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Help, spark plug tip broke inside cylinder.

Joe_Mama

Autocross Champion
Location
Philly
Car(s)
2012 GTI, 2017 GSW
...but they're an asshole who's right. 🤔
omg thank you.

everything is about 'feelings' these days. Better to deal in facts
 

jimlloyd40

Autocross Champion
Location
Phoenix
Car(s)
2018 SE DSG
Because you dont know where the piece of metal went. What is to say it isnt stuck to a piece of gunky carbon right now and lets loose through the exhaust valve and hits his turbo while its spinning at 20k rpm?

The MINIMUM damage done right now is to the cylinder walls and the piston head, possibly valve damage as well. But it CAN get worse.
True but I guess it's what the owner can afford to do. Pay me now or pay me later.
 

Beelz

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
NY
In my case, IF that happens down the road then so be it. But I'm not going to start taking my engine apart when it's running fine to find a problem that may or may not be there anymore. I wasn't giving any advice im sharing my experience if certain people don't like it that's their call
 

Ace92028

Go Kart Newbie
Location
San Diego
Lol I like extreme sports.. I saw this video of a dude with similar issue, he ran the engine with the spark plug out for a few mins and little thing popped out, is that safe to do on our engines
this is the first thing i was thinking you should have done. I do it all the time when I do Helicoils and aluminum shavings fall inside the chamber.
 

Joe_Mama

Autocross Champion
Location
Philly
Car(s)
2012 GTI, 2017 GSW
Yeah you could try that^

It wouldnt harm the engine, youll just misfire on that cylinder with no spark. Ive done it on water flooded engines to prevent hydrolock. Fun to see the water shoot out the top of an engine.

Just sucks that the worst damage is probably done. Heavy scoring on the cylinder walls can lead to all kind of bad things. Youll get increased blow by and less compression over time and it could even lead to piston slap in a worst case scenario. You cant tell much from that borescope video because it is so low quality unfortunately but I can definitely already see marks in the piston head which would align with the sounds the OP had.

Most troubling is his car shut off on its own with that rattling inside the engine
 

scrllock

Autocross Champion
Location
MI
...but they're an asshole who's right. 🤔
If some totally ignorant person came here with the same issue, sees this idiot just driving around with a screwed up motor, it would be a bigger asshole move to not let them know how bad of an idea that is. OP might as well be trolling at this point.
 

golfare

Passed Driver's Ed
Location
CT
If some totally ignorant person came here with the same issue, sees this idiot just driving around with a screwed up motor, it would be a bigger asshole move to not let them know how bad of an idea that is. OP might as well be trolling at this point.
I had the same sound. But mine is intermittent. Comes and goes. Not using the car right now, it is sitting in the garage waiting for me to deal with the problem. Upon start, no noise. Boroscope cylinder check, leakdown and compression check ALL passed. No scoring. Could only make the noise happen after the one pull I did after replacing the spark plugs after the electrode broke off. I used the spark plugs past their service interval like a dumbass, and never got around to upgrading the intercooler. I'm thinking the cause was a combination of these two things. Looked in the PCV valve opening and no obvious damage to the valve train from what I could see there. Is the ONLY next step complete disassembly?
 

kraakmo

New member
Location
Wisconsin
Car(s)
'17 Golf R
Hi All. So I also have had the same issue - 17 MK7 Golf R, dropped an electrode in Cylinder 3.
A little history: I ran the NGK RS7 Plugs for 20K miles last year (on stock coils) - no issues what so ever. In January, I put in new NGK RS7 plugs AND the APR coil packs, and earlier this month (at 11k miles on the plugs), cylinder 3 dropped the ground electrode into the cylinder. Upon disassembly, cylinder 3 spark plug was loose (which I cant explain - I torqued them to 30NM / 22lbf myself). Per NGK's website A spark plug that is under-torqued will not be fully seated in the cylinder head and heat dissipation will be slowed. As a result, the firing end of the spark plug can overheat and pre-ignition can occur. Serious engine damage can follow. My guess is, this is what caused the electrode to fail.

First, I replaced the spark plugs with OEM MK7 R plugs. Started the engine, and was getting an intermittent clicking noise (Identical to OP's). The car would idle fine, but would misfire when under any kind of load, and actually misfired on all cylinders (1, 2, 3, 4, Multiple cylinder misfire, and hide cylinder were all codes I got after a 2 block drive). No Bueno.

Next (following OP) - the intake was removed to clean the intake valves. Incredibly - the electrode was still in the intake manifold.

After carbon cleaning was completed, the car has a couple misfires within the first 20 miles - but nothing to throw a code, including several WOT pulls through the gears. Eventually completed another 300 miles today, without any misfires what so ever. FYI for anyone else who experiences this!
 
Last edited:

Royalion

Ready to race!
Location
SoCal
Hi All. So I also have had the same issue - 17 MK7 Golf R, dropped an electrode in Cylinder 3.
A little history: I ran the NGK RS7 Plugs for 20K miles last year (on stock coils) - no issues what so ever. In January, I put in new NGK RS7 plugs AND the APR coil packs, and earlier this month (at 11k miles on the plugs), cylinder 3 dropped the ground electrode into the cylinder. Upon disassembly, cylinder 3 spark plug was loose (which I cant explain - I torqued them to 30NM / 22lbf myself). Per NGK's website A spark plug that is under-torqued will not be fully seated in the cylinder head and heat dissipation will be slowed. As a result, the firing end of the spark plug can overheat and pre-ignition can occur. Serious engine damage can follow. My guess is, this is what caused the electrode to fail.

First, I replaced the spark plugs with OEM MK7 R plugs. Started the engine, and was getting an intermittent clicking noise (Identical to OP's). The car would idle fine, but would misfire when under any kind of load, and actually misfired on all cylinders (1, 2, 3, 4, Multiple cylinder misfire, and hide cylinder were all codes I got after a 2 block drive). No Bueno.

Next (following OP) - the intake was removed to clean the intake valves. Incredibly - the electrode was still in the intake manifold.

After carbon cleaning was completed, the car has a couple misfires within the first 20 miles - but nothing to throw a code, including several WOT pulls through the gears. Eventually completed another 300 miles today, without any misfires what so ever. FYI for anyone else who experiences this!
Did you adjust the gap on the RS7 plugs or were they installed untouched?
 

Joe_Mama

Autocross Champion
Location
Philly
Car(s)
2012 GTI, 2017 GSW
The gap isn't what broke the electrode
 

kraakmo

New member
Location
Wisconsin
Car(s)
'17 Golf R
IIRC, I did close the gap (stock is 0.028"), per APR: APR recommends NGK heat range 9 (NGK-R7437-9) spark plugs gapped to 0.024" ±0.002" or 0.6mm ±0.05mm with a change interval of 10-15,000 mi or 16-24,000 km.

I have a spark plug gap tool at home, and have adjusted several spark plugs before. Note - I did NOT run the NGK-R7437-9, but rather the OEM Audi RS7 plugs purchased from ECS turning.

Not ruling out that I induced fatigue during the gapping process (IE - if I closed it too far, then opened it back up). However - the fact that the plug was loose when I pulled it, leads me to believe that was the primary contributor to the failed ground electrode.
 
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