quite a while back (with the timing chain on the transmission end) but I’d never noticed them using flywheel style attacments on this end. They’ve probably been doing it for decades and I simply hadn’t noticed…
Oh, here’s a cutaway of a similar motor (Audi V10)
Whelp, that helps explain my car currently. Thanks for sharing!
@jast As to 100,000 mi being a lot, VW had (maybe still has) a high mileage club. Wasn’t uncommon to see ppl pushing original parts over 500k. Personally, I drive em till they give up the ghost
Raymond, no amount of seafoam or any other “fuel system cleaner” that is introduced to the fuel or intake system will clean this crap off.
The manufacturers use walnut shells/other gentle media and a media blaster / vacuum.
The key to a long lasting vehicle or anything mechanical is routine maintenance and repairs.
Granted everyone builds a lemon or turd once in a while but maintenance is the key.
For a typical every day car 100,000 miles used to be “up there” but that is not the case in the modern era.
Some “modern” cars/trucks can make what used to be basic maintenance or repairs an absoulute pain in the arse. The Audi 5.2 V10 above makes something as basic as changing the oil filter quite an ordeal, and in the case of a less than “honest” garage could easily be ignored and no one would know. This is where something called integrity should reign in…
Rob,
Nice pic! Definitely not a chain & guide job I’d want to tackle…
My question is - does Lamborghini (vw) offer parts for that engine in the event you had to do the chains etc?
I ask because, I did a favor for the owner of a wrecking yard several years ago to put chains on his W12 engine from a Bentley he bought at auction that had been “off road” crushing the oil pan and more. Back then Bentley/VW offered two choices for major engine parts.
1- buy a longblock
2- buy a new car
