TheClient

No, not from above. Underneath with undertray removed, torch and mirror maybe borsecope camera - possibly. However, the leak can be very hidden, mind leaked into the pcb enclosure and fried it. Very difficult to spot without removing thermostat and waterpump.

Most likely the lock actuator in the door. It may work again for a while when it gets warmer but they are a relatively common failure. Are you saying, your central locking button does not operate as well. That is likely a separate issue but could be related. Have you run a full scan?

It's hard to say. If it does it once or twice more I'd definitely get it checked. But there's no magic number of times.

I'd say for anyone diy ing it without a vacuum fill it's very normal to have some air pockets. If they vacuum filled and test drove it up to temp, it shouldn't really happen but i suppose it can as they are prone to some air pockets. This is assuming there is no leak from their reassembly. It might be hard to spot if there is one. But you could check rad hoses and matrix hoses on the engine side. You won't be able to see under dash but could check for wet carpet. also, you shouldn't keep filling up with only water as you will dilute the coolant so may need to add half what you've added neat. Ideally you should use demineralised or distilled water as well. If you can spare time maybe worth calling them and arranging to check for leaks and add the neat coolant for the water added.

As you've suggested, one of the most practical approaches, in the circumstances, is probably driving another same engine / drivetrain car. You could run a scan of all modules, log boost and calculated torque and so on. Get a passenger to time 0-60 or another performance metric to compare with what the car was reported in test drive reviews. Even take to a tuner and run on a dyno - but most of these suggestions are relatively impractical and unlikely scenarios to carry out on a test drive car available for sale. Presumably the vendor would agree to you running a full scan but beyond that it gets tricky in the circumstances.

Yes, but a coil or the end of one, can break even when quite. Edit: new I'd be most surprised that one side is lower by design! I've never seen a vw mqb chassis factory spec that suggests one side is different! I'll try and search for the factory height as well, in the workshop manual there will be different heights for the different suspension pr codes listed..

It does look very low. I'd say 40mm. If the shocks aren't replaced short travel items your handling may not be up to much. Have you got the factory specification for sports suspension height from centre of wheel to top of wheel arch? Compare yours to that. If its Lower on one side I wonder if a coil has broken or the coil pig tail end broken off. Hard to see sometimes without jacking car up.

Yes OK, sure. But, what I would say, is the boost profile in general driving may needs to be compared actual to specified. An actuator fault could easily result in boost being above specified, or lagging in response to decreased boost specification. That could explain the higher consumption. In summary- with such a fault, it may not necessarily be peak boost that is a problem. It may be responsiveness to changed boost pressure requirements called for by the ecu on and off throttle, part throttle, increased load up hill. Etc etc.. Although, if it is far enough out, usually the ecu will log a boost out of specification upper or lower threshold fault. ..

The radiator was effectively emptied when I did my job as both hoses have to be removed. But there is a risk of an airlock for sure when refilling, which is why I aimed to fill up as much as possible directly before connecting top hose. If you do diy - you will need one or two radiator hose picks. I could not have done the job without them. The spring clamps mould edit. fuse the rubber hose onto the connectors and your very likely to break plastic unions trying to get the hose off without them.

Not done the rad but have done the thermostat module and waterpump where the rad hoses lead back to without a vacuum fill. I prefilled the rad as much as I could through the upper rad inlet. And preprimed the water pump by filling down the other end of that rad pipe. Reconnected the piping. Then start car and wait, then top up several times through header tank once the thermostat starts opening. I think if too much air gets in and circulated around the system it just won't circulate properly and the air will be impossible to displace without vacuum.. Good luck with it.

You could replace the actuator speculatively. Or do some boost logging. If the servo is faulty it should be showing on specified vs actual boost. When you move the actuator rod. Does it feel like there is play in the wastegate? It would be a lot easier to assess with the rod disconnected.. You could also try to do basic settings on the turbo actuator, see if it completed. If not, try to adjust and retry.

It seems, almost all the policies are - we will recover you but only for very limited miles now….. although they have to get you to a garage who can do the repair if they aren’t taking you to your preferred destination don’t they?… rhetorical q for you at this point if you’re getting returned home after all. Hope you are home soon.

Sounds entertaining in a not so very desirable way!, Good luck with the rac call-out. Let us know how it goes.

The wastegate position according to position sensor, is not where the ecu asked it to be. It could be a number of alternatives… wastegate carboned up and not moving freely; wastegate actuator servo motor faulty; wastegate itself worn bushings excessive free play causing it to be out of adjustment - see next point. wastegate needs upper and lower limits adaption re setup but this is likely due to worn wastegate which may need new turbo (or wastegate rebushed). for starters you could try and move the actuator rod with the engine off and see if it moves back and forth ok. This in itself may make the code stay away for a while if cleared, but it may come back, if one of the other causes underlies it. how many miles on the car?

Yes, from outside. Usually a bumper off job.

Agree but some care is needed to understand what you are seeing. For example, by default at low revs and idle piston cooling jet control valve is closed and there should be no oil pressure at the switch. That test under those conditions doesn't prove an oil pressure issue. Of course, in a DIY environment, it can be just easier to replace or test the switch and go from there. A guage helps though and clearly a garage would have one as long as you know how to test and how!

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….