TheClient

Yes, there's a fairly small but serious smattering of oil pressure related faults that are lurking out there. Some of the horrors you read about maybe the gen 2 though. At the moment, in absence of further testing, I'd be hopeful it will be a fix with wiring, the switch or maybe the oil cooling jet control valve that controls oil flow to a mechanical solenoid for activation. As long as your local garage can locate those three items and do some sense checking and maybe replace or test the switch as a first step, that should be OK. Or you could probably replace the switch as a DIY, and see what happens with fault cleared. Maybe the support pump does actually run at other times other than when in start / stop when engine not running as well - that would explain your heat issue at low revs. Edit. How much oil is it using per how many miles?

Not had the faults myself but seen and read a lot on the various oil pressure faults that can occur on the ea888 gen 3. That oil pressure fault is nice and specific for the level 3 switch, which is the piston cooling jet circuit. It is located front RHS near the coolant pump. Given it says malfunction, the first check would be the switch to be tested or replaced and wiring checked. But I have seen malfunction reported when there was a genuine oil pressure out of range issue, so it could be a good idea to test the actual oil pressure at the switch location with the piston cooling jet control valve disconnected. This activates the cooling jet circuit. The control valve when activated, stops flow to cooling jets, this happens in most normal / light duty driving. There is a specific set of parameters for engine speed, temp and load that is used to define operation. On the second fault, that could be playing a part with your heating performance although the support pump is only really called for in start stop operation to provide cabin heat as I recall. If its reported open circuit, the wiring is faulty / disconnected or the electric pump motor is dead and needs replacing.

Yep. Main water pump and thermostat assembly of those part number. £830s very reasonable. Something obviously got lost in translation including “auxiliary” in the service advisory.

The only belt driven pump is the main coolant pump. There is one electric aux pump for the inside heater matrix from memory. It is visible front right hand side of engine over from besides battery box area. Close to the turbo it has silver foil insulation jacket on it. They also aren't cheap but a lot less getting to, so less labour if that's the issue. £830 sounds decent price for the main water pump which, based on description I'm inclined to suspect is faulty..

Yes. I imagine it will be tricky because there have been a lot of failures and secondly age. Be very careful buying the donor engine. It could also have terminal problems lurking. A warranty would help, but it would still be a lot of work for the engine fit and removal. It would scare the life out of me buying one of those that hasn't been rebuilt. If there is a way of confirming the donor engine has the updated tensioner, camchain and piston and conrod assemblies that would be a start.. but on a donor second hand engine, that you already cant find, I fear it mat be a needle in a haystack mission !! I'm not being much help... sorry. For interest, What country are you in?

Sounds like it has had a hard life. I guess something happened that caused it to loose the coolant at some stage and never bothered with sorting out coolant mix. I've not seen many or even any on the forums I frequent with cracked blocks. Usually the timing chain tensioner or oil consumption from scraper rings kill them first. Have you found a donor engine? Bit of a disappointment and shock for you. Sorry about the unwelcome news!

It is hard when it gets to the point you're at - with issues confirmed by a second garage, but no obvious resolution path and then to need to pay a garage for any further investigation work or repairs knowing that: i) there may be an oil burning issue (but maybe fixable, maybe not serious) ii) there is an oil pressure issue iii) the possibility of engine damage. (seems less likely if the overhead gear sounds ok, engine running ok and the pressure is only an issue at idle but still a possibility).. You have to weigh all this up... @J.R. makes some suggestions including looking at the oil pump assembly and suggesting the piston cooling jet circuit could be stuck open. This is the deenergised state of the cooling jet control valve n522. I'm less convinced the piston cooling jet circuit is the problem (but never say 100% sure). It is designed to operate in both low and high pressure pump stages. So even if it was on all the time (as would be the case in a de-energised state of the control valve) then it still should not produce out of spec oil pressure by design. (edit: although, in operation, given trigger parameters - would it ever be called at for idle at, so maybe could produce out of spec.....) Only way to confirm is to test at L3 location with gauge or test on another car by removing the connector to the control valve whilst monitoring oil pressure with gauge..... If you had time, you could confirm the cooling jet operation is turning off by checking pressure at the the level 3 switch during idle low revs. But the ECU is supposed to produce a fault as well for delivering pressure to the circuit when not requested in addition to not delivering pressure when requested. So the control jet valve and the L3 switch would have to be faulty for that circumstance as well. You could remove the control valve in the oil filter bracket near the oil pressure switches and clean it... edit. You could replace the control valve speculatively - they are under £100 from recall... It would be interesting to see what the oil pressure was on the engine with a gauage with the N428 disconnected and removed (an earlier suggestion for the mechanic). That would run the oil pump in high pressure mode all the time. It could also provide a sticking plaster for the problem by clearing the low pressure issue. You would need to permanently delete out / recode the oil control valve open circuit fault from re-appearing somehow which according to one of the other posts I linked, can be done, and has been done by someone else and the car continue to be driven.. When you say the oil pump has been replaced recently is new, are you saying it looks like it has been out and cleaned up or are you saying the part number on it shows a revision of recent manufacture later than the car? Because, depending on which, the conclusion that it has been replaced could be wrong. Personally, I'm thinking the pump could be faulty or installed wrongly but as I have said before, I could not guarantee it and it is worrying it has had attention before. It is not a cheap part but also is not £1000s. Maybe a second hand pump could be sourced - although you would never know its condition. Sorry, no easy fixes left I don't think.. And no guaranteed next step fixes either. How many miles on the car, you may have said but this thread is a lot of posts now?

Yes as above. Use vw 502.00 approved 5w40 oil. Change at 6 to 8k miles ideally. Lots of decent oils to choose from.... The long life description can get confusing, as vw502.00 oils are not long life in terms of extended duration and long life regime in vw speak, but do often comply with some other manufacturers long life schemes. Even if you choose to use ll3 vw504.00 oil - change at 12 months 8k miles max. Remember the days of 3k servicing - our 1989 Honda prelude used to go in for 3 month 5k km max oil changes... in my book, 6 to 8k or 10k miles is still extended mileage!!

To me it sound like the oil pump is faulty; but I could not guarantee it. And with it having been replaced before - makes it suspicious that someone else thought so….. the pcv is also a fine oil separator. Sits on top of engine valve cover. Easy enough to replace but they are about £100 and it will not resolve low oil pressure but could solve the smoke….

Thanks for the update. Sadly, seems like bad news. 😢 I'm not sure if the bluesmoke is a red herring at this stage, at least in part. Maybe.... A bad pcv can cause that on the overrun. fairly common on this platform. Could be a turbo I suppose, as a consequence of the low oil pressuere - it is passing oil. But it would usually be very noticeable I would of thought it could be worth ruling that in or out (turbo damage) by inspecting. Could be rings - but I've not heard of a lot of those failures on gen 3s. So the oil pressure issue, is out of spec at 0.4bar as per previous garage? is it only at idle,? Does it normalise with a few revs? Did they elaborate at all? They didn't think it worthwhile replacing the oil pump because it has already been done, probably chasing same issue by previous owner? Is that the logic. Could it be faulty? - probably not assuming the car had this fault before it was replaced.... but we don't know for sure. Seems likely though... I would of thought you'd notice a significant oil burning problem though by needing to add oil? Which leads me to think it could be pcv or even valve stem seals.... I have heard of those needed doing on gen 3s... but the route cause of oil pressure problem remains....

Yeah but.... I think that IS the very first test the new garage needs to repeat with a manual gauge and see if they can replicate the low oil pressure on measurment. At the moment, we don't know how they tested, where they tested on the engine, what RPM...... dare I say it, even if they tested..... I don't like to doubt people or garages but the response from your former garage was ....... pretty poor. Edit: I'm assuming also - that there is a pressure problem but....... needs to be proven from somewhere you trust first......

Very surprising how many threads there are on other forums for mk7 gtis, golf Rs and the like that use ea888 gen3s that talk about low oil pressure warning and then discussion and no outcome. Makes me worry a bit. They also seem to reside around idle oil pressure in reduced pressure mode..... There are a few related to the piston cooling jet solenoid as that will cause limp mode too but will record a different fault... Anyways On the positive side of the coin, this thread posts closure and turned out to be wiring only to the connector despite replacing the switch and the oil filter cannister and rod along the way.... Worth checking the obvious, i.e. wiring especially with malfunction descriptions on the fault codes for the reduced pressure sensor. Or is it actually saying low oil pressure now? It was not initially... https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/index.php?threads/low-oil-pressure-warning-p164d.365195/

Interesting. I think you need to start at first base with new garage. Do not assume anything the previous garage said is confirmed and move from there.. A check of oil pressure with a guage into one of the two pressure switch threads on the oil filter housing would be a good start. Checking the oil filter adaptor rod another early test. The N428 unplugged will force the pump into normal power mode all the time. I mentioned that in an earlier post - but there are quite a few posts. If you're concerned about emgine damage the sump off will help with establishing if that's likely, plus allows pick up strainer to be inspected and cleared. One point of difference in posts, is your previous garage says that pressure shows 0.4bar but this post suggests no real oil pressure problem. But I don't know whether to believe your previous garage or where or how they took such a reading. I don't really understand the significance of the power feed relay for the n428 shared with ecu. That sounds pretty normal to me. Almost all engine sensors,,solenoids, actuators are powered off the ecu directly anyway even the electronic thermostat. Not sure I understand what they were getting at! But still provides some positive hope.

Usually means the cornering light bulbs are out.

Yes, I think so. The expressions are not perfect in the self study guide. I think they've been translated from another language, probably German and maybe without editing afterwards. So with some logic throughout, you need to be careful of the logic stated. The content where operation is described are generally better expressed but explicit logic can be revered. So care is needed for sure

Yeah. The overhead gear and camshaft and so on would probably suffer first. How does it sound? The new garage may offer guidance once they’ve had a chance to assess a few things. A lot may depend on how sustained this genuine lack of oil pressure is. I.e. is it a few seconds or once it has started, is it sustained low pressure for minutes…That would probably give some feel for likelihood of consequential damage.

For the benfefit of anyone interested and particuarly @J.R.attached are 2 x pdfs. 1 is the ea888 section on oil supply circuits the other is the 2 stage pump section out of the ea211 self study which has a bit more depth on the pump operation than the ea888gen3 guide. EA211 VW Self Study 2 stage pump.pdf VW Self Study EA888gen3 Oil supply.pdf

Wow, that does leave some hope to check out the things you'd normally check before condemning a £9k engine! It sounds like the garage next week can do some proper investigation and they're at least open to it and up to it. They may want the car for a longer period of time to fit it between jobs, test over time. If they do - I suggest you persevere and work with them. Of course, reality is you will probably be paying money to investigate - but that is just the way life works most of the time. Clearly, the garage who says this edit (said the engine is toast without investigation), is so busy and profitable with the day to day routine stuff they can pump through and turnover quickly, they're not interested in doing the more difficult stuff. To be fair, the less straight forward stuff does take up time and can lead to difficulties and headache when the end result is still a irrepairable engine - but it is part of the job and remit of a full service garage... As long as you take the customer with the journey and give them the options to continue investigation or abandon and realistic that after investigation there are not always guarantees it can be fixed..... I'm still living in hope for you and of course very interested in outcomes. What also seems to provides me a further glimmer of hope is the intermittent fluctuation of pressure reported - specifically during the reduce oil pressure mode. If it were a worn bearing problem causing large clearances I would think the problem would be consistent at a certain rpm i.e. low and out of spec pressure and repeatable all the time at low to mid rpms. If it's dropping suddenly way out of spec sometimes - but not all the time - that also points me to the fact that there is something specific that is sometimes causing it to drop and go out of spec and more than likely "could be" fixable....with oil supply circuits and related bits being the focus which is what you seem to have agreed with the other garage set up to investigate. Don't forget to pull that filter adaptor valve out and have a look. Or get new iinvestigaitng garage to. You shouldn't need a new o-ring for the cannister cover, as it is very new and should have not been compressed too much in short time. Just check it after refitting and running.

It's a possibility. But my understanding is it should report and engine dtc if there is cooling jet oil pressure when the engine ecu has not asked for it. One of the reasons the cooling jet oil circuit has its own oil pressure switch. Both positively and negatively monitored / checked by ecu. The dual speed pump is achieved apparently by a sliding gear internally that either meshes with another gear or doesn't based on solenoid control. I'll see if I can find a good excerpt the self study guide referred to explanation in tge ea211 1.4 litre engines as a full explanation is in that guide apparently. I've never seen one or pulled one apart. I'll see what I can find to post here.

It is worth hoping - but no guarantees!! @vRSRutty The other thing I'd also try either myself or talking through with the tech, which surely the garage will have tried, is to disconnect the connector the the N428 oil pressure control solenoid. Observe behaviour. It'll probably create another engine fault - no oil pressure regulation or something but... From my reading of the self study guide, this de-energised state should then run the pump at maximum pressure at all engine speeds. With a gauge plugged in, does the oil pressure still drop or fluctuate to low levels? If not, it would be one reason to suspect the pump maybe at fault in low pressure mode only.. As if I recall the oil pressure warning were, originally, and possibly still all on reduced oil pressure sensor and operation......

Ha. Yes. The spring must be a bypass. But my car just came with the stick originally which can't do such a thing for sure as you say at original as supplied mfr. Edit. In the new version part there's 2 different springs as well!!! A lot of complication for what was a simple stick and oring drain plug!! I "upgraded" to the new part just because I read in several threads that it was improved, but there was never explanation of how, why!!

I don't know why there are two orings and therefore 2x bore diameter at bottom. As you say, I guess double seal!!!

There are two at the bottom. Non spring end. Edit. It also needs to fit so that as the filter housing is screwed in it gets compressed and seals the two orings in the drain hole bottom of the oil filter bracket beneath the oil filter!!!

There was an older version with just a stick and O rings. But importantly both versions require an accompanying plastic filter screw on cover. Not interchangeable. But if it were not sealing at all you would probably have oil pressure light on all time. But if an o ring is just partially damaged? Worth a check. Also make sure it is correct length to and seems to fit in place by testing without screwing on cover. See photos in this thread of different version.. https://www.vwvortex.com/threads/oil-pressure-light-after-switching-to-revised-oil-filter-housing-adapter.9253937/

Yeah. I think that would be beneficial depending on what they've seen that makes them so sure it is terminal!!