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Cam Chain replaced – now significant oil use and possible timing issues?

Rmgcook

New member
Location
Yorkshire
Hello everyone!

I’m hoping the VW gurus here can help me please!

Firstly, I’ll say I’m a mechanical layman so will apologise for my clunky explanations in advance.

We have owned our 2008 Mk5 1.4 TSI (140BHP) for 6 years. A few months ago the timing chain went. It was taken to a garage and the investigations began.

Needless to say, I would not have completed the work if I knew how expensive and problematic the whole experience would become…. but I can’t turn back time, and now I’ve sunk a load of money into the car so I want to try and keep it for a while longer.

To cut a long story short. The work carried out was:

New chain kit
Most of the valves replaced (inlet & exhaust)
Head skim
1 new piston

Basically a valve burnt out and took a piston with it. Yes, it got quite expensive...

I have driven the car for around 3000 miles since and have the following problems.

Any thoughts regarding the cause would be helpful.

I am in discussions with the garage re the first problem below but not the second yet as it’s only just occurred.

I want to arm myself with as much information as possible...

Significant Oil use

The car is using an insane amount of oil. I have monitored it for almost 3000 miles now by topping up to the top part of the hatched area on the dipstick and repeating every few days.

My best average has been ~670ml oil per 1000km and worst case ~1250ml per 1000km.

VW say that acceptable limits are up to 1000ml per 1000km. Previously, my car used a fraction of this amount (Probably less than a litre in 10k miles).

The garage say it could be the piston and ring yet to seat properly and but haven’t ruled out further damage in the engine (the head has been off and engine apart - I would have hoped that all damage was identified).

There is no smoke from the exhaust and it’s certainly not leaking.

Recent possible cam chain rattle - timing question.

The other morning when I tried to start the car, it struggled to turn over and there was a metallic sounding rattle. I recall hearing a similar sound when the cam chain failed. On the 3rd attempt the car started.

I’ve been reading up on how to check whether the chain has stretched (again) and bought myself an ODB2 adapter.

There are no error codes logged however I noticed that the timing advance when on idle is quite variable.

When observing a live data graph - at just under 800rpm, it generally bounces around from -4 to +8 (more often up to +5), with occasional spikes to +20.

These spikes occur at the same time the engine seems to blip slightly.

I’m not sure whether this bouncing around is normal or whether the actual timing is taken as an average of these readings. The static sensor reading said -2 when I last checked.

How abnormal or otherwise is this for a car which has just had the above work completed?

Welcome your expert views please regarding this two issues!
 

Rmgcook

New member
Location
Yorkshire
Hello all, further update. The car started to smell really badly of petrol and (it may be a coincidence) but over the past few days the oil level hasn’t dropped anywhere near as much as it had been. I don’t know whether it’s possible for petrol to be getting into the oil somehow? Anyway the smell was unbearable so it’s gone back to the garage to look at this plus the other problems!
 
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