Audi/VW 1.8t engine sludge

[Ryan H]

If you have ever owned a VW group car with a 1.8t engine, whether it be a Jetta, Passat, A4, Octiva, or SEAT’s version which name I can’t remember, then you have likely encountered the miserable issue of engine sludge buildup. If you do own a car with one of these engines, and you’re never checked, then congratulations! You’ve got sludge!

Here is a rough breakdown on checking if your 1.8t has sludge-

Is it a 1.8t?
No- you may want to check, just to be sure
Yes- Yes. You have sludge.

It really is that common. And it is no joke, either. This can be a real drag, because these engines are actually some of the more impressive I’ve ever driven, and certainly my favorite ever owned. At first, I was heavily disappointed and it seemed to be a very daunting task to rid the engine of this mess. Not only does the sludge gum up every single inlet and outlet where oil is/should be, it also has a very bad habit of getting lodged in the screen of the oil pickup tube. While it is bad for the rest of the engine to be covered in curdled oil, the dreaded low oil pressure warning light can sometimes be the kiss of death. Other times, it can kick your car into limp mode- and that is fortunate. What happens is that the conically shaped oil pickup tube with a meshed screen in the center gets small particles of the heavy deposits of sludge- along with whatever else may be now floating around inside the oil pan now as a result of damage by sludge- finds its way into the small passages of the screen and, over time, chokes off oil to the rest of the engine, as well as the turbo. In some cases, it just clogs suddenly and you then get no oil at all. At best, your oil pressure drops to a dangerous level and your car will knock itself into limp mode so as to avoid damage.

The longitudinally mounted engines seem to have a far greater risk of this as opposed to the transversely mounted, but sludge is still an issue in this engine, no matter the positioning.

There are a number of fixes, remedies, solutions, and everything else out there to try and tackle this problem. They range everywhere from a hand cleaning (which takes a long time, isn’t always successful, and can lead to other issues) to an oil additive (which is what I did and, much to my surprise, seems to have worked. Operative word here being seems)… other people take their cars to a shop to have it professionally cleaned. Whatever you choose to do, just make sure the job is done correctly the first time. I can not express the importance of this enough. Too many people have thought that they were in the clear, only to find out later that there was still sludge in their engine that got knocked loose or looked over and they have to start over from scratch. A lot of people also completely ignore the oil pan. Don’t do this. The oil pan is going to be where the worst sludge lives. This is what will find its way into your pickup tube. And when you ignore your oil pan, you’re also ignoring your pickup tube. And, if you do service the oil pan, DO NOT put on too much RTV for the gasket. If you do, it will squish off into the oil pan and then you’ll eventually find yourself low on oil pressure again because there is RTV stuck in your pickup tube.

These engines are great. The really are. And they are such a joy to drive. Engine sludge is the biggest problem with this engine, and it can certainly give the sensation that the engine is of poor quality. But more often than not, it’s just caused by even the tiniest lapse in maintenance. Make sure you use the oil specified/recommended by VW, use a good filter, and change your oil a little more often than recommended. If you do these things, you can minimize the possibility of adding more sludge.

Topic

[Mike]

[quote=”ArtyS” post=145430]Which cars did that go in? It sounds familiar… I want to say LeBaron or Neon SRT.[/quote]

Dodge Omni GLH (Goes Like Hell). There was even a Shelby variant, the GLHS (Goes Like Hell S’more).

[Jason White]

Cooked dirty conventional oil. When the oil is really hot, the thinner parts tend to get burnt off and what is left is the parafinn (wax) mixes with the dirt (carbon, fuel) and forms sludge.

Synthetics are molecularity uniform so they can’t separate. It takes a lot more heat to burn them, and they hold dirt better.

[Author]

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