Some good news about camshaft wear...

[Contigo]

You not seen the numbers?

It's a fair job to replace cams and followers, not too much change from 3k! But if you leave it then it's going to be bye bye engine. Which WD probably wouldn't cover the full cost of.

[drjones1]

I was cleaning mine today and fired her up and listened with the hood up and there's a definite ticking coming from the RHS of the engine, it's just there and only audible with the hood up and not from in the car, it's alway been there thinking about it and my mate's B6 has the same thing but louder on idle too.

The problem is that I have the paranoia now from this thread and know that checking is for peace of mind but do they not all have a slight ticking sound on "tick" over?

They do, no machine is silent. You also hear the ticking of the injectors.

[kn9]

You not seen the numbers?

It's a fair job to replace cams and followers, not too much change from 3k! But if you leave it then it's going to be bye bye engine. Which WD probably wouldn't cover the full cost of.

That's quite a big percentage of the car's value.

Are the signs of camshaft wear obvious everytime? I presume specialists like Grizz and MRC can detect any problems very well?

[TopBear]

I was cleaning mine today and fired her up and listened with the hood up and there's a definite ticking coming from the RHS of the engine, it's just there and only audible with the hood up and not from in the car, it's alway been there thinking about it and my mate's B6 has the same thing but louder on idle too.

The problem is that I have the paranoia now from this thread and know that checking is for peace of mind but do they not all have a slight ticking sound on "tick" over?

Yes, they do all tick lightly. Mines still does this, so that's not the cams

[Contigo]

So TopBear what was the symptons on yours?

[andream88]

Just ordered a complete set of cams + seals from Virdee, and the OEM followers from the US.
1050£ total

Andrea

[BAX123]

I've just had a fair bit of work done on mine, new cams fitted, still a slight ticking noise at idle but the car runs so sweet! as much as i want my motor to be a silent, smoooth sounding beast at idle i've come to accept that it probably never will! Cant hear any ticking at 7000rpm in 3rd gear, just sweet music!!

[Contigo]

Mileage?

[BAX123]

cams changed at 69k. doug showed me the wear, and it was just an ever so slight pitting on the cam lobes. in fact i've only had 3 changed, the inlet cam on the offside bank was fine, no wear.

[andream88]

50k miles on mine. Only 2 cams were showing evident damage. But i've replaced all

[TopBear]

So TopBear what was the symptons on yours?

Mines was registering lots of misfires DTC's in the ECU for 4 of the 6 cyclinders..

I still get very occasional misfires from measuring blocks 15 & 16 only at idle, but no logged DTC's.

Here's some logs from the time BCR (before cam replacement)

7 Faults Found:
16684 - Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected
P0300 - 35-00 - -
16688 - Cylinder 4: Misfire Detected
P0304 - 35-00 - -
16689 - Cylinder 5: Misfire Detected
P0305 - 35-00 - -
16815 - Warm Up Catalyst; Bank 2: Efficiency Below Threshold
P0431 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent
16687 - Cylinder 3: Misfire Detected
P0303 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent
16690 - Cylinder 6: Misfire Detected
P0306 - 35-10 - - - Intermittent
16686 - Cylinder 2: Misfire Detected
P0302 - 35-00 - -
Readiness: 0000 0000

[Contigo]

So in theory if I monitor VAG every month I shouild be able to detect this? I've had one misfire recntly on cylinder 5 but it's linked to a Lambda probe B2 S1 I think.

[TopBear]

God only knows!

What's interesting is that it seems to be affecting RS4's more than S4's going on the amount of recent discussion activity

[neckarsulm]

What's interesting is that it seems to be affecting RS4's more than S4's going on the amount of recent discussion activity

375 bhp vs 265 bhp

[S4INT]

375 bhp vs 265 bhp

Nonsense. By your reckoning then, my 460bhp car should have eaten its cams in, what, 25k miles??

My car had done over 100k, at least 60k of which were at 460bhp before its cam (1 lobe) wore out.

I've been following this thread with interest and wondering what the "good news about camshaft wear" was. It seems that the "good news" is that YOUR car hasn't suffered YET, and I am glad for you.

There is no common theme here; this affects standard cars as well as modded cars, and low mileage cars as well as high milers.

Its more likely that the RS4 cams were manufactured at the same time using similar materials and heat-treatment processes and for some reason (sub-standard materials or poor hardening) are more susceptible to wear than S4's.