2007 Passat FSI aka:the worst motor vag ever made

A year ago and a half ago I had a good idea. I decided to sell my 2004 mk4 Jetta 1.8t wagon and buy a Toyota Matrix. We had just put our dog down which was always the ridding buddy in the car and honestly my wife was unhappy with the car from the get go. The matrix barely qualified as a wagon , which was a win, and the price was right. I did a whole wack of maintenance to it and the only major failure it saw in a year and a half was an ac clutch failure.

Despite its great fuel economy and reliability my wife never took a shine to it. She criticized it truthfully by saying it was light, slow , and plastic. But really she just missed having a vw wagon.

A few weeks ago I was browsing classifieds when I stumbled across a 07 Passat wagon with a 6 speed and leather. The sizzle , and the asking price of 1000$ cnd, sold it, not the steak.

The car was cheap because the owner had taken it in to do a t-belt job only to be told by the tech it needed a cam and high pressure fuel pump. Mind you only after completing the tbelt and water pump job.

So I did what any good masochist would do and towed it home.

Let’s see where this goes...

Congrats nice wagon 

I don’t have the cojones to own a VAG product, but will follow your thread with interest 

mr2s2000elise said:

Congrats nice wagon 

 

I don’t have the cojones to own a VAG product, but will follow your thread with interest 

Closing in on my 20th vw...not sure if this one is a good life choice yet or not. But above all else I’m a sucker for a wagon.

I was cross shopping a B7 Passat wagon vs MK5 Sportwagen for the wife earlier this year.  Really wanted the space of the Passat, but didn't want the FSI motor or automatic trans.  If only you could get the VR6, or TSI (with its own flavor of warts) in manual flavor.  I probably would have made the same choice if I came across that deal.  We wound up with the Jetta wagon in 2.5, 5speed variety.

Good luck.  I have two friends with that engine and they were hit or miss.  One guy loves his, has barely had to do anything to it.  The other seems to spend as much time broken as fixed.  

1SlowVW said:

Closing in on my 20th vw...not sure if this one is a good life choice yet or not. But above all else I’m a sucker for a wagon.

I am also a sucker for wagon. Started with 79/80 Subaru DL/GL Wagons, then moved to the Civic Wagovans in the 80s, then Cressida and Camry wagons, then had 2 Accord Wagons, Outback,  and now a TSX Wagon.  Can't do VW though.

In reply to Brotus7 :

Could you not find a TSI with a manual , they seem fairly common up here in Canada. 

Spoiler alert:

I have already dug into it and found that instead of the proper anaerobic sealant holding down the cam cradle someone used silicone. 

In short; I’m not the first person to have the cams out of this thing.

1SlowVW said:

In reply to Brotus7 :

 

Could you not find a TSI with a manual , they seem fairly common up here in Canada. 

 

To my knowledge, the '08+ TSI Passats were only imported to the US as automatics. Manual FSI Passats are even pretty hard to come by down here.

Is there an upgrade to the HPFP and/or cam that keeps them from eating themselves to bits?  Or, is this likely a case of poor previous maintenance? 

I did an intake cam replacement job in a GTI a few months ago and to my surprise once I had it all back together I was greeted by a good running car that didn't even have a check engine light.  Mine lost the cam follower, which then got wedged between the aluminum housing and the timing chain gear, at which point it broke though the housing and created a major oil leak.  I ended up pulling both cams so that the timing chain end didn't need to be torn down as well.  I didn't buy all of the special tools, but I do have some and no longer need them if you are interested, send me a PM.  

Nitroracer said:

I did an intake cam replacement job in a GTI a few months ago and to my surprise once I had it all back together I was greeted by a good running car that didn't even have a check engine light.  Mine lost the cam follower, which then got wedged between the aluminum housing and the timing chain gear, at which point it broke though the housing and created a major oil leak.  I ended up pulling both cams so that the timing chain end didn't need to be torn down as well.  I didn't buy all of the special tools, but I do have some and no longer need them if you are interested, send me a PM.  

So here’s my plan. Because this thread is a week or so behind actual progress I’ve already purchase a spare fsi motor with a pristine later revision cam.

My hope is to remove the cam cradle and then pull the cams as a set leaving the adjuster that needs the special bit on, and by keeping the cams together I would not need the locking tool to keep them timed to each other.

Does that sound reasonable? 

Brotus, 

they came up with a few revised cams with harder surfaces on the lobe for the HPFP. More of a bandaid then a fix. But the motor ran very smooth despite the trashed HPFP follower so I’m hoping with all that replaced I’ll be left with a nice running motor with water pump , timing belt, cam and HPFP all in good shape.

1SlowVW said:

 

So here’s my plan. Because this thread is a week or so behind actual progress I’ve already purchase a spare fsi motor with a pristine later revision cam.

My hope is to remove the cam cradle and then pull the cams as a set leaving the adjuster that needs the special bit on, and by keeping the cams together I would not need the locking tool to keep them timed to each other.

Does that sound reasonable? 

 

 

New guy chiming in here. My current daily is a 2008 FSI wagon, so I have some experience here. Your plan sounds good. Make sure to keep the chain snug at all times obviously. I did the cam chain and tensioner a couple years back in mine, loosening that Polydrive bolt was terrifying.

Matrix/Vibe:

worst.AC.ever. Damn thing was designed so that the air con intake duct would soon become laden with black mold, the 3 yr old car stunk like a gym locker room. Not the hip thing in South Louisiana.

10001110101 said:

1SlowVW said:

 

So here’s my plan. Because this thread is a week or so behind actual progress I’ve already purchase a spare fsi motor with a pristine later revision cam.

My hope is to remove the cam cradle and then pull the cams as a set leaving the adjuster that needs the special bit on, and by keeping the cams together I would not need the locking tool to keep them timed to each other.

Does that sound reasonable? 

 

 

New guy chiming in here. My current daily is a 2008 FSI wagon, so I have some experience here. Your plan sounds good. Make sure to keep the chain snug at all times obviously. I did the cam chain and tensioner a couple years back in mine, loosening that Polydrive bolt was terrifying.

I also plan on marking the chain and sprockets with a paint marker to give myself some extra points of reference. As far as I see it from that point on it’s just like a regular timing belt replacement.

Mark everything well before you tear it down, but you might have some trouble keeping the cams from rotating as you tighten down the cradle.  Back when I had a miata the cams had flats cast into them that I could use to brace the came against eachother, but the VW has smooth oval shaped slots.  

Nitroracer said:

Mark everything well before you tear it down, but you might have some trouble keeping the cams from rotating as you tighten down the cradle.  Back when I had a miata the cams had flats cast into them that I could use to brace the came against eachother, but the VW has smooth oval shaped slots.  

Can’t see them moving too much if the chain is linking them together as I install them. So long as the torquing of the cam cradle is very gradual.

So far as I can tell the oval cam cut outs are there to help keep the cams aligned to install the timing chain and hold them in place as the poly drive is removed. Since I don’t plan on removing that my only concern is ensuring the cams stay in synch with each other. Then timing them to the crank like any other ohc motor.

For those of us who are not VW congoscenti, what is an FSI and why is it so bad?

NickD said:

For those of us who are not VW congoscenti, what is an FSI and why is it so bad?

It was Volkswagens first direct injection gas motor. Lots of teething problems (carbon buildup, high pressure fuel pump followers, soft cam area that drives the HPFP). Typical complicated German systems. I just rolled over 170,000 miles on mine, and it's not cheap when the goofy stuff breaks.

1SlowVW said:

Nitroracer said:

Mark everything well before you tear it down, but you might have some trouble keeping the cams from rotating as you tighten down the cradle.  Back when I had a miata the cams had flats cast into them that I could use to brace the came against eachother, but the VW has smooth oval shaped slots.  

Can’t see them moving too much if the chain is linking them together as I install them. So long as the torquing of the cam cradle is very gradual.

So far as I can tell the oval cam cut outs are there to help keep the cams aligned to install the timing chain and hold them in place as the poly drive is removed. Since I don’t plan on removing that my only concern is ensuring the cams stay in synch with each other. Then timing them to the crank like any other ohc motor.

Index mark everything. As long as you keep the cams in time, the rest should be like a regular timing belt job. Be careful putting the vacuum pump cover back on, if you crack the plastic gaskets that sit inside the exhaust cam adjustor you'll get a check engine light and it won't run right. They do make a tool that locks the cams together, I rigged one out of black iron pipe fittings. 

It was the predecessor to the vw tsi motor. It’s a 2.0l turbo four that found its way into lots of vw products.

My title may have been a little misleading. It’s not a terrible engine but they are known for drinking oil and eating cams. Oh and when they drink their oil and get low the it generally aggravates the cam issues.

Outside of they they run smooth, make good power and are reasonably simple to service.

Indeed, the worst engine VAG made was the type4 aircooled in my Lola FSV.  Hand grenades are less likely to blow.

Spent a a few hours in the garage today, got both cams swapped over, the the chain tensioner. 

All together now except the intake and right side motor mount. I’m half a cog out on the timing belt marks. May try slipping the cam belt one cog to see if it’s closer but I think that would just put me half a cog off in the other direction.

Well this is humbling.

Succeeded in getting it all back together tonight. Fired it up, ran awesome for 5 seconds then started missing and idling low. 

Checked the timing marks and they are still bang on. 

Walked away for the evening, I’m already thinking of possible causes though. Thinking the last guys cam timing may have been off. Or that I simply missed a connection somewhere. Will start by putting a code reader on it and go from there I guess.

1SlowVW said:

Well this is humbling.

 

Succeeded in getting it all back together tonight. Fired it up, ran awesome for 5 seconds then started missing and idling low. 

Checked the timing marks and they are still bang on. 

Walked away for the evening, I’m already thinking of possible causes though. Thinking the last guys cam timing may have been off. Or that I simply missed a connection somewhere. Will start by putting a code reader on it and go from there I guess.

 

Check codes first. These motors are notorious for eating coil packs. A parts store scanner will give you a basic idea of what it could be, but a German specific scanner will give you better information. I'm not sure if you are a glutton for punishment as I am (I'm on my 10th VW/Audi, and currently own 2), but the OBDEleven scanner was one of the best investments I've made. 90% of the functionality of a VCDS cable for a fifth of the price. 

Keep after it, you are almost there.

In reply to 10001110101 :

I have access to multiple scan tools through my employer (nice job perk). May even plug one in tonight just to see what’s going on.

Its only as frustrating as it is because the engine ran so smoothly before.