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I need a new engine at 48k miles, pre owned warranty voided by stage 1 tune

ITGUY

ITGUY

Autocross Newbie
Location
PA
Knowing what we know about the rings why would you just replace only the troubled one? with the risk of the others failing? and not all rings? Hell at that point you might as well rebuild the bottom end, because everything is apart at that point anyways. What you suggest sound kind of half assed. My mechanic told me that 9 times out of 10 the ring eats the motor in these cases and has to be replace. Just like mine was.

Internexus said:
This is a bit of an extreme case but I am curious as into why everyone is automatically jumping the gun on getting an entirely different motor in this situation. OP may be able to tear down the engine (while still in vehicle mind you) and remove the one piston and depending upon what is seen there may not be much needed. The piston could still be completely fine, the cylinder may need some minor honing and a set of piston rings and a headgasket kit he could be on his way for sub $500. I know I've been at the receiving end of both light failures and catastrophic failures but it's free to tear into the engine and SEE what's needed and assess the value before spending a fortune on something that maybe unnecessary.
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I

Internexus

Ready to race!
Location
USA
ITGUY said:
Knowing what we know about the rings why would you just replace only the troubled one? with the risk of the others failing? and not all rings? Hell at that point you might as well rebuild the bottom end, because everything is apart at that point anyways. What you suggest sound kind of half assed. My mechanic told me that 9 times out of 10 the ring eats the motor in these cases and has to be replace. Just like mine was.
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If it makes you feel better you can certainly replace all of the rings while you're in there but truth be told sometimes a part just prematurely fails. The rule of if it's not broke then don't fix it does apply accordingly on low mileage motors, if you're pulling the head and seeing that there is a ridge on each of the cylinders and the crosshatch is missing then yes it's 100% appropriate to go through all of them. The idea of "at that point you might as well rebuild the bottom end, because everything is apart" is very wrong. The amount of work that goes into inspecting 1 cylinder wall, piston, bearing, and replacing the rings/rod bearings is far less intrusive than removing all cylinders worth, crankshaft, having the block dipped/honed etc. You're comparing apples and oranges honestly. You can consider it half-assed all you want but I've been through a lot of motors and have real world experience to apply and the idea of "9 times out of 10 the ring eats the motor" sounds like a great excuse to charge someone for an entire motor and less technical work on your mechanics end (read lazy).
 
Hoon

Hoon

Autocross Champion
Location
Rhode Island
Internexus said:
If it makes you feel better you can certainly replace all of the rings while you're in there but truth be told sometimes a part just prematurely fails. The rule of if it's not broke then don't fix it does apply accordingly on low mileage motors, if you're pulling the head and seeing that there is a ridge on each of the cylinders and the crosshatch is missing then yes it's 100% appropriate to go through all of them. The idea of "at that point you might as well rebuild the bottom end, because everything is apart" is very wrong. The amount of work that goes into inspecting 1 cylinder wall, piston, bearing, and replacing the rings/rod bearings is far less intrusive than removing all cylinders worth, crankshaft, having the block dipped/honed etc. You're comparing apples and oranges honestly. You can consider it half-assed all you want but I've been through a lot of motors and have real world experience to apply and the idea of "9 times out of 10 the ring eats the motor" sounds like a great excuse to charge someone for an entire motor and less technical work on your mechanics end (read lazy).
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This wasn't a ring failure, it broke the piston and spat the rings into the pan.

Also, keep in mind he's paying labor for all services involved. That changes the calculation substantially.
 
I

Internexus

Ready to race!
Location
USA
Hoon said:
This wasn't a ring failure, it broke the piston and spat the rings into the pan.

Also, keep in mind he's paying labor for all services involved. That changes the calculation substantially.
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OP stated "A day after dropping my car off, I receive a call from the service advisor telling me that I need a whole new engine because they “found” pieces of the piston ring in the oil pan" I didn't get any idea of busted piston being involved in this unless I missed it elsewhere in the thread... As far as labor costs and such it could go a few different ways depending on whether or not they have the cylinder head off for inspection or not. It's a moot point to argue however as most VW techs straight up would never rebuild a motor on site compared to swapping another motor in because it gets rid of liability while being able to charge an absolute fortune for a remanufactured motor.

Edit: After reviewing the thread further there was no mention of the piston grenading, and he was quoted $16k from the dealership. He could easily bring the car home and do everything himself and mess it up numerous times and still be ahead compared to this. IF that one cylinder happened to have a piston that fragmented and damaged the cylinder it could still be bored or re-sleeved accordingly and be well under the cost of a used replacement engine.
 
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Acadia18

Acadia18

Autocross Champion
Location
The Greater Boston Metropolitan Area
Car(s)
2019 Golf R
Internexus said:
he was quoted $16k from the dealership. He could easily bring the car home and do everything himself and mess it up numerous times and still be ahead compared to this.
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His car is a 2016 DSG GTI with 46k, he could buy a whole new car similar to that for $16k. Paying $16k to fix a car worth $16k - $18k is ludicrous.
 
Hoon

Hoon

Autocross Champion
Location
Rhode Island
Internexus said:
OP stated "A day after dropping my car off, I receive a call from the service advisor telling me that I need a whole new engine because they “found” pieces of the piston ring in the oil pan" I didn't get any idea of busted piston being involved in this unless I missed it elsewhere in the thread... As far as labor costs and such it could go a few different ways depending on whether or not they have the cylinder head off for inspection or not. It's a moot point to argue however as most VW techs straight up would never rebuild a motor on site compared to swapping another motor in because it gets rid of liability while being able to charge an absolute fortune for a remanufactured motor.

Edit: After reviewing the thread further there was no mention of the piston grenading, and he was quoted $16k from the dealership. He could easily bring the car home and do everything himself and mess it up numerous times and still be ahead compared to this. IF that one cylinder happened to have a piston that fragmented and damaged the cylinder it could still be bored or re-sleeved accordingly and be well under the cost of a used replacement engine.
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These cars have very thin ringlands, that's how the ring ended up in the pan.
 
Drazzed

Drazzed

New member
Location
FL
Car(s)
MK7 GTI
Post update:

So I called the dealership, to let them know that I sent a tow truck to pick up the car (because I obviously wasn’t going to pay $16k), and the service advisor that originally advised me, told me that they were still waiting for an answer from VW so that way they could (and I quote) “help you in some kind of way”, even though I was curious about it, I was still determined to get my car out of there ASAP.

I asked him in what way they could “help” me. “We could get at least half of the cost covered”, he replied. It really got me thinking, since they already gave me a $16k quote why would they chop 50% of the price for some warranty stuff that they don’t want to cover?

Guessed it was some kind of way for the dealership to get me to spend money. Anyways $8k was still a lot for me (its half the price of the car) so I sent the car to a friend’s shop, bought a used engine with 14k miles for $3k, installed it and now it’s almost ready for the road.

Though I have to mention a couple details that might be of useful information to some of you guys:

When I removed the air intake manifold on the old engine, a lot of oil dripped from it as soon as I removed it. I could see l of carbon build up considering the engine being this young.

And just like in the video, I found pieces of the piston and piston rings laying in the oil pan.

I will see how this engine behaves and hopefully everything’s alright, I’ll be getting my sights on an oil catch can to reduce carbon build up on this new one.

P.s.: will keep the AP for now but won’t tune anything. I will probably go down the APR way in the future, but no more Cobb for me for now.
 
tigeo

tigeo

Autocross Champion
Location
Richmond, VA area
Diggs24 said:
And moving to APR won't make anything better. Get a custom tune and have them make it safe.
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This notion that anything but a custom tune isn't safe is simply false. Do you really think that APR, Unitronic, etc. (the big OTS tuning companies) don't make their tunes conservative enough through all of their R&D to be safe? You can certainly argue that they aren't extracting max power b/c of the conservatism employed vs. a custom tuner but safety? Come on. And on the custom route, I don't know if I'd trust just anyone to do my tuning, certainly some big-names out there but also some not-so-big names that would be far more of a concern than APR.
 
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