Hi all. Thankfully not yet affected by oil pump problem but no doubt I will be one day...

Meanwhile I just found this which some people may have seen but I haven't. Gives some useful info even though an Audi site - http://www.myturbodiesel.com/1000q/b5/oil-pump-failure-passat-tdi.htm

Hope it helps!

The situation here is different to that in the US.

Note that as a general point, in all 4 cyl balancer engines the Lanchester shafts have to contra-rotate at 2 x crank speed. With a chain drive, this gives an insanely small sprocket on the nose of the primary balance shaft for a reasonable size of crank sprocket.

The first 2.0PD balancer engines had a chain drive to the shafts (the oil pump has always been coupled to the slave shaft by means of a hex bar). This was an unmitigated disaster with the chains and tensioners breaking up due to the torsional oscillations caused by the weights. Some early UK Audis were fitted with this engine - they all failed.

By the time the Superb came along (to mop up all the old bits) the chain drive was dropped in favour of a geared drive which could also be retrofitted (at vast cost) to the earlier engines. The geared drive is stronger and does not usually fail outright (but ends up sloppy and noisy) but in fixing one problem, VAG have caused another.

The hex bar oil pump drive engagement problem is described in the link and is just bound to fail - sooner or later. I believe that on the last of the 2.0 balancer PDs the shaft length was increaed from 75 to 100mm to make it last a bit longer - a careful study of EKTA will show which engines have this. The torsional oscillations will kill it in the end though.

The 2.0 balancer PD is in my view just not fit for purpose. You may draw your own conclusions as to the way in which VAG have treated their customers over this and other problems. I have...

rotodiesel.

In other words, no more VAG...