Some good news about camshaft wear...

[Timmilne]

I think you're letting Audi off the hook.

If low-rent manufacturers like Chevy, Mitsubishi and Nissan can make engines and cams that last, then an upmarket brand like Audi should do it too. It might be that they've duped people into thinking that they can run their cars on 10K (nevermind 20K) service intervals–maybe because they were afraid their target customers wouldn't do it more frequently–but that doesn't get around the problem.

VAG has invested invested billions of dollars worldwide into making Audi a serious brand built on design and engineering integrity, yet it's made cars with suspensions that don't work (RS6 DSG) and cams that wear out. These are fundamental engineering problems. If these engines were of the calibre that Audi's brand promise makes, then they should easily last for many, many years, many hundreds and thousands of miles and withstand serious (not mild) tuning.

Good engineers build their products to withstand unexpected and unforseen loads. If they didn't, bridges would collapse every time a couple of heavy lorries went over them.

Ask yourself this when you climb in your RS4: Do you think Audi are better engineers than Chevrolet?

[Contigo]

I think the problem is that yes Nissan can do it and so can Misti BUT on the cars like the Evo's (FX320 and FQ400) they need really silly maintenance like service every 6k miles whereas alot of the RS4's have been on long life and serviced every 10-12k so this could have something to do with it too.

I agree, it's shoddy really but I don't think many on here will write in and complain. If you look at the DRC issue on the RS6 (and 4) it's far more prevalent than this cam wear issue and Audi haven't done jack about that.

That's life I'm afraid, I bet for every car that has had cam probs there are 10 or so that simply haven't and have gone over the 100k mark without any probs.

[Nige_RS4]

That's life I'm afraid, I bet for every car that has had cam probs there are 10 or so that simply haven't and have gone over the 100k mark without any probs.

More like 50 or so cars, as most RS4's are now approaching 90-100k miles. Just how many actual RS4's do we know of that have had this problem?

[neckarsulm]

More like 50 or so cars, as most RS4's are now approaching 90-100k miles. Just how many actual RS4's do we know of that have had this problem?

Good point - to be more specific I'd be interested to know how many have actually suffered engine problems caused by cam wear as opposed to had the cams replaced due to signs of wear.

[Contigo]

Well I think we did ask people to post about it, I'm sure there are a good ten member on here who have had their cams replaced or bought cars which have had the cams done at some point (audiboy etc..)

I can't imagine there are 50 RS4's that have had cams done but I might be wrong.

[petephil]

I have had my cams replaced at MRC a couple of months ago. I personally wouldn't of knew they needed replacing by the engines sound or any perfomance related issues only when it was opened up for a gasket to be replaced that it was noticeable. Only small amounts of pitting was visible but i was advised to have them replaced to avoid possible, more expensive issues in the future.

My car has a full sevice history (12 stamps in the book) 11 at audi and 1 at MRC, the most miles between any service was about 9000 miles.

It has been remapped at MRC, but only last year and a couple of thousand miles ago. I have owned the car for over 3 and 1/2 years and have never abused, tracked or hardly ever use the car to its full potential (my lack of driving skill). As far as i could make out when i purchased the car the previous owner looked after the car in a similar manner(who knows for sure?). I sometimes feel the car may be a bit wasted on me, but what a waste

I would say that it can't always the way the car is maintained or driven, although it will have some bearing, is it more likely in this case down to poor quality parts?

[chancha]

I think this issue with cams has the potential to follow in the footsteps of Porsche with the the 996 RMS issue. However small the numbers of affected cars, once people are made aware of an (potential) issue it is very hard to shake that image off with the end result hitting the residual value.

I agree with the poster a few back in that we appear to be giving Audi an east time of it...

[S4INT]

I am very disappointed that my cams wore out and I expected much better from Audi, however as I have said before, my car is nearly 9 years old and has done over 100k, much of that in a highly tuned state, so I think to take my particular car to Audi and ask them to cover the cost of new cams is probably stretching it a bit. Other cars, for example lower mileage standard cars have probably got a much better chance of a goodwill gesture though.

Perhaps it should have had even more regular oil changes than it did, however I still feel that the issue is related to to poor material/hardening process rather than oil. After all, nothing else on the engine has worn out and I'm still on original turbos [reaches for nearest piece of wood].

[Nige_RS4]

I meant for every car (RS4) that has had cam probs there are 50 or so that simply haven't and have gone over the 100k mark without any probs.

[S4INT]

Does anyone know how the guy got on who was meant to be analysing a set of Paul's cams?

To answer your question - I never heard anything else after his initial findings which is here:

Cams are mild steel, lifters are stainless.
There appears to be no surface hardening on the cams, only work hardening.
Have more specific details here, but need to triple check everything first for obvious reasons.

Im not sure if hardening a used cam is an option, will confirm when i have the info.

From what i can see, lubrication is not an issue.

[grizz]

I've got a totally stand 80k car in with fooked cams ....

[Contigo]

Jeez so that really does confirm that remapping these cars is not a factor in the equation or indeed exacerbate the situation.

[TopBear]

My cams were gubbed, and was 100% standard car.

I only got it remapped after the cams were replaced, and it was given a clean bill of health.

Realistically, there will have to be side-by-side comparisons done with a set of knackered and set of good 100K miler cams done, to see what the difference is, whether its manufacturing or composite material.

My hunch is that these RS4 cams were made in seperate batches and some cams were manufactured to a lesser quality by one of the manufacturers ( perhaps made by Cadbury's)

[Contigo]

You've concluded nothing, it's all straw clutching at the moment

[Contigo]

WTF? Neckarsulms post has gone.