Hi,
Is this a common experience w/ the 3.0L V6? At 4,000 mi. the car started showing signs of a blown head gasket - misfire faults that moved around. By 17,000 mi. it had gone through 3 head gaskets - 1 on each side plus & Audi replaced the block. At 30k, started showing signs again & at 42k they are replacing a head. Car has been well cared for, not abused & all service done by the dealer.

Any suggestions?

Terry
A4 Avant

 

I've only replaced a couple blown 3.0L head gaskets, so i would say thats its not a very common problem. The second time around i would suspect crappy workmanship.

 

Yes, I've heard the V6 has been a pretty good engine but................So my 4 year/50k warrenty ends in about 6 weeks. If its workmanship, Audi has forked out for a new block & now a new head. Should I be talking directly to Audi USA about this to get it resolved? If I'm not mistaken, if I try to sell the car & someone does a CARFAX, don't they find the record of engine repairs?

Terry

 

Yes you should be talking to AOA if the dealership doesn't want to cooperate with repairs, if the dealer is willing to do the work under warranty then there is no need to worry.
A carfax report will bring up major repairs at dealerships yes.

 

Thanks for the reply. The dealer is cooperative & humble but that still leaves me hanging long term. The dealer said that they would ask Audi for support if another head gasket goes after the warrenty is out. So I just finished calling AOA to get something formal from them ahead of time. They'll call back Friday w/ an answer.

There were workmanship problems following the block replacement - car was out of alignment (new tires wore the inside corners off in 11k) and the headlight aim was far too high. But it is also the case that both factory head gaskets went in the first 14k miles. So is the head bolt torque sequence that complicated on one of these?

 

All aluminum cylinder heads have specific torque procedures.

 

Good morning,

I guess what I'm really asking is, once one of these engines has been taken apart, is it really difficult to put it back together again? A local shop that specializes in higher end euro-asian cars told me the design of the V6 makes it prone to head gasket failure. I guessing the factory has a robot that torques the head bolts with great sophistication and precision (assuming the robot is running correctly & the parts are good). It could be really tough to match that manually no matter how careful the tech is. While you haven't seen many head gasket failures, are other major engine repairs (that require removal of the heads) on the V6 usually successful?

Thanks again for all your help,
Terry

 

The 3.0L engine is about a 5 on a 1-10 scale of difficulty for a skilled technician. Every head gaket i have ever replaced on a 3.0L never came back.
If a tech hasn't worked on a 3.0L in detail the difficulty can shoot up to about an 8 because of all the procedures and torque specs the engine requires. I would assume the tech that did the work was a lower end guy at the shop, the more experienced techs at dealers know to stay away from that engine because the labor time.

 

Talked to the Audi tech today. When the head was pulled & checked for warpage it was found to have more than a 0.4 mm warp. Is that something that could have been caused by poor installation when the block was replaced?

 

Oh yeah, thats the only thing that could have warped it. I doubt it was machined wrong. Is the dealer going to fix it again?