A) Just Got Back From Hols. B) Pd Engine Robust?

[Tom_B]

I just got back from a family holiday in Italy and we drove down through France to Limoges stayed with our friends and then drove along the Mediterranean coast to Northern Italy where we had a brilliant time.we then drove up through the mountains and up and through the St Barndadino tunnel and down into Switzerland by the time we got back to Yorkshire we had driven 2800 miles and my 14 year old B5 saloon with 166000 miles drove all of those miles willingly and without missing a beat averaging 52 mpg all the way. I really liked that car before but I must say I really love it now!

I just want to say thanks to the forum for all the help over the last two years in helping me to learn about the B5 and keeping it running sweetly.

I am looking for an estate to replace our written off passat and saw a good looking B5 avant top dollar but I think a tidy example. Now my saloon is the 115 pd engine and this potential new car has the same engine - I recall some posts and discussion about the fragility of the 115 pd engine - does the forum have views on this? (Hopefully Kev and Chris will)

 

[aragorn]

The 115 was some sort of early revision of the PD motor and there seems to be some chat about and issue with the head where it cracks or becomes porus IIRC.

Not sure how common it is, i guess worst case you could drop in a PD130 engine from a passat if it did fail.

 

[Tom_B]

So was the pd130 engine a completely new engine?

 

[dubster67]

pd's can chew their camshafts.

 

[aragorn]

The PD130 just built on the previous engine with more improvements, block was strengthened (the 115 basically uses the old 110ve engine block) and i guess they tweaked the head design to fix whatever was causing them to crack.

I've never heard of a PD130 head crack, though the headgaskets do sometimes fail in a fairly silent manner. My mates would spew all its coolant out if you drove it hard, but otherwise drove completely normally if you didnt. Replacement gasket sorted it.

Camshaft issues can happen, but there doesnt really seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. Some folk say its down to poor/incorrect oil and crappy servicing intervals, others have serviced it by the book and still had failures. I guess the issues is that unless you service it yourself and have done its whole life, its entirely possible some garage has put the wrong oil into the ones that have failed even with the good service history.

 

[dubster67]

I don't think the oil is the basic issue. I've got a PD130 Mk4 Golf and the camshaft on that went on 3 of the lobes. Admittedly it took until 147K to happen, but it did happen. When I replaced the camshaft it just looked to me that the basic design is flawed, there just isn't enough cam lobe width bearing on the cam follower, hence it is wearing the cam lobe, and through the follower if you're unlucky. The cam bearings also look completely inadequate. Having said all that, they are great engines, ie plenty powerful with crazy mpg, and if you catch it in time and can do it yourself the repair is reasonably cheap, certainly cheaper than a new car. Mine is still going!

 

[aragorn]

Well the things you mention are why they specify very specific oil. The correct oil has certain additives to ensure they dont break down in the high pressure lobe areas that exist on the PD camshaft.

Many PD130's can easily exceed 140k, infact my mates one i mentioned above has done about 190 with no camshaft issues.

Has yours been run on the correct PD oil for its whole life? If its ever been garage serviced outside a main dealer, its entirely possible they've put ***** in it.

 

[B5NUT]

I've also got the 115 PD lump and the only fault I've had was the HG failure which I did myself. My engine has now got over 292K miles on it and it's still going strong. I think it's a great engine.

 

[dubster67]

yes my car has had the correct oil from day one, and changed every 5k. Plenty of other people with cars with on the button servicing have had cam issues to. I still think the oil is just a "fix" for something that is basically wrong with the design, its not as if VAG don't make mistakes, just look at the 2.0 Tdi oil pump nonsense. However, I totally agree that it is still a great engine, brilliant blend of performance and economy, and a bulletproof bottom end that can handle lots more power.

 

[aragorn]

if it was a outright design issue, you surely wouldnt have motors like B5NUT's getting to 290k. The number of PD130s with cam issues in real terms is very low. Sure it pops up a lot on forums, but forums tend to do that.

Theres obviously some other issue at play, be it quality control or manufacturing errors on the camshafts themselves, type of driving done etc etc. Unfortunately cars live such a varied life that its very difficult to actually properly correlate data from failures to find the common factor.

Have you seen the cam lobes in a 20v or 30v petrol? Inlet ones especially are very small, and yet on RS4s when they chew up their cams it tends to be the much larger exhaust cams that fail first.

 

[adamss24]

It's all due to pressure and not enough bearing area. Using VAG certified PD spec oils slow down the process, however there are engines that are more prone to wear than others... The rs4 will chew the exhaust cam lobes due to increased valve spring pressure and oils being thinner with increased heat... pd 150 does it the same- cam lobes on cyl 1 always go, v6 tdi as well- all due to poor quality oil and too long servicing intervals.

 

[adamss24]

I just got back from a family holiday in Italy and we drove down through France to Limoges stayed with our friends and then drove along the Mediterranean coast to Northern Italy where we had a brilliant time.we then drove up through the mountains and up and through the St Barndadino tunnel and down into Switzerland by the time we got back to Yorkshire we had driven 2800 miles and my 14 year old B5 saloon with 166000 miles drove all of those miles willingly and without missing a beat averaging 52 mpg all the way. I really liked that car before but I must say I really love it now!

I just want to say thanks to the forum for all the help over the last two years in helping me to learn about the B5 and keeping it running sweetly.

I am looking for an estate to replace our written off passat and saw a good looking B5 avant top dollar but I think a tidy example. Now my saloon is the 115 pd engine and this potential new car has the same engine - I recall some posts and discussion about the fragility of the 115 pd engine - does the forum have views on this? (Hopefully Kev and Chris will)

If you like the b5 shape then the older AFN engine is the one to go- easy to get more power from the engine and it comes in quattro flavor too ! Sadly they stopped making it post 1998 in uk and they go to very high mileage without major issues ! If it's the pd engine you're after then i would spend a bit more and go for the tried and tested pd130 in the later b6 a4...