Who won what for what?

Ian got the Geek man action figure for doing the memory installs
He also won the distance award (a black spmicro sled) at 880 odd miles.

Rob Ricardelli won the best professional install award - a Mlord dock.

There was a three-way tie for best amatuer install (Alan, Ian, and Myself) and after a drawing I took home the award for that - A Rio Karma.

The worst install award went to Alan - a GPS receiver. He gave it to Ian because he had no use for it.

Laura won the host's choice award - an 80 gig hard drive.

Everyone who attended got a Tech Support 8-ball and a 1880 silver dollar. There was some caffeinated soap going around too.

Not this trip. I did consider going through Beaver Falls (coming back US30 to US62 to OH14 and down PA51) but decided to just take US250, US22 and head across Pittsburgh that way; But the APRS tracking has many times been online for trips to and through Beaver Falls.

Alright, now that Ian is done tweaking my install, everyone has to come back so we can do the competition over and this time I will beat Rob

Come back? I haven't left yet!

Anyway, I have car back, and touching wood it's going to be ok. My VW dealership managed to put at least 7 quarts of oil into a car that only needs 4.4. One oil change later...

We did have a scare on the way back to Lauras - still stuttering, flashing CELs and pumping an extremely environmentally unfriendly amount of blue smoke out of the exhaust, to the point where we turned around and took it back to the dealer. As we got there, the car started to behave much better. I talked to the guy that had worked on the car and he gave me lots of reassurance that it would take a while for the oil to burn out, and that I could expect those issues until it did.

More importantly I asked him to categorically state that the headgasket, oil seals and turbo were all fine. Sure enough, on the way back to Laura's (finally) there was no smoking, and much reduced hesitation. So it looks like I'm about to go to Boston, and hopefully by the time I get there my car will be 100% again.

He left and it will be a long while before he gets back home. It was nice having him here for a couple of days, especially since I didn't have to do any more cooking

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My VW dealership managed to put at least 7 quarts of oil into a car that only needs 4.4. One oil change later...

Sounds like they forgot the first step in an oil change... remove the old oil! Glad to see you're doing okay now.

Hey guys, "Burn it".

Yeah, I'll be chasing VWoA to sort this out. It took all 900 miles for the car to recover to ~95%. The first 300 miles of the journey were very tough - the first hundred I had to baby the throttle to avoid spluttering and flashing CELs (= lots of misfires), going up a low grade hill with cruise control on was enough to cause it. The second hundred eased a little, but I still couldn't accelerate without misfiring. The third hundred I could accelerate but any boost from the turbo caused it to happen again. The degree to which this would happen varied too, as obviously the oil was working it's way through the system. Periodically the cat would start stinking of rotten eggs, and the car would behave better for 10 miles or so before relapsing.

I stopped and slept at about 250 miles, got up and 7 and drove to the 300 mile point where I needed gas and phoned the tech that had worked on the car. He was surprised that I was still suffering, but still confident that the coilpacks were fine (my immediate concern), so we decided that injector cleaner might help. So I threw a bottle in with the gasoline, and when I restarted the car I pretty much immediately got a big puff of grayish white smoke out of the exhaust, and an immediate improvement.

That wasn't the end of it though. Bad spluttering patches still occured periodically, and hard acceleration was still met with misfires. I used another bottle of injector cleaner when I refilled the tanl 350 miles later, and eventually, about 100 miles from Boston the car started to feel like it really would recover.

I'm obviously concerned about my catalytic converter at this stage. My emissions warranty has either expired or will in 2000 miles (I can't remember whether it's 7yr/70k or 8yr/80k), and I would like that warranty extended by a suitable length of time/mileage.

I'm also concerned that the engine sounds a little raw at 3k-4k. But that may just be me being over-sensitive - I don't usually spend my time revving the engine and listening to it.

Anyway, I'm home. It rained solidly from the western edge of Pennsylvannia to Boston, ~600 miles. And I mean _rained_.

The last place I want to take my car is back to Quirk. If I have my way, they'll never touch it again.

Man, that sucks. I wonder how liable the oil-change guys are. Maybe a call to Click and Clack is in order?

In southwestern PA we barely got wet. I'm on the PA Turnpike traveler advisory mailing list, it looks like eastern PA is getting hit hard. Sucks to be Harrisburg... again.

Ian, if you want the loan of my Vag-Com let me know.
Plus I'll even let you in on the secret to changing the oil in a VW with out getting your blue hair dirty - might be time for a Boston empeg/VW meet.

You might want to Google "Quirk VW"

I'm glad to hear that you made it home ok inspite of the problems.

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Plus I'll even let you in on the secret to changing the oil in a VW with out getting your blue hair dirty

I don't know about the blue hair, but I hate changing the oil on my wife's 1.8T New Beatle. The oil filter is mounted on an angle, 1/2 way up from the underside of the car. It's impossible to remove the filter without getting oil all over parts of the engine and front axel. I wipe as much as I can, but there is always a drop or two on the driveway the next day.

I'm obviously concerned about my catalytic converter at this stage

As well you should be.

The odds are near-certain that you (or rather, the morons who overfilled your crankcase) have killed your catalytic converter.

I hope you have bullet-proof documentation from the VW dealer who fixed the problem (as best they could) in Cincinatti.

Bring that documentation to the miscreants and insist that (a) they pay for the Cincinatti repairs; and (b) they replace your catalytic converter.

When they inevitably refuse, don't argue with them. Just mention the three magic words, "Small Claims Court", and then do it.

Good luck...

tanstaafl.

Well, after 4 new plugs and a new O2 sensor the car is still flaky. It has a mind of its own - sometimes it's fine, and other times it feels like one cylinder isn't firing. The most annoying thing is that it's not storing any OBD codes.

So I think that I'm going to need to borrow that VAG-COM for a while. if that's ok. I suspect that one of the coilpacks is going bad.

Do you think that all happened because of the dealer putting too much oil in the car?

Do you think that all happened because of the dealer putting too much oil in the car?

Overfilling the crankcase could not have affected the ignition system. If it is a failed coil pack, it is coincidental.

If he is still running that ruined catalytic converter, that could be at the root of the problem. Burning off that much oil could have made that cat get really hot, enough to melt the innards and cause partial intermittant blockage of the exhaust.

tanstaafl.

The cat isn't before the turbo is it? That much burning oil would explain the O2 sensor getting gummed up too.

I'm not sure. That's partly why I need to borrow that VAG-COM. VAG-COM will tell me as much about the car as VW's own diagnostic tools, which is a lot more information than generic OBD tools report. At the moment my OBD tool isn't reporting any codes.

The cat is after the turbo, so any oil in the cat must have been through the turbo. However, when the engine is cold, or when you are cruising off-boost, the turbo won't burn the oil. In fact, the oil would need to sit in the turbo for a while before burning - the turbo itself is oil-cooled. I did originally have some concern that maybe the turbo was letting go, but it still pulls as strong as it ever did. The normal failure mode for a turbo is that its bearings self destruct at 120 000RPM, and the turbine/compressor wheel ploughs into the housing as a result and destroys itself in the process. Generally loud, noisy and irreversible. Perhaps overfilling the oil created excess pressure and caused the oil seals in the turbo to blow by, and that could be a problem - oil seal blowby is often a precursor to failure. However, the amount of oil that came through the engine originally was huge. Huge-blue-turn-the-clearest-day-into-foggy-night type smoke. And now, despite the code-less misfiring, I don't see or smell any evidence of oil from the exhaust. It is also normal to have some oil in the intake tract anyway. The crankcase ventilates into the intake tract in order to burn off oil fumes. (By design, an emissions thing,) So I wouldn't expect an occassional drop of oil here or there to cause this problem.
Coilpack failure... could be caused by excessive overloading of the coil according to anecdotal evidence. I think that 900 miles of fighting oil in the combustion chamber would probably qualify, although impossible to prove. The same evidence suggests that partial failure is a possibility. If the problem is only in one cylinder (which I suspect it is) then the coilpack has to be favorite - and at $21 each, a cheap remedy.

Burnt and blocked cat? I wouldn't have thought that this could cause an intermittent problem like this. The dealership wasn't concerned about the cat when I originally took it back in after the trip, and pointed out that the post cat O2 sensor is very sensitive to cat failure. I also know that OBD would store a pemanent code and the CEL would stay on if the cat had failed, which has not happened. Remember that the CEL is predominantly an emissions light - it only flashes or lights when there is an emissions-related problem.

The most annoying thing about all of this is that it's intermittent. The car is still covered under a 10yr/100K drivetrain warranty, and will be for another 20K. But if I take it in to the dealership, and their VAG tool shows no codes and the problem doesn't show in their test drive, they're going to turn around and charge me $75 just for the priviledge. That's why I want to know if any non-OBD codes are stored. That's also why if it appears to be a single coilpack I'd be tempted to replace it myself.