THE Timing Chain Tensioner Failure Thread

[fordyoz]

FYI - spoke with a service manager and he escalated it to AoA. They are going to cover the cost of the fix. But for some reason, they wont cover the cost of replacing the thermostat. If the car jumps timing, would this be a related part that should be fixed?

[elscotto80]

FYI - spoke with a service manager and he escalated it to AoA. They are going to cover the cost of the fix. But for some reason, they wont cover the cost of replacing the thermostat. If the car jumps timing, would this be a related part that should be fixed?

That's pretty great that AoA is picking up the tab. Regarding the thermostat, I would just pay that and be happy you are getting a rebuilt motor. The thermostat cost can't be that much compared to what it's going to cost Audi to fix your motor.

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[fordyoz]

That's pretty great that AoA is picking up the tab. Regarding the thermostat, I would just pay that and be happy you are getting a rebuilt motor. The thermostat cost can't be that much compared to what it's going to cost Audi to fix your motor.

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true, im very happy.
thermostat replacement quoted @ ~$850

[Spawne32]

true, im very happy.
thermostat replacement quoted @ ~$850

because they are probably replacing the water pump as well lol did they give you part numbers of what is to be replaced? My water pump replacement was just under a grand.

[fordyoz]

because they are probably replacing the water pump as well lol did they give you part numbers of what is to be replaced? My water pump replacement was just under a grand.

for sure would hope they do water pump and thermostat. they are probably quoting me so much because they are quoting a regular water pump/thermo replacement. the car is already going to be dissembled..it should be cake to just drop this in during the head repair.

[SMFD21]

This thread is just making me depressed. I have 2012 with 44K on the clock, I am due for an oil change soon and I am going to check my tensioner. However I suspect that I will need to get this done this summer, I saw the DYI and I am certain that I will be paying someone to do it for me.

Honestly I wouldn't worry about the tensioner on the 2012 models. There have only been one or two documented failures. Also, most 2012 models use the A/B model tensioner, which I believe was only used in the 2012 models.

[misterpepper]

I finally have all my parts and have begun putting everything back together. The timing chain nationwide recall delayed my parts for over a month. I've run into a problem, though, I can't see how to position the exhaust manifold correctly. There aren't any pins or alignment marks to make sure that the ports and runners line up perfectly. My problem is that the lower clamping blocks are wedge shaped so the more you tighten them the higher it raises the manifold. I can force the manifold all the way down and tighten the top nuts first to hopefully hold it there, but I don't know if this is correct. I'm hoping somebody can chime in so I don't have to start taking things apart again to measure and mark the ideal position.

[misterpepper]

Well, it runs again. That was an epic project. I need to track down why my A/C compressor won't kick on anymore, but it's probably related to the fact that the larger of the two cooling fans was broken so I removed it before putting the front end back together. I only have about 50 miles on the car so far and I haven't flogged it yet, but it seems to be running great.

[Robstar]

I had my 2009 A4 receive a rebuild courtesy of Pfaff Audi here in Toronto in June 2015 at 105K KM for an oil consumption issue.

The car ran great until a few weeks ago. It stalled in the middle of an intersection, after having a funny idle for a day. The check engine light wasn't on, and I had filled up with some shady gas the day before so I didn't think anything of it.

Pulled the codes after I had it towed and it was evident what happened.

The dealership did replace the tensioner with a new revised one when the oil consumption repair was done, but they did not replace the chain according to my service records.

I have not contacted the dealership about it yet. I have pulled it all apart myself as I am really strapped for cash at the moment due to some other unfortunate circumstances that financially set me back not too long ago.

I am awaiting a mechanic friend to come look for himself to be my certified professional voice when I approach them about what I have found.

What did I find?

The chain is the culprit here. Not the tensioner. Its so far stretched that the tensioner is FULLY EXTENDED. I cant even turn the engine over by hand right now even after realigning it all back up without the intake cam skipping. Not only that, but its so far stretched, that the pitch is now different, making it impossible to even line up all the timing marks.



this is what the tensioner looks like relaxed and fully extened



this is what the tensioner looks like on the car, as you can see, the locking grooves on the shaft are past the retaining clip, which is supposed to not allow the piston to retract during start up when there is no oil pressure. It is fully extended.



Another look at it all, as you can see, the chain is extremely long in this picture, as not only is the tensioner all the way extended, but the gap, between the chain in the loop, is very small, you can only see one link of the balancer shaft chain in that pic, when normally you can see three links in the gap in the middle.


Im so pissed I bought this car, its been nothing but trouble. Besides these major catastrophic failures, its been nickle and diming me with all the little things that are going wrong all at once too. Total lemon.

Make sure you replace these old revision chains folks.

[Robstar]

Also.................F*ck

[Captain Amazing]

Wow, these engines really are a POS. Funny how I decided not to go for a 335i because I heard they could be a maintenance nightmare. But these A4's are even worse. Guess it's my fault for not doing enough research on this car before buying it. I have a 2010 with 107k kms that I've had for a year, I replaced the tensioner but now I have to worry about the chain too? Great.

[Robstar]

POS is right.

Anyone who thinks German engineering is superior, has never dealt with German engineering.

Two weeks after this happened to me, a friend with an A3 calls me. His chain BROKE. Hes dealing with the same nightmare as me right now.

[jfo]

Robstar, did you avoid damage to the valves, etc? My tensioner was done along with pistons at 55k km. I'm only at 75k now, but will plan to pop open the tensioner inspection port from time to time to check the extension.

[Robstar]

Robstar, did you avoid damage to the valves, etc? My tensioner was done along with pistons at 55k km. I'm only at 75k now, but will plan to pop open the tensioner inspection port from time to time to check the extension.

Not sure, it was out four teeth. Likely kissed the pistons.

Im installing a new chain and doing a compression test before removing the head.

[jfo]

Not sure, it was out four teeth. Likely kissed the pistons.

Im installing a new chain and doing a compression test before removing the head.

Might be able to see any visible marks on the pistons with a scope through the plug holes why you're in there. Good luck!

[Captain Amazing]

Seriously, I came from a Mazdaspeed 6 and that had a great engine. All I ever did maintenance wise was oil changes and spark plugs. It handled all my go fast bits like a champ as well. Not sure if I want to keep this car or trade it in before something else goes wrong.

[Robstar]

So my friend mechanic just came by my work where the car is to take a look. He works on all kinds of high end cars, specializing in porsche.

He said he has never in his 30 years in the trade, seen anything like this. This worries me. Im beginning to wonder if that little screen got tangled up in the cam journals causing extreme friction and force on the chain.

We did a quick calculation. The chain has 85 links. Each link would have to stretch over .005" (thats one and 2/3 the size of a human hair) Im a machinist by trade, and .005 is a lot to stretch, considering these are hardened and lubricated. The chain is WELL OVER HALF AN INCH STRETCHED!!!

I HATE this car. I cannot WAIT to sell it.

[jfo]

So my friend mechanic just came by my work where the car is to take a look. He works on all kinds of high end cars, specializing in porsche.

He said he has never in his 30 years in the trade, seen anything like this. This worries me. Im beginning to wonder if that little screen got tangled up in the cam journals causing extreme friction and force on the chain.

We did a quick calculation. The chain has 85 links. Each link would have to stretch over .005" (thats one and 2/3 the size of a human hair) Im a machinist by trade, and .005 is a lot to stretch, considering these are hardened and lubricated. The chain is WELL OVER HALF AN INCH STRETCHED!!!

I HATE this car. I cannot WAIT to sell it.

You may get this already...as I understand it, the chain doesn't "stretch" per se, but elongates as the link pins wear. This chain has lots of links and if they have a tendency to wear, it will slowly add up. Or in our case, not so slowly! The chain has been updated, so I'm assuming they have addressed this with the new design.

[SMFD21]

I like how Audi can "address" our problems once our warranties are over by providing revisioned replacement parts that were never supposed to fail in the first place.

[Robstar]

I'll have a new OEM chain in my hands by lunch time Monday. I'll report back with comparison pictures.

[misterpepper]

In addition to putting mine back together with the damaged piston I also put it back together sans the filter screen on the cam bridge. I found my dislodged screen bit, though. I second sending a scope down to look at the pistons. I could see marks on mine where the valves hitting them had scraped away the carbon. Btw, my chain with 130k miles and a catastrophic engine failure wasn't nearly that far stretched, so it may be a bad batch. My tensioner looked fine through the inspection hole.

[Robstar]

Yeah, I just cannot fathom "how" it got so bad.

I'll grab a scope, thank you kindly for the tips gentlemen.

[CharlieBrown]

anyone have the torque spec for the 2 tensioner bolts?

[Militant-Grunt]

Wow, these engines really are a POS. Funny how I decided not to go for a 335i because I heard they could be a maintenance nightmare. But these A4's are even worse. Guess it's my fault for not doing enough research on this car before buying it. I have a 2010 with 107k kms that I've had for a year, I replaced the tensioner but now I have to worry about the chain too? Great.

They're really not, I'm always hard pressed to upsell anything on CAEB B8's. Most cam bridges and chain tensioners have been replaced, or are replaced during the piston ring replacement. Seeing that ALL 2009-2011's need that, there's really a low amount of people that go the distance to actually have a tensioner fail on them. I have yet to see one come into our dealership for that.

[Militant-Grunt]

anyone have the torque spec for the 2 tensioner bolts?

9NM.



1 - Bolt - 9 Nm

2 - Chain Tensioner
Is under tension
Remove the -T40011- before removing

3 - Timing Chain Tensioning Rail

4 - Guide Pin - 20 Nm

5 - Bolt - 9 Nm

6 - Control Valve 35 Nm
Left thread

q Depending on the version, remove with either the -T10352- or -T10352/1A-

7 - Bolt - 20 Nm +90° turn
Replace

8 - Washer

9 - Bearing Bracket

10 - Camshaft Timing Chain Guide Rail

11 - Camshaft Housing

12 - Camshaft Timing Chain

q Before removing, mark the direction of rotation with paint

13 - Camshaft Timing Chain Guide Rail

14 - Guide Pin - 20 Nm

15 - Three Stage Chain Sprocket

[CharlieBrown]

Thanks for the fast response. Just finished replacing my tensioner.
Old

New



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[fatkids]

Are all model years affected by this timing chain tensioner? Looking to trade by B7 6spd for a B8.5 AT so the wifey can drive it and i want to know if this issue affects all model years or only certain years?

[JinDIS]

Are all model years affected by this timing chain tensioner? Looking to trade by B7 6spd for a B8.5 AT so the wifey can drive it and i want to know if this issue affects all model years or only certain years?

B8.5, should be fine; it's the B8 generation that has all of the problems

This is one of the more comprehensive threads of the problems with B8 and the revisions made through the years
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...uestion-Thread

[paulxxwall]

Had my b8 rebuilt for oil consumption and asked the to please replace chain and tensioner and they did all under extended warranty only actually cost me after diagnosis 130$!


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[Fabio240]

So.......great reading here........I am getting stage 2 done now, and the service guy asked if I wanted the tensioner and new chain put in. He said it was good preventative maintenance. He quoted me 320$ for parts. After reading this post I said yes please!!! My question is now, what about the water pump? Does that need to get replaced and if so when? The whole engine is out now, so I'm trying to do anything I can to prevent issues in the future. I have a 2010 A4 with 75k miles on it. I didn't see anyone talking about the pump so I figure I bring it up....

[Helobubba]

I have a 2012 A4 that needed a new water pump at 75,000 miles.

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[misterpepper]

'09 with new water pump needed at 105k miles. I did it myself, but it was not a fun job. There is a special tool necessary if you replace the belt, which I cut to make removal of the pump easier and because I had a replacement belt on hand. I had to "make" my own special tool, which added significant frustration to the project.

[JBAeroEngineer]

I have a 2012 A4 that needed a new water pump at 75,000 miles.

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They found mine leaking and replaced as well. 2010, 72k

[CONative]

What's the average going rate for a new water pump if you're out of warranty? What are you guys paying?


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[Robstar]

Update

I installed a new chain and that fixes the tensioner issue, as it was compressed like it should be. Side by side the difference was 1/4" but multiply that by two and theres the half inch stretch you see in the pics.

Unfortunatly, I need six intake valves as the engine made no compression on three cylinders.

I have taken the head off, and replaced the valves. The tops of the pistons look fine, I can barely see the ding marks, so I think everything is fine there.

New valves
new gaskets
new hardware
new chain

and a lot of heartache..................

Ill have it all back together this weekend hopefully.

what the tensioner looks like with the new chain, all is good.



no huge visible marks on pistons, just kiss marks in the carbon



this thing would be super easy to take off if there wasnt a damn turbo.



the damage, this is the worst of them.

[Robstar]

The head is still pretty flat so I decided to just clean it up rather than mess with it for no reason so I didn't machine it.

New valves lapped and installed. No leaks and ready to bolt on shortly.

[jfo]

Robstar, what's the km's and how does the carbon buildup in the intake look?

[Robstar]

Robstar, what's the km's and how does the carbon buildup in the intake look?

The engine had the oil consumption done at 105K KM. I had the carbon cleaning done at the same time, which was june 2015

I obviously cleaned it again, but it wasn't too bad. The car now has 147k KM

[jfo]

This is just an FYI. While under the car today I took a look at my tensioner extension through the inspection port. It was replaced 2 years ago with the K version. After Robstars extreme stretch problem, I was curious about mine. At 78K km (49K M) I have roughly half of his km's. I was happy to see that I'm only one notch further extended than his tensioner with a new chain. The edge of the black metal part is above the 3rd ridge compared to Robstars at about the 2nd ridge as per his pic's.
This is a very easy and quick check to do if you're curious about how far the tensioner has extended, indirectly indicating the degree of chain wear. His tensioner was fully extended with 10 notches showing when it failed.(chain, not tensioner)

[mortimersnerd]

Definitely interested. Where is the inspection port?