I was wondering if anyone could help me. Last saturday, Number 3 Piston decided it would like some fresh air and exited through the front of the engine block leaving only the gudgeon pin, part of the big end shell and bits of engine block strewn down the road.

The car has been regularly serviced and has never been run short of oil.

Has anyone got an idea of what might have caused this devastating failure.

Does anyone know of any reasonably priced suppliers that could supply a Short Motor or if i am really screwed a Long Motor.

any help/suggestions welcome.

http://www.theengineshop.info/index.html Thesee prices don't seem to bad.

My boss at my old company had exactly the same thing happen to his Golf Anniversary GT-TDi about 5 years ago, one day he was driving along fine the next thing... bang... number 3 piston decided to exit the block

I think the car was only a couple of years old at the time so it was covered under warranty but I'll try and find out what exactly they decided caused it

Edited 15 March, 201016 yr by chicken_eyebrow

That's a bit alarming!

How many miles had it done? Was it a 90 or a 110?

Hope you get it sorted soon though, mate.

How old is the car if you don't mind me asking?

That's a pretty large amount of damage and I'm assuming it took a fair few other bits with it.

running on veg oil by anychance or neat biodiesel?

i have seen injector failures that have flashed thru the piston and caused this sort of damage but its usually by running the wrong fuel

Spoke to my previous boss about his Golf today and apparently VW looked at it, and one of our motorsport scrutineers too, and the only suggestion they had was that the timing might have been out by one tooth as the belt was changed at 60k and it blew up at 66k. VW paid 2/3rds of the costs as it was just out of warranty.

Has yours had a belt change recently?

Thanks for the replies.

The Timing Belt has never been done, i was proposing to do it in April.

Whilst i have had it (4yrs), it has always been run on normal diesel out of the pumps and so contains the normal 5% of biofuel that all forecourts are required by law to stock.

The car is a 2004, it is a 110bhp non-pd, engine code ASV and is now up to 83k

the injectors look fine (nothing visibly amiss with them) but i will be getting them checked out.

Have now got the engine apart and stripped and have discovered what has happened. The heads of the big end bearing cap bolts have failed. we found the bearing cap in pristine condition in the bottom of the sump, the con rod is in two pieces and badly distorted and the piston has been reduced to about half the height. The only thing that we can think of is that they have been overtightened at the factory (unlikely i know but it is the best thoery so far).

Luckily the piston seemed to have jammed in the bore because the cylinder head is unscathed so i only need a short motor - yay

Thanks for the link - i have e-mailed them to see if they will supply a short motor, and if so, how much.

Try these guys for major parts, they are a huge concern with a wide range of good quality parts -

http://autos.blue-sock.com/clients/9/blist.php

Thanks for that link i have had a look and he has one octravia in. i have emailed him to see if the engine is available and if it is, is it the right engine code.

Try these guys for major parts, they are a huge concern with a wide range of good quality parts -

http://autos.blue-sock.com/clients/9/blist.php