Stuff Happens

Seems my weekends have been filled with fixing autos lately. A's car had a problem, then another problem, now all fixed, then it was time for the timing belt for my VW. That took all day Saturday of last weekend.

On the way home this week, while out traveling on business, the Passat started to make a ticking noise. Not too loud, but loud enough. This was as I was coming through the mountains in TN/NC. The oil was fresh from a change, changed every 4-5000 miles by using synthetic.

I investigated the noise but could find nothing. By the time the trip was over, the engine was running roughly. The car had 60K on the spark plugs, so I thought that might cause the rough running. I pulled the spark plugs and changed them, did not fix the problem.

So a compression test was done, and the #5 cylinder showed 0 compression. Not good, especially when cylinders 4 and 6 had over 200PSI. I popped off the valve cover gasket to find the center intake valve lifter to not be touching the cam. The cam also looked like this:



The cam should look smooth, not rough around the edges. Seems a valve lifter failed. Tomorrow I will remove the cylinder head to see if there is more damage. It appears not, but you never know. After the head is off, the true picture will unfold.

The off to work on K's van.