Post your Engine failures

[You_Rebel_Scum]

My engine died at 5.5k miles. Dealer won't cover, VWoA told me no warranty because modded. Took oil pan off and metal shavings and damage to #2 connecting rod. Probably from pre-detonation.

This engine has also had warranty work when it was around 1k miles and had the exhaust camshaft replaced under warranty. I am sure it is a Lemon engine, but a moment of stupidity had me trust the line "We're a mod friendly dealer." Lies, of course, and what angers me is that the dealer should have told me to go home and take the mods off, but instead they took pictures and sent them to VWoA. No diagnosis work from the dealer, and no attempt to work with me other than the service advisor manager to call me first thing in the morning and say "Your engine is destroyed and you won't be getting warranty coverage because you're modded. The engine will be $18k."

After a week of hearing nothing from the dealer and daily calls from VWoA saying "nothing to tell you" I get a call from VWoA saying that they will not honor the warranty. I ask why exactly and they say talk to the dealer. Why no other? The dealer said talk to VWoA.

Anyhow, this is my second blown GTI motor. First was my 2010 which had a tension we failure on the eve of my taking it to a shop to have that problem fixed as I had just learned of it. Destroyed the engine.

All I can say is I am not happy at allm with VW, the awful dealer experience, and with how VW seems to make faulty cars and then avoid responsibility.

My advice is always, always take your mods off when you go to a dealer for service. Believe nothing and know VW wasnts to deny your warranty. Do not buy one of their cats if you plan on modding it, and be ready to have a serious repair which hopefully they will cover for you. If I didn't have a huge down payment sunk into this car I would walk on the note, but then I'd be in a terrible penalty box which I would hate. I got a new car because I was moving on from dealing with poor maintenance and damage from previous owners, but now I'm thinking to never buy a car that isn't 3 years old. Too many serious problems can happen and I want some other poor sucker yo have to deal with getting a company to fix their broken junk.

Now I'm looking for a used motor for my 5k miles car. Today was the best day in weeks since I finally got a look into my engine and see the damage which occurred. Hearing that the entire repair might be less than $6k was like winning the lottery compared to the complete lack of care I experienced from both the dealer and VWoA.

I didn't think it would happen to me, but the cam shaft should have made me super careful to keep my warranty no matter what. Don't give them an excuse. Learn from my mistakes. Show the dealer and VWoA nothing and get them to stand behind their warranty.

 

[Twist1]

My engine died at 5.5k miles. Dealer won't cover, VWoA told me no warranty because modded. Took oil pan off and metal shavings and damage to #2 connecting rod. Probably from pre-detonation.

This engine has also had warranty work when it was around 1k miles and had the exhaust camshaft replaced under warranty. I am sure it is a Lemon engine, but a moment of stupidity had me trust the line "We're a mod friendly dealer." Lies, of course, and what angers me is that the dealer should have told me to go home and take the mods off, but instead they took pictures and sent them to VWoA. No diagnosis work from the dealer, and no attempt to work with me other than the service advisor manager to call me first thing in the morning and say "Your engine is destroyed and you won't be getting warranty coverage because you're modded. The engine will be $18k."

After a week of hearing nothing from the dealer and daily calls from VWoA saying "nothing to tell you" I get a call from VWoA saying that they will not honor the warranty. I ask why exactly and they say talk to the dealer. Why no other? The dealer said talk to VWoA.

Anyhow, this is my second blown GTI motor. First was my 2010 which had a tension we failure on the eve of my taking it to a shop to have that problem fixed as I had just learned of it. Destroyed the engine.

All I can say is I am not happy at allm with VW, the awful dealer experience, and with how VW seems to make faulty cars and then avoid responsibility.

My advice is always, always take your mods off when you go to a dealer for service. Believe nothing and know VW wasnts to deny your warranty. Do not buy one of their cats if you plan on modding it, and be ready to have a serious repair which hopefully they will cover for you. If I didn't have a huge down payment sunk into this car I would walk on the note, but then I'd be in a terrible penalty box which I would hate. I got a new car because I was moving on from dealing with poor maintenance and damage from previous owners, but now I'm thinking to never buy a car that isn't 3 years old. Too many serious problems can happen and I want some other poor sucker yo have to deal with getting a company to fix their broken junk.

Now I'm looking for a used motor for my 5k miles car. Today was the best day in weeks since I finally got a look into my engine and see the damage which occurred. Hearing that the entire repair might be less than $6k was like winning the lottery compared to the complete lack of care I experienced from both the dealer and VWoA.

I didn't think it would happen to me, but the cam shaft should have made me super careful to keep my warranty no matter what. Don't give them an excuse. Learn from my mistakes. Show the dealer and VWoA nothing and get them to stand behind their warranty.

Unfortunate but great post. This is why I always buy used cars inspected to the nth degree when I plan on modding. Never from the dealer. What angers me more than anything is when someone comes to these forums and says "my dealer is mod friendly and some will honor warranty, blah,blah,blah." Guys... They won't. They're in the business of sneaking things past customers, like any big franchise, and if they honor a warranty claim on a tuned car it means your bill wasn't that high to begin with.

Maybe there are diamonds in the rough that do honor such claims on tuned cars but I have yet to see them. Moral of the story throughout these threads: if you can't foot the bill, wait till atleast you're three year warranty is up before voiding if it's a daily driver. It's hard to wait I know, but the risks far outweigh the probability of them paying when they have an easy excuse to get out of it.

 

[CG256]

My engine died at 5.5k miles. Dealer won't cover, VWoA told me no warranty because modded. Took oil pan off and metal shavings and damage to #2 connecting rod. Probably from pre-detonation.

This engine has also had warranty work when it was around 1k miles and had the exhaust camshaft replaced under warranty. I am sure it is a Lemon engine, but a moment of stupidity had me trust the line "We're a mod friendly dealer." Lies, of course, and what angers me is that the dealer should have told me to go home and take the mods off, but instead they took pictures and sent them to VWoA. No diagnosis work from the dealer, and no attempt to work with me other than the service advisor manager to call me first thing in the morning and say "Your engine is destroyed and you won't be getting warranty coverage because you're modded. The engine will be $18k."

After a week of hearing nothing from the dealer and daily calls from VWoA saying "nothing to tell you" I get a call from VWoA saying that they will not honor the warranty. I ask why exactly and they say talk to the dealer. Why no other? The dealer said talk to VWoA.

Anyhow, this is my second blown GTI motor. First was my 2010 which had a tension we failure on the eve of my taking it to a shop to have that problem fixed as I had just learned of it. Destroyed the engine.

All I can say is I am not happy at allm with VW, the awful dealer experience, and with how VW seems to make faulty cars and then avoid responsibility.

My advice is always, always take your mods off when you go to a dealer for service. Believe nothing and know VW wasnts to deny your warranty. Do not buy one of their cats if you plan on modding it, and be ready to have a serious repair which hopefully they will cover for you. If I didn't have a huge down payment sunk into this car I would walk on the note, but then I'd be in a terrible penalty box which I would hate. I got a new car because I was moving on from dealing with poor maintenance and damage from previous owners, but now I'm thinking to never buy a car that isn't 3 years old. Too many serious problems can happen and I want some other poor sucker yo have to deal with getting a company to fix their broken junk.

Now I'm looking for a used motor for my 5k miles car. Today was the best day in weeks since I finally got a look into my engine and see the damage which occurred. Hearing that the entire repair might be less than $6k was like winning the lottery compared to the complete lack of care I experienced from both the dealer and VWoA.

I didn't think it would happen to me, but the cam shaft should have made me super careful to keep my warranty no matter what. Don't give them an excuse. Learn from my mistakes. Show the dealer and VWoA nothing and get them to stand behind their warranty.

What mods did they blame it on?

 

[Parabola]

I don't mod my cars but I do DIY oil changes and other maintenance items. Sometimes I wonder in case of some catastrophic engine failure if they would use that against me.

 

[takemorepills]

It sucks that some engines have failed. Some common things seems to be 2015 MY and/or tuned.

I try and keep it in perspective. As someone who has tuned a few of my Japanese cars, I see the GTI as a screaming cheap car to fix. I swapped a turbo B20z into an Integra, a Type 2 C32A, 6MT and LSD into my Legend and a full CAN-bus OBD2 VQ35DE swapped into an old OBD1 Maxima.
This all cost me lots of money. The B20z-T was a ticking time bomb, the Legend was sweet but not setting any speed records.

Since I am OK with swapping a motor myself, seeing very low miles GTI motors for under $1500 is reassuring to me. After paying $28K for my GTI if a motor blew a few years down the road (I am JB1 for now) I would just swap a motor and be grateful that I am not trying to hassle with getting some weird JDM part, or have some shit welded, or pick through a harness to find the NATS key BUS wiring.

Is there a high-strung, boosted tuner car that is more reliable than a GTI? Even taking into consideration a few motor failures? I was browsing the driveaccord forums and saw a new 2.0T Accord needed a new motor AND a trans. This was like the first 2.0T on the forums also.

 

[Mels15GTI]

I’ve got a 2015, 11/14 build, T revision turbo, I picked up with 16k on it, at around 20k I added added NPM, at about 40k I switched to jb4, I run map2, with downpipe, intake, inlet, did 297/335 on a 90 degree day. I’m at 58k right now. Still running strong.

 

[Unreal1]

It's actually more to do with engineering. The open deck block design is a bad combo with boosted engines. If it was just a simple headgasket mis-match, then why are people still blowing their new engines that were replaced under warranty?

A tweet from a Ford parts employee also confirmed that the EJ7E-6051-HA engineering number that was spotted on a bad gasket pulled out of a Focus RS is actually assigned to the Explorer and MKC engine in the parts catalog.

This reinforces our earlier claim on the incorrect gasket being installed. According to the parts employee, the correct current gasket for the Focus RS should have G1FY-6051-UB stamped into it.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...e/a14510137/ford-focus-rs-head-gasket-issues/

Jalopnik has covered this as well:

https://jalopnik.com/did-ford-install-the-wrong-head-gaskets-on-the-focus-rs-1821665968

Matt discussed it in a recent vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWrXM4yBpnE&t=7s

Whatever the reason for their issue, we can't look at that situation and say these type of engine failures are normal or par for the course. No, Ford screwed up and has an unacceptable situation on their hands. The same thing for VW, they screwed something up and created a bad situation for their owners.

At least with Ford, they have now issued a recall, we still don't know why some of our engines are blowing up prematurely.

If you go on any other forum for a relatively new car, you're not going to see this many engines failing sub-20k miles, save for the Mazda RX-8.

 

[Strange Mud]

Parabola,

don't read the manual it will make you feel even worse. it actually sez you MUST have a record of VW service. My .02 and like many things there are multiple opinions: Old school and I intend to change oil myself at 6 month time (6K miles) and 1x year at dealer for yearly required service. Once out of wtty I will go to a diy only at 9 month period.

And whenever a dealer sez mod friendly take it with a grain of salt. My hint is to try and make friends with sales/service (cookies & beer & conversation) as their attitude can change between wtty and not. Smart enough to know they won't put it in writing

 

[jcarl126]

Parabola,

don't read the manual it will make you feel even worse. it actually sez you MUST have a record of VW service. My .02 and like many things there are multiple opinions: Old school and I intend to change oil myself at 6 month time (6K miles) and 1x year at dealer for yearly required service. Once out of wtty I will go to a diy only at 9 month period.

And whenever a dealer sez mod friendly take it with a grain of salt. My hint is to try and make friends with sales/service (cookies & beer & conversation) as their attitude can change between wtty and not. Smart enough to know they won't put it in writing

being recently a former service adviser i can comment on a few things...
a) coffee, cookies, donuts, etc will always help... talking their ears off will not. they are very busy and you standing there bullshitting with them will more likely drive them up a wall.
b) their business is NOT to sneak stuff by you. If they find your engine is blown, hell yea theyre going to try to get it replaced under warranty becasuse that means VW is going to PAY THEM and their technicicans AND parts guys to order an engine and part, install the engine, test the engine, ship back the old core, potentially get a great survey back from from the customer.
c) if the auto maker denies the claim, whether they found a tune, accident damage, what ever... advisers dread calling the customer and breaking that news. now you have an upset customer, asking you tons of questions that you cannot answer because it wasnt your call in the first place, customers who will get a survey no matter what because their car has been checking into the shop, and now we have a car with unpaid issues that usually the customer doesnt want us to fix but also doesnt want to pay us for diag - and techs are pissed at us for diagnosing a car that they will no potentially not get paid for. its truly a lose-lose-lose situation.

Most people dont realize that just because a dealership is working on your car doesnt mean the dealership is the one paying for warranty repairs. Any time a warranty claim is submitted, the service manager sends that particular file directly to the manufacturer to see if the dealership gets reimbursed. there is no "you made my car, you fix it when its broken under warranty". Nope! the dealership sold you a car, made by the affiliated manufacturer, and HOPES that what it DOES fix under warranty WILL be reimbursed for proper procedures being followed.

There are tons of times a repair isnt covered under warranty, we would fix it under warranty only to find out OOPS the manufacturer isnt paying us back because we forgot to put in a certain necessary comment (something as small as 'part was disposed of in accordance with outlined warranty procedures'). trust me, the average turn over rate for a service writer is about 2-3 years IF they push the envelope for most. you are walking a fine line between pissing off your customers, and pissing off your employer, while trying to make a living for working 7:30am until 6:15pm molnday through frriday and every other saturday for a whole work day as well.

dont get me wrong, there are tons of sneaky ass service advisers out there, but dont call them all bad, same goes for managers. my service manager would bend over BACKWARDS to help people, people that would cuss me out, spitting in my face and all over my desk because their part is on national backorder and theyre in a PAID rental car on us but they MUST HAVE THEIR CAR BACK for god knows why. men and women who would get clocked in any other country for talking to someone that way, people you dont want to help if they were the last dregs of society, but he would try his absolutely best to keep them as customers. Could always count on that twice a month, usually while some brand new customer is standing right behind them, waiting for her first free oil change on a brand new car she just bought two months ago....

dealerships and service departments DEPEND on happy return customers, dont you think it would greatly behoove them to make sure said customers are content and feel properly cared for when they leave the place?



EDIT: Also, regarding DIY service, that should not void a warranty unless we can prove the oil wasnt changed properly, wrong fluid was used, theres no oil in car, etc. just keep your receipts for whatever services you are doing and write the mileage and dates on them. if a car were under drivetrain warranty and a customer brought me that stuff while their timing chain tensioners crapped out, or transmission housing wore through from a bad bearing WHATEVER - better believe that that engine or trans was going to be covered under warranty, unless whoever was doing the previous servicing left the drain plug out, or oil cap off, or used gear oil in a lifetime fluid transmission.... something like that is obviously negligence.

 

[Strange Mud]

Big agree. The only thing I would add is I believe wtty repairs make less $ than the same repair at customer rates. It is also the sales force you need to smooze up to. They tend to be good talkers.

oops If I came across saying I think service/sales suck. Not my intent but know tuned motors are real risky if you want wtty work. Moot for me as I find the GTI to have more than enough HP for me, but I see a shifter (maybe the clutch bleeder) in my future.

 

[tknj99]

This thread has me feeling good with my plan to stick with the JB4 long term (until powertrain warranty ends). Definitely the best bang for the buck for engine/turbo safety, warranty preservation and performance

 

[jcarl126]

Big agree. The only thing I would add is I believe wtty repairs make less $ than the same repair at customer rates. It is also the sales force you need to smooze up to. They tend to be good talkers.

oops If I came across saying I think service/sales suck. Not my intent but know tuned motors are real risky if you want wtty work. Moot for me as I find the GTI to have more than enough HP for me, but I see a shifter (maybe the clutch bleeder) in my future.

You are correct, warranty work does pay slightly less than customer pay ($115/hr customer pay, $96/hr warranty) but its still better that $0/hr if repairs arent made at all!! I appreciate your thoughts on the process, i just wanted to inform everyone that service advisers usually do not want to come across as weiners, denying everything : / we want your car repaired! thats how we get paid!! no repairs, no monies

that being said, ive moved to the collision side of the auto business hahah

 

[jeffkro]

My engine died at 5.5k miles. Dealer won't cover, VWoA told me no warranty because modded. Took oil pan off and metal shavings and damage to #2 connecting rod. Probably from pre-detonation.

This engine has also had warranty work when it was around 1k miles and had the exhaust camshaft replaced under warranty. I am sure it is a Lemon engine, but a moment of stupidity had me trust the line "We're a mod friendly dealer." Lies, of course, and what angers me is that the dealer should have told me to go home and take the mods off, but instead they took pictures and sent them to VWoA. No diagnosis work from the dealer, and no attempt to work with me other than the service advisor manager to call me first thing in the morning and say "Your engine is destroyed and you won't be getting warranty coverage because you're modded. The engine will be $18k."

After a week of hearing nothing from the dealer and daily calls from VWoA saying "nothing to tell you" I get a call from VWoA saying that they will not honor the warranty. I ask why exactly and they say talk to the dealer. Why no other? The dealer said talk to VWoA.

Anyhow, this is my second blown GTI motor. First was my 2010 which had a tension we failure on the eve of my taking it to a shop to have that problem fixed as I had just learned of it. Destroyed the engine.

All I can say is I am not happy at allm with VW, the awful dealer experience, and with how VW seems to make faulty cars and then avoid responsibility.

My advice is always, always take your mods off when you go to a dealer for service. Believe nothing and know VW wasnts to deny your warranty. Do not buy one of their cats if you plan on modding it, and be ready to have a serious repair which hopefully they will cover for you. If I didn't have a huge down payment sunk into this car I would walk on the note, but then I'd be in a terrible penalty box which I would hate. I got a new car because I was moving on from dealing with poor maintenance and damage from previous owners, but now I'm thinking to never buy a car that isn't 3 years old. Too many serious problems can happen and I want some other poor sucker yo have to deal with getting a company to fix their broken junk.

Now I'm looking for a used motor for my 5k miles car. Today was the best day in weeks since I finally got a look into my engine and see the damage which occurred. Hearing that the entire repair might be less than $6k was like winning the lottery compared to the complete lack of care I experienced from both the dealer and VWoA.

I didn't think it would happen to me, but the cam shaft should have made me super careful to keep my warranty no matter what. Don't give them an excuse. Learn from my mistakes. Show the dealer and VWoA nothing and get them to stand behind their warranty.

There has to be plenty of perfectly good diesel gate engines floating around somewhere.

 

[Hoon]

Yes I believe you pay tax on all unsold inventory every year.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

This varies by state, some states tax inventory and some do not.

Regardless of whether it's taxed, it's expensive to hold inventory, especially on slow turn items.

 

[Parabola]

I did the clutch bleeder "mod" (oops I lied about not modding my cars), and if my clutch or dmf fails there would be a pissing contest whether it was the modified bleeder or not...and I'd probably get short end of the stick. That I could accept, I played withe fire, got burned. What concerns me is engine grenading itself and VW saying we only have one record of your oil change and you're at 40k miles so here's a $18k bill for new engine. Yeah I have receipts of purchased oil kits, filters etc...