VW Passat engine oil sludge failure results in no love from VW

Yes, actually short trips around town are worse than long highway trips, because short trips around town don’t heat up the engine enough to drive off the moisture produced by combustion. Some of that moisture gets into the oil and sludges it up. Longer trips/highway driving will get the engine hot enough to evaporate that water from the oil. Short trips will not.

This is why cars that are driven on short trips need the oil changed at shorter mileage intervals. This is actually a “severe” condition, paradoxically.

“Most of my driving was around town, smaller trips. Does that make it severe usage? I guess I woudl assume the opposite - severe usage is using it a LOT.”

As a couple of others have already stated, your assumption is incorrect.
That is why car manufacturers define what constitutes severe usage in their maintenance schedules, so that those who are not car-savvy will know about these details and–hopefully–modify their maintenance accordingly.

Based on your response, I believe that you never read the maintenance schedule sufficiently to learn about the definition of “severe usage”. Not reading details like this can essentially lead to a situation of, “shooting yourself in the foot”, which is what I believe you have done.

“Most of my driving was around town, smaller trips.”

Most mechanics would consider that severe usage

The feature I liked about the oil life indicator on my 2006 Chevrolet Uplander is that it indicated the oil life left based on the kind of driving I did. For short trips in the winter, it often indicated that the oil life was depleted at less than 4000 miles. On the other hand, when I took long highway trips in the summer, it might not indicate that the oil life was depleted until the car had reached 7000 miles. It seems to me had the OP’s VW Passat had such a feature, perhaps the engine ruined by sludge would not have occurred.

Is this car a V6? When I had mine the sludge issue was on the turbo 4 not the V6.

Thanks all for your advice, and abuse. I am sure I wont get far but will try to go back to VW for more support. I am the original owner, 3rd VW, and had all maintenance performed by the dealer according to their schedule. I fail to see how VW isn’t liable to some extent if there is a known sludge issue, and I wasn’t able to take advantage of the warranty extension because I didn’t drive the vehicle enough over the years. I guess the main lesson learned for me is to step up maintenance when not driving a vehicle much.

@korth

I believe it’s better to be proactive, when it comes to car maintenance

Many car manufacturers make absolutely no mention of flushing the brake fluid

Yet any pro knows that you’re technically supposed to do a brake fluid flush every 2 years

Many car manufacturers claim that their atf is “lifetime fluid”

Yet any pro knows it’s a good idea to do regular fluid and filter services

As some of the regulars here say, the maintenance schedule is really just a starting point. There are plenty of things that should be done, which aren’t really touched upon in that booklet.

Since the subject is oil change interval, what sort of OCI do fleet managers use? The new 10k+, or something a bit more conservative?

Now that Toyota, several German makes, and GM have revised OCIs downward in the face of warranty work, it makes one wonder as to the wisdom thereof. “Extend OCI until vehicle fails to outlive warranty, then titrate downwards” sounds like sound engineering principles have been compromized to placate the usual suspects.

The USPS expects 24 years out of their LLVs in stop-n-go; what’s their OCI? As a owner of a Ford 300-powered truck, I’d like to know what OCI UPS used/uses on their 300-powered trucks.

On our fleet vehicles, we change oil at 6months/4K, whichever comes first

This is not a VW problem; this is an owner inflicted problem and unfortunately, most owners will not see it that way.
The assumption is that low miles, not driven hard, or following a factory maintenance schedule means zero problems and that is not the way it works; or ever will work.
Few car owners believe their vehicle meets the definition of “Severe Service”.

There’s not a motor made by anyone that hasn’t sludged up. Get lawyers and the internet involved and all hxxx breaks loose with fingers being pointed at anything and everything except the oil change regimen.
This carries over to many other areas; such as Fram oil filters for example. Anyone with a hacksaw and a picnic table on a grassy knoll in the backyard is now a filter engineer.

Subarus for example are not known as sludge prone engines but I’ve seen a fair number of them in that condition. One example was a brand new car with less than 500 miles on it that had already suffered coked engine oil and a wiped out turbocharger.

I realize my comments may not be taken well but they’re based on mechanical principles and made to inform; not to denigrate anyone.

I think a sound engineering decision woukd be to set an OCI that is tolerant of: misunderstanding of “severe service,” occasoinal use of plain old oil vs high-zoot EU spec, etc. Stating an OCI that is “acceptable” (provided all hoops are jumped through) is just asking for trouble.

OP self-reports a level of fidelity to the owner’s manual that, let’s face it, is matched by a minority of first-time posters here.

OP, car manfacturers have been bullied by green intersts (and to cut scheduled maintenance costs) to specify the largest possible interval between oil changes, with little to no margin for error. Their primary concern is getting the engine through warranty mileage intact. Going forward, you can either:

  1. Change oil at mfr-soecified intervals, with factiry-spec oils and filters, OR

  2. Change every 4k, with any name brand oil of appropriate grade and filter and be done with it.

I still disagree with the way the blame is being thrown at the OP.

Changing oil more frequently for short trip driving is needed because the oil never gets hot enough to burn off moisture and other contaminates. Yes the OP did short trip driving, but instead of problems from the oil being too cold, in this case the oil broke down from overheating - a problem that VW has admitted was their fault.

The OP bought a new VW. Because he’s like the majority of the people on this planet, instead of reading his 500 page owner’s manual the way the experts on this forum think everyone must do, he chose to put his trust in the manufacture’s dealership.

The regulars on this forum admonish people for using Quick Lube places. Here, the OP relied on the dealership - and he’s still getting beat up.

Well, first people need to realize it’s not a “manufacturer’s” dealership. They are privately owned businesses that sell a particular brand(s). There is some oversight but in my experience dealerships vary greatly in quality of service and support.

That being said, when I buy a $1000 widget, I might attempt to use it without reading the manual. When I spend $20k+ for something you can bet I read it cover to cover several times. And spend time on various dedicated boards to learn the ins and outs. Don’t feel compelled to do the same? No sympathy from me.

I understand there may be a design issue that leads to sludging. However, if you knew that, you could avoid it by changing oil more frequently. Not educating yourself can be costly…

@korth, if you don’t get satisfaction from the dealer, take it to VW America. Tell them everything you know about, including the class action suit… Don’t offer ultimatums. It sounds like you are level headed and won’t go off on them. I f you don’t get satisfaction from the first VWA representative you talk to, ask for a supervisor. You should start conversing with VWA in writing so that there is a paper trail. Email might work and it will be quicker than snail mail. Keep moving up the line at VWA until you get satisfaction of get tired of it. Tell them that this is your 3rd VW and why you continued buying them. Also make it clear that you took it to the dealer for maintenance and that you expected them to tell you that base do n your low mileage! they should have alerted you to use the sever oil change service. You might get more than you have already.

Email isn’t a good idea, IMO

They can always claim they didn’t get the email

Now, a registered, sign-on-delivery letter . . .

You can’t claim you didn’t receive it

The 1.8T had a number of problems, single handedly killed VW’s reputation back in the late '90s - early '00s. Remember the ignition coil fiasco?

I liked VWs, my GTI gave me 12 years of great service. Only now has VW seemed to address some of their recent problems.

So what causes sludge? Water Condensate from not running engine long enough to boil off water? Coolant leak? Cracked cylinder? Bad emission control valve?

With the VW Turbo cars using the wrong oil was a big part of the problem . The dealers were seldom aware of the VW spec 502 oils - which are all synthetic .

@longprime

So what causes sludge?

In VW’s case, the problem was their turbo was getting too hot, causing the oil to prematurely “coke” and turn to sludge.

The Toyota sludge problem (1998-2002 timeframe) was due to a design change that caused oil circulating through a passage in the cylinder heads to overheat.

In both cases, the companies finally admitted fault and began covering the repairs after continued growing evidence that owners with the failed engines had changed the oil per the manufacturers recommended intervals.

@Joemario The early narrow angle (60 deg.) GM V6 engines, 2.8 liter, had similar problems with very small oil galleries. Infrequent oil changes or using a too heavy oil in cold weather starved the bearings and valve gear and caused early failures. GM never admitted to a problem, but fixed it over time.

My sister had a Pontiac with this engine and I instructed her to change oil religiously and use the proper weight as well as a block heater in the winter. She escaped the problem.