[Robert L]

I have an 04 Jetta BEW with 170,000k. It's a shame our first VW diesel has the most problems. Were it not such a perfect car for the mountains, I'm not sure I'd go through the efforts to keep this engine running. Still, fixing is cheaper than buying new. We lost the turbo due to water leaking into the turbo from the egr cooler. Our local service center used the rotella 5-30 despite written agreements. The oil info was buried in the receipts. I found your site looking for info on cam shaft replacement. The parts dealers posted on the links were very helpful.

 

[Robert L]

More bew cam stuff

I pulled my cam, burs on the lobes. Just to double check i measured the best looking cam, chamfers intact, zeroed my caliper, and started measuring differences. The worst was 1.48mm shorter, far right. In general the further away from the sprocket, the greater the wear. The opposite was true of the journal bearings. The most wear was the first two lower bearings. Is this from an over-tightened timing belt or is this normal? Do you plastigauge the bearings on re assembly?

 

[chittychittybangbang]

You need new bearings, no need to plastigauge them during assembly.

There is a theory that a contributing factor to the cam wear problem is the torque spec on the injector rocker bolts. Wear is often on that side first or the ends first. Sorry that it's not running flawlessly but at least it'll run forever with this repair.

FYI, because you're in the mountains, never lug the engine. Lugging the engine with the thin air can break the turbo.

 

[Keithuk]

Over-tightened timing belt won't cause that cam wear. If the belt is too tight it will wine and whistle.

I've never heard so much about cam wear on VW's as on here. It takes me back to the old Vauxhall Astra's, Cavalier's and Corsa's. I hope VW have cured their cam hardening process on newer models? Other than that don't stick to these stupid long service times 20k for an oil change? The oil might stand it but the s**t is still being pumped around the engine.

Oh I forgot to mension plastigauge was used on the old engine there shouldn't be any need to it today.