Monday, November 07, 2005
Breaking a Type of Wind
Bloggers are notorious for posting the mundanities of their daily lives, and I guess I am no exception. But I am about to tread on new ground and tell you how my car broke down the other night.
I was driving to the Canes game on Saturday night, having put Logan to bed on his 1st birthday and stolen away for my hockey fix. I was almost to the arena when my dashboard (I drive a 2002 VW Passat, btw, with just over 70,000 miles on it) completely lit up with the word STOP! in huge letters and the car made a noise similar to the "Luggage Compartment Open" noise, or the "Refuel Soon" noise, but much, much louder. The dash displayed STOP! for a few seconds, then said "Oil pressure low! Stop engine immediately!"
I am not one to, you know, follow directions well. So I kept driving. And sure enough, after a few seconds, the dashboard returned to its previous state. I turned down the radio and listened carefully to the car. It sounded normal -- just like it always does. I could detect no change from its normal performance. So, I made a mental note to check up on it on Monday (today).
Sure enough, three minutes later, the message popped up again. By that time, I was in the parking lot, about ready to park my car. I resolved to add a bit of oil to the engine (good thing I keep some spare oil in the trunk for just these occasions) before I hiked off to the game. Then I forgot all about it for the next two and a half hours.
But the problem did not go away during the game. During the drive home, the light came on again. And again and again. And I continued to ignore it. And the car continued to work, except for the annoying beep and urgent message warning me to stop the car immediately.
I made it home Saturday night, but today it got me a bit freaked out. I did some research on the internets about this problem in Passats and learned it's not merely common, but catastrophic (as in, probable engine replacement, $8,500+). And VW refuses to cover these problems under warranty unless you can show via receipts and documentation that you have changed the oil at the recommended interval of <5,000 miles. I have certainly not done that. In fact, not only have I routinely gone ~7,500 miles between oil changes (I drive conservatively, and about 85% highway miles), I've changed the oil myself several times and don't have receipts for those times, anyway (though I have always used synthetic oil, as recommended).
I think I'm hosed.
The car got towed off to a local import mechanic earlier today (I don't trust the VW service department, but maybe that's another post). Now every time the phone rings, I wince, wondering if it's the news I dread.
On the other hand, it could always be a faulty sensor, right? Couldn't it?
Update: Seems the problem is engine sludge, and it is (as I noted already) common in Passats. They are opening it up to see how extensive the damage is, but I am expecting the worst. Time to go car shopping. any suggestions from the masses?
I was driving to the Canes game on Saturday night, having put Logan to bed on his 1st birthday and stolen away for my hockey fix. I was almost to the arena when my dashboard (I drive a 2002 VW Passat, btw, with just over 70,000 miles on it) completely lit up with the word STOP! in huge letters and the car made a noise similar to the "Luggage Compartment Open" noise, or the "Refuel Soon" noise, but much, much louder. The dash displayed STOP! for a few seconds, then said "Oil pressure low! Stop engine immediately!"
I am not one to, you know, follow directions well. So I kept driving. And sure enough, after a few seconds, the dashboard returned to its previous state. I turned down the radio and listened carefully to the car. It sounded normal -- just like it always does. I could detect no change from its normal performance. So, I made a mental note to check up on it on Monday (today).
Sure enough, three minutes later, the message popped up again. By that time, I was in the parking lot, about ready to park my car. I resolved to add a bit of oil to the engine (good thing I keep some spare oil in the trunk for just these occasions) before I hiked off to the game. Then I forgot all about it for the next two and a half hours.
But the problem did not go away during the game. During the drive home, the light came on again. And again and again. And I continued to ignore it. And the car continued to work, except for the annoying beep and urgent message warning me to stop the car immediately.
I made it home Saturday night, but today it got me a bit freaked out. I did some research on the internets about this problem in Passats and learned it's not merely common, but catastrophic (as in, probable engine replacement, $8,500+). And VW refuses to cover these problems under warranty unless you can show via receipts and documentation that you have changed the oil at the recommended interval of <5,000 miles. I have certainly not done that. In fact, not only have I routinely gone ~7,500 miles between oil changes (I drive conservatively, and about 85% highway miles), I've changed the oil myself several times and don't have receipts for those times, anyway (though I have always used synthetic oil, as recommended).
I think I'm hosed.
The car got towed off to a local import mechanic earlier today (I don't trust the VW service department, but maybe that's another post). Now every time the phone rings, I wince, wondering if it's the news I dread.
On the other hand, it could always be a faulty sensor, right? Couldn't it?
Update: Seems the problem is engine sludge, and it is (as I noted already) common in Passats. They are opening it up to see how extensive the damage is, but I am expecting the worst. Time to go car shopping. any suggestions from the masses?
posted by Bill Purdy, 3:32 PM
2 Buffaloes were bitter enough to post comments:
Another one confuses you for me...
Anyway, yer hosed. There's a reason I always told people to have work done at the dealership - even things as simlpe as oil changes. Especially on a VW.
I hear Ford makes a nice Passat...
Anyway, yer hosed. There's a reason I always told people to have work done at the dealership - even things as simlpe as oil changes. Especially on a VW.
I hear Ford makes a nice Passat...
Engine sludge, as I've recently learned, is caused when certain parts of the engine get substantially hotter than the rest of the engine.
My car is a 1.8 liter turbocharged 4-cylinder. I don't drive it very hard (not my nature), but that turbocharger does, nonetheless, get hotter than the rest of the engine. Oil in the turbocharger "crystallizes" (I have a hard time picturing that, but that's how everyone describes it), and those crystals are deposited, one layer at a time, on parts of the engine where oil flow is eventually impeded. Impeded oil flow is, according to experts in such matters, an extremely bad thing.
This is probably a completely incorrect analogy, but I think of what happens to a pan on a hot stove when oil is allowed to smoke. Once you've put the fire out, you're left with a sticky layer of sludge that's never coming off. In an engine, you can imagine how bad that might become over time.
In any case, it turned out not to be sludge. they took the whole engine apart and declared it "surprisingly clean." Thank goodness for Mobil 1. Nevertheless, the oil pump was broken. The cost of replacing that, plus the cost of the diagnostic work to figure out what was wrong with the car, is gonna set me back $923 and change. Better than $8,500 to replace the engine, but still pretty sucky.
My car is a 1.8 liter turbocharged 4-cylinder. I don't drive it very hard (not my nature), but that turbocharger does, nonetheless, get hotter than the rest of the engine. Oil in the turbocharger "crystallizes" (I have a hard time picturing that, but that's how everyone describes it), and those crystals are deposited, one layer at a time, on parts of the engine where oil flow is eventually impeded. Impeded oil flow is, according to experts in such matters, an extremely bad thing.
This is probably a completely incorrect analogy, but I think of what happens to a pan on a hot stove when oil is allowed to smoke. Once you've put the fire out, you're left with a sticky layer of sludge that's never coming off. In an engine, you can imagine how bad that might become over time.
In any case, it turned out not to be sludge. they took the whole engine apart and declared it "surprisingly clean." Thank goodness for Mobil 1. Nevertheless, the oil pump was broken. The cost of replacing that, plus the cost of the diagnostic work to figure out what was wrong with the car, is gonna set me back $923 and change. Better than $8,500 to replace the engine, but still pretty sucky.