Hello, my daughters car. Last year she broke down and oil had turned to tar. Had it flushed, all good. Now it has happened again and she's been told as the cam has been starved of oil they've written the engine off. She was told it's a common problem which is strange as they have a second identical Roomster (manual) with no problems.

Your thoughts on this being terminal and the cause ?

Also, I feel, a replacement engine would be more than the cars worth and all the possible grief of replacing.

Not sure how lubricating oil turns to tar, yes they both come from crude oil, but completely different densities.

 

Clearly whatever got into the contaminated oil, wasn't fixed, or it wasn't properly cleaned, so oil feed pipes to top of engine, where cams are didn't provide enough lubricant. My guess is there was residual tar (probably more a carbon buildup) in the bores of those feed pipes reducing the flow.

 

There are 2 possibilities, either there was some sort of hole, or poor seal and unburnt sooty gases got into the oil, or some other contamination from poor mixture (sensor not working properly).  This could have been very slight and built up over months.   The other serious option was oil was not changed, or replaced with substandard oil (or oil filter not changed), for too long, although person changing oil should have spotted doesn't look right, and even if didn't know cause could have commented on it.

 

Remember the front of Roomster is basically same parts as a mk2 Fabia, you might be able to get a replacement engine from scrapped Fabia mk2 if can't find a Roomster one.

 

 

What is the VIN, is it on the Digital Service System?

@arthurmoIt is not common among hundreds of members with 1.2 TSI, on here over the past 12 years.

 

Who had serviced it before last year and then who sorted it out last year? 

 

If the car is good and the DSG is good it is certainly worth fixing, getting a replacement engine.  Not sure about the place you have spoken to do doing the work though.

?

How many miles has it done?

Thanks for all your replies.

The car was serviced correctly so I'm with the gases contamination idea. However, the engine has been deemed kaput and replacement quoted at 2k which is too border line for a car worth 5k at best.

The issue I have with replacement engines is they're an unknown quality and open to a possible whole heap of grief.

It is now in the chapel of scrap.