Hi

I was just wondering if any of you had had a similar issue before or would know what to do?

I had a crash in December and my insurance sent the car to Nationwide Crash Repair Centre, they took 6 weeks to replace the radiator, fan shroud, fan control unit, air conditioning radiator and intercooler radiator along with the bumper, front grill, fog lamps etc. When we got it back I realised they had fitted the wrong bumper to it so it had to be returned for the right one, the manager was laughing with us saying that the mechanic had never worked on an A4 before so had got confused.



On the 9th of April I took it for its MOT and after an hour the mechanic called me to come and look at the engine, he said in the middle of doing the test the car had stopped and he had noticed the engine was cracked. The car was then taken back to Nationwide as we believe it was caused by the initial crash and we were given a tiny courtesy car (that we can't even all fit in!) while they looked into it and did reports.

We got the report through yesterday and basically nationwide and our insurance company have washed thier hands of it, said its a write off but because its a 'catastrophic mechanical failure' its up to Audi to fix it. I'm really confused and stressed out.

"Examination from the underside has revealed a large hole in the engine sump where visual examination shows that one of the engine conrods has suffered a catastrophic failure where the lower section of the conrod can be seen still attatched to the crankshaft but there only appears to be approximately 40mm of the rod left after the semi-circular area that houses the bearing shell. There is no doubt that the thrashing, broken conrod will have been what has smached the sump and cracked the engine casing"

They are basically saying that because we have driven the car over 2,000 miles it cannot be related to the earlier crash but at the bottom of the report it said this -

"Since the engine was already in such a condition to consider that it was completely wrecked and beyond any form of repair, an attempt was made to start the engine to see whether the engine was siezed. Surprisingly, the engine actually started and did run of its own accord before being switched off"

So would it be impossible?

Does anyone have any advice for me please? I don't know what to do now, Nationwide are coming for the courtesy car and returning the A4 to me so I don't know how I will even get to work

Thanks

 

The hole in the engine is probably from the connecting rods exiting the engine.
Were there any warning lights on when you picked the car up? I am wondering what else the Non audi mechanic screwed up?

 

Hmmm, it sounds like your engine might be rebuildable; it all depends upon what caused the rod to break (i.e. lack of oil or hydrolock).

 

Thanks for the replies, I really wish I'd paid the extra to sent the car straight to Audi instead of their 'approved repairers', too bad it was just before Christmas!

No, no warnings at all and its been working perfectly right until the MOT - the whole thing is so odd, someone hasn't done their job right and I'm carless, gutted!

 

The garage who did the MOT said they could get another engine for it, but thats 3k alone and we just don't have that atm. The report said it wasn't due to lack of oil or coolant so I'm stumped

 

Well, rods don't just break; fact of life. There are four possible causes for a broken rod that I can come up with for your situation (listed in decreasing order of likelihood):

• Over-revving by the MOT technician -- The memory in your OBC should be able to be inspected by your Audi dealership (and possibly by anybody with a VAGCOM) to the degree that you can view the engine operational properties immediately prior to the failure. If you identify careless inputs from the technician causing the engine to rev beyond say 4,000 RPMs while the car is not in gear, then you should be pointing the finger at the outfit doing the MOT.
• Hydrolock -- A crack in the block, head, or a head-gasket failure may have allowed just enough coolant (it doesn't take more than a milliliter or two) into the failed cylinder to "lock" the piston prior to it reaching its normal TDC position. I'm thinking if this was the case then there might still be some coolant in the cylinder; either way, the remaining pieces of the rod should show some twisting and/or bending distortion, and unless your car is still under warranty, there ain't a whole lot you can do but pony up the cash to replace the motor.
• Oil starvation -- Pull the rod cap off and inspect the bearing and rod journal; if they show damage, then here again, the rebuild/replacement is probably going to be on your dime.
• Manufacturing flaw -- If all of the above come up negative, then there is a very good likelihood that the rod which failed came from the factory with a fracture in it. Given modern Q/C practices this is fairly unlikely, but not impossible, and if you can prove this happened, then Audi should pick up the cost of the new (or rebuilt) motor.

Keep us posted on how you make out.

 

Thank you very much, that's really helpful. The independent report did say "I understand that it is likely that the failure occurred during the period where the engine rev's are increased to carry out the smoke test part of the MOT"

I'm going to phone Audi now and see what they say, will keep you updated

 

Can you clarify something here? When you got the car and took it for inspection, did you drive it there? Was it trailered? How much time (and mileage) elapsed between getting it back from repair and arriving for MOT? If there's a giant f*cking hole in the engine, and a rod has been destroyed, it sure as hell isn't going to run. If that's the case, then it had to happen at MOT. No way in hell that happened in the crash in December, after which you had three full months of driving, only to have the issue materialize at inspection, with no technician noticing a large hole in the sump, big enough to see a ruined rod, and no telltales of the damage, like all your oil on the ground.

If I'm being a retard here, forgive me - it's 3am and has been a 21-hour day.

 

Jeremy , my guess is the MOT testing might involve dynoing the car for emissions. It is possible the engine might have gone then if there was no cooling to the car.
Just a guess though.