Piston slap and Cobalt Dream Machine, it' not good!

A2Steve said:
How are you getting on with this Mark? Would hate to see this car not be repaired.
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Thanks Steve, i rang FJ Payne and son that Andrew recommended and they said they have all the reboring facilities but don't have the facilities to strip down modern engines. I have every intension of getting the car repaired but am still looking/hoping a low mileage engine turns up with provenance. In the meantime the engine still performs well enough and idles perfectly which is a blessing as it's usable for now. I'm still hoping a fairy god mother turns up and whispers in my ear where a new engine might be lying around for a good price, there must be something out there?
 
Vorsprung durch Technik said:
..........they said they have all the reboring facilities but don't have the facilities to strip down modern engines.........
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Hi Mark,

Sorry my suggestion came to nothing. Regarding the quote above, I would have thought that is how the trade operates, viz. you/your garage removes the engine, the 'bare chunk of metal' is shipped to the engineers and they do thier precision machining, it is shipped back to you/your garage to be rebuilt and put back in the car. Maybe 'one stop shops' exist.

Out of general interest interest did you get round to costs?

You will sort it in the end.

Andy
 
Andrew said:
Hi Mark,

Sorry my suggestion came to nothing. Regarding the quote above, I would have thought that is how the trade operates, viz. you/your garage removes the engine, the 'bare chunk of metal' is shipped to the engineers and they do thier precision machining, it is shipped back to you/your garage to be rebuilt and put back in the car. Maybe 'one stop shops' exist.

Out of general interest interest did you get round to costs?

You will sort it in the end.

Andy
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Hi Andrew, that's ok, better to have some help than none at all. :) The information you gave will still help someone i'm sure especially if any on here have very old cars which seams to be their speciality. You could be right that they may be able to help on a rebore but the conversation was stalled when i mentioned it was for a an Audi A2,that's when he said that didn't have the facilities to strip it down. So halfway through typing this reply i decided to ring them back. They can take a bare block so a rebore was £170 + vat and new pistons would take the price to £550 + vat. He went on to say new bearings gaskets etc would add another 300 odd so we are looking at a lot of money as the mechanics costs would have to be added.

He did question are you sure it's piston slap which i replied it had been diagnosed twice. I then went onto to tell him it's used 4 1/2 litres of oil in 12k miles and he said thats an awful lot and said i bet if you took the piston out the oil control rings will all be gummed up. He said these modern engines use very thin control rings and are susceptible to gumming up especially if people are using these long oil service intervals! :mad: Apparently it's very common he said. He recommended i use an engine cleaner to free up the oil rings and go from there. So your recommendation has now come to something. :) It's got to be worth a shot at the very least! I'll need to google engine cleaners now. Thanks Andrew cheers Mark.
 
Hi Mark,

Three points:

1, Rebore costs are highly uneconomic compared with a used engine at a few hundred I would have thought.

Mind you I do not know why he mentioned new pistons etc as yours are not damaged as they might be in a cambelt failure.
I thought you just used oversize piston rings, but my knowledge is minimal and probably fifty years out of date. Need an expert.

2 .I would be very very very wary of using engine cleaner.
I have seen it used and it makes the oil thin like water and comes with instructions like 'run with engine hot for 10 minutes',
Eeek! More damage than good springs to mind.

3. Have you considered a reconditioned engine? Lots of places to choose from.
Obviously costs more but comes with a guarantee. One such place:

http://www.candfeng.co.uk/page/reconditioned-remanufacured-engines

Andy
 
Thanks again Andy. Using an engine cleaner doesn't bother me one bit as 0-30 castor edge is just as thin an oil as the the combined cleaner and old oil or flushing oil. For years i've used Engine flushing oil when buying a new to me (second hand car) except on this A2 as flushing oil sold in 5 litres is not as easily available as it used to be at least from German and Swedish. I've never had a problem not once, and the 2 x V6 Audis we own (AAH and ABC) have had the treatment and still feel like brand new engines use absolutely no oil consumption and turbine smooooooooth. Audis best period imho lovely cars to drive that have full ecu Motronic engine control/mapping yet none of reliability issues attributed to newer Audis . I will look into the reconditioned route just to see what i might be in for but the more i read i'm starting to think it's probably rings that are the reason for high oil consumption.
 
I've been doing some more digging and it's all over the net including very old posts on here that these engines drink oil to the point as pointed out in the Guardian Newspaper (can't find the piece now) that in 2004 Audi recognised the problem and modified the oil control rings!!

Could all you good 1.4 petrol owners out in A2OC land pipe up and let us know what your oil consumption is like please? Silence is not an option as this indicates your car is drinking lots of oil. Lol.

Looking forward to your experiences of oil consumption or otherwise on these 1.4 petrol engines as it will at least help make my mind up which route to go down and will ultimately help all of us.

Cheers Mark.
 
Vorsprung durch Technik said:
I've been doing some more digging and it's all over the net including very old posts on here that these engines drink oil to the point as pointed out in the Guardian Newspaper (can't find the piece now) that in 2004 Audi recognised the problem and modified the oil control rings!!

Could all you good 1.4 petrol owners out in A2OC land pipe up and let us know what your oil consumption is like please? Silence is not an option as this indicates your car is drinking lots of oil. Lol.

Looking forward to your experiences of oil consumption or otherwise on these 1.4 petrol engines as it will at least help make my mind up which route to go down and will ultimately help all of us.

Cheers Mark.
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My January 2003 A2 doesn't appear to use much at all, if any.
However, probably not a representative model as it was re-engined at 60K when a main agent (apprentice) mechanic totally messed up a cambelt change.
 
Bargepower said:
My January 2003 A2 doesn't appear to use much at all, if any.
However, probably not a representative model as it was re-engined at 60K when a main agent (apprentice) mechanic totally messed up a cambelt change.
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So that's the new car your referring to that you've had for 2 weeks, Have you covered many miles in that time?
 
We weren't aware of anything but it only took 2,500 miles for it to go from full level
till the oil alarm would come on which took it just below the lower indicator level.
 
Vorsprung durch Technik said:
We weren't aware of anything but it only took 2,500 miles for it to go from full level
till the oil alarm would come on which took it just below the lower indicator level.
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Being a bit old school, I tend to check the oil level and tyre pressures weekly, and also before any longer journeys.
I don’t actually think in 1k miles the oil level has dropped more than a couple of millimetres at most.
 
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