All Things Mk5 > Mk5 General Area
[SOLVED] Low oil pressure at idle
OllieVRS:
Finally got around to draining the oil and doing my inspection, the oil was black of course.
Here a cutout of the filter, which probably didn't even cover 1000km since I changed it:
It may be hard to see on the picture, but there's tiny metal specks here and there. Half were magnetic. Notice there's quite a lot of 'dirt' though.
On the other hand, here's the filter from the previous 5000km, also on the same Miller's:
It has a similar amount of metal fragments, mostly non-magnetic? Or they're just embedded too much in the filter for the magnet to pull them out.
There's a lot less 'dirt' on the filter with much higher mileage. Could this be because the higher track temperatures dislodged dirt and gunk from around the engine? Could some of that dirt and gunk maybe gotten in the pick up pipe, causing the light? Just my theory.
Also as promised, looked with an endoscope looking for loose things that could've potentially blocked the pick up, but I didn't see anything:
Put in the Mobil 1, and took her on an aggressive drive around the neighborhood and then the motorway to try and recreate the conditions it had on track, at high RPMs around bends. Of course it wasn't a true recreation of the track because otherwise I'd be writing this post from a jail cell :grin:
But I'm happy to say the oil pressure light didn't come back.
What are your thoughts on this? Cheers :happy2:
pudding:
Yeah I think the 'dirt' is carbon/sludge dislodging from various points around the engine. Mine used to do the same. I could squidge the 'chunks' between my fingers and they were smooth, not crispy, if that makes sense, so I wasn't too concerned.
Is yours a manual? Little shavings could be the crank thrust bearing wearing out, especially if it has an uprated clutch, or a worn out original that has become heavy.
OllieVRS:
--- Quote from: Pudding on April 14, 2023, 10:15:24 am ---Yeah I think the 'dirt' is carbon/sludge dislodging from various points around the engine. Mine used to do the same. I could squidge the 'chunks' between my fingers and they were smooth, not crispy, if that makes sense, so I wasn't too concerned.
Is yours a manual? Little shavings could be the crank thrust bearing wearing out, especially if it has an uprated clutch, or a worn out original that has become heavy.
--- End quote ---
Yeah it's a manual.
I feel the clutch has been replaced in the past, considering the biting point was pretty low down when I first got it when it was at 117k miles. Now it's at 127k miles and the biting points higher than it used to be, but still not too close to the top of the pedal.
I have the clutch stickiness issue, where every now and then the clutch pedal will be hesitant to rebound instantly back up. The car is in gear, but the pedal about half-way up sticks for a split second before continuing to go back up all the way. Twice on the track on it got stuck half way up for about a full second when downshifting from 4th to 3rd, but it was engaged in 3rd gear, just the pedal wasn't up fully. That's the longest it's ever happened.
But in normal driving I'd say it gets stuck (and only for 0.1 seconds) every 50 shifts. I think this is down to a bearing on the gearbox, that you can get a shim kit for. But I'm not too bothered to fix it.
Also for reference of the state of the filter, here's the filter that I originally pulled out when I first got the car haha, it was dreadful:
I'm not sure if I posted the image from my original posts in 2021, but there was a metal 'shard' in the sump, about 12mm in length and 1mm thick. I couldn't identify what it was. There was other crap in the sump like a piece of electrical wire, so I didn't rule it out as an internal engine part that had broken off. It can be seen in this picture in the pool of oil, just below the broken pieces of plastic from the pump chain cover (which is what may have caused the low oil pressure the first time around):
And crank thrust bearing being wrecked means engine out and full rebuild right? So is it time to start thinking of selling her in your opinion, to avoid spending thousands on her again?
OllieVRS:
I'm back, without a bang. Yet.
Here's a video of the pressure at idle and 2000RPM.
Correct Specs for EA113 TFSI:
Idle 1-1.2 bar or (14.5-17.4 PSI )
2000 RPM 2.7-4.5 bar (39-65 PSI)
3000 RPM 3.5-4.5 Bar (51-65 PSI)
So something's amiss. 2000RPM Pressure is fine, but idle is definitely not. The oil pressure should never be below 1 bar, let alone on a thicker oil like the 0W40 which should be raising the pressure itself by 1 extra psi at idle.
Unlike last time I had low oil pressure, where I accidentally cured it before finding the symptom by dropping the sump before measuring the pressure, this time I haven't changed anything and just went straight to sticking in the pressure gauge.
I'll start off by checking the cam chain cover oil control rings, and the oil channels in the cover too. And then remeasure the pressure. That will likely yield little to no difference, but it's worth checking as I've never taken it off before.
Then I'll drop the sump, replace the pick up pipe and install a VIS balance shaft delete freewheel. Also I'll check the ends of the balance shafts aren't loose, as well as no mounting bolts having have fallen out of the oil pump, like one did last time.
And then fingers crossed, the pressure will be back to normal when everything's been put back together.
pudding:
That large shard of metal doesn't look good :surprised: I think it might be the thrust bearing, especially as you've said clutch pedal return is a bit lazy. It's not a complete rebuild to replace that, but it pretty much is an engine out job though.
Get a pry bar on the crank pulley and lever on it to check the end float. It should only move laterally about 0.5mm at the most.
You would definitely be losing a bit of low rpm oil pressure if the crank and/or thrust washer are breaking up. Try the gearbox shim kit first but it's not looking good overall with that slither of metal and the shavings in the oil filter :confused:
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