Audi RS6 Engine Replacement
A few weeks back we posted a picture to our Facebook page showing us starting an Audi Repair that consisted of us replacing an engine on an Audi RS6. Within a few days I received some texts and e mails asking me to update people on the progress. So I didn’t want to leave everyone hanging.
Audi Repair
The customer that owns the car absolutely LOVES it. Him and his wife bought it when it was new and at the time it really was one of the top cars out there, in my opinion it still is. It’s called an Audi RS6. This car was made for the person that wants a nice car to cruise on the highway with during the week, then turn around on the weekends and take it to the track. It’s really the best of both worlds.
About a month ago it was towed in. They were driving on the highway and the vehicle just shut down and wouldn’t restart. I personally took a look at this one because Audi and Porsche are 2 of my favorite brands to work on. I quickly found that the vehicle had low compression and I suspected a bent valve(s). I performed a compression (internal engine pressure created by the engine) test and as expected there was no compression but only on the left side of the engine. So I removed all of the covers that sit over the timing belt to check the timing and the timing was perfect. The belt was also relatively new. So I had to dig a little further.
As you can see there is an internal chain and an external belt. The belt was removed for proper inspection of the movement in the camshaft.
On this and many Audi and Volkswagen engines there are external and internal timing components. The external timing component would be the timing belt. This is replaced around 90-100k miles (always replaced with the water pump, tensioner, rollers, seals, and thermostat). The internal component(s) would be the timing chains and tensioners. On this and a lot of Audi and Volkswagen engines they have 2 camshafts (simple explanation would be to call it a long metal bar that has lumps in it that open and close valves in the engine) in each cylinder head. The timing belt spins just one of the cams and the internal timing chain(s) spin the other camshaft in sequence. Make sense? Well if it doesn’t that’s “ok”. Just know that these are vital components and if there is a failure, it’s pretty bad.
To access the chains I had to remove the valve covers. Since there was a major failure on just one side I wanted to start with that side. Once removed I was able to check the internal timing. I found that the left bank was off by roughly 180 degrees. In layman’s terms… Kaboom!
When any major work is done on these cars the front portion of the car needs to be removed to allow access to the engine.
Now to find out why it happened. The tensioner was removed and I found that the tensioner that holds pressure on that chain had an issue, it was just compressing with one finger and shouldn’t do that. When the car is off there is a spring inside that holds a good amount of tension on the chain. It also requires oil pressure to keep pressure on the chain while it’s running. The problem here is that the passage the oil goes through to get to the tensioner was plugged solid with engine sludge. Sort of like a varicose vein. Without proper oil pressure the tensioner would allow the chain to bounce around and eventually jump timing.
Audi Repair Options
The customer was ultimately given 5 choices.
Start looking for a new car
Remove the engine, take it apart, fix what’s broken
Remove the engine, completely rebuild it
Replace the engine with a brand new one
Replace the engine with a used one
The customer chose option 5. There weren’t a lot of these engines available so we went with a low mileage option. When it arrived it was in great shape but we wanted the customer to be completely worry free so we resealed the entire engine, replaced all external timing components, and brought it up to date on any other maintenance. There were a few minor hick-ups along the way but nothing even remotely major. It was by far the most cost effective and time sensitive option available.
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The engine and transmission come out together. Then they are separated outside of the car.
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After the engine and transmission are removed the old engine comes apart. Some of the parts of the old engine end up on the new one. It’s much easier to do this with the engine out of the car
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After the job is complete the engine and car are washed and returned to the customer. As you can see the engine fits in there pretty tightly.
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This really isn’t all that difficult of a job if you know what you’re doing and you have the proper tools…. but it does take a long time. The total time spent was somewhere around 45 hours.
So after about a week and a half the new engine was in the car and running perfectly. The customer really loves the car so for him and his wife it was money well spent. They’re great people and we really hope they enjoy all of the time they can spend in it once again.
-JS