# The most catastrophic failure ever!



## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

So anyone heard of this? 

Was driving on the highway the other night and all of a sudden I smell burning oil, shut it off and pulled over immediately.
pop the hood, and both oil pressure sensors are blown to nothing. THEN I get the car home (towed) and discover that both the windage tray under the valve cover and in the oil pan BOTH melted and filled my motor with molten plastic. So come morning, my head, oil pan, oil filter, oil cooler and probably anything oil touched is coated in baked on plastic. Motor is shot, but has this happened to anyone else before? !?!? Whyyyyyyy:banghead:


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## Muldermutt (May 15, 2015)

You have any photographs of this?
Is there ANY oil left on the dip stick? I hate to be a "Doubting Thomas," but................

You don't have any friends who are currently enrolled in a chemistry class, do you?


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

I'll post some pics in the morning, there was oil left in the pan. Pan has since been removed to inspect the damage.
pan was FULL of melted plastic, as was oil pump, oil filter, oil cooler, and under the valve cover....stinks like a hell too


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

Plastic melts with heat. You overheated the engine. 

With that much heat, the engine is toast.


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## Muldermutt (May 15, 2015)

Did you make some s'mores before it cooled down? COOL!


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

picked up a used motor for 180 bucks....much easier to pull and swap...lol


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

Butcher said:


> Plastic melts with heat. You overheated the engine.
> 
> With that much heat, the engine is toast.


believe it or not, it still runs haha 2.0 = bulletproof:laugh:


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

heres some pix of the internal damage...

Pile of crap in pan...








Melted plastic pile in pan...








Clogged Sump...








Clogged Cooler...








Pump drive sheared off...


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

Are you sure that is not engine oil sludge that plugged up the oil pickup/oil filter?


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

Butcher said:


> Are you sure that is not engine oil sludge that plugged up the oil pickup/oil filter?


yes, its rock hard.


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## ps2375 (Aug 13, 2003)

And what was water temp doing during all of this? And oil press warning lite?


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

ps2375 said:


> And what was water temp doing during all of this? And oil press warning lite?


water temp stayed at optimal / normal.
oil light came on and started beeping at me, which was when i killed the motor and pulled over. This all happened so fast. crazy:facepalm:


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## Muldermutt (May 15, 2015)

I hate to be a problem here.....but, I am having a very hard time wrapping my head around this. Any you other guys ever seen anything like this? 

Did the top plastic (cam cover) crack, break apart, and then slowly get "consumed" by the cam lobes? Eventually shredding and flowing to the pan with oil?

Have you pulled the valve cover yet?


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

Muldermutt said:


> I hate to be a problem here.....but, I am having a very hard time wrapping my head around this. Any you other guys ever seen anything like this?
> 
> Did the top plastic (cam cover) crack, break apart, and then slowly get "consumed" by the cam lobes? Eventually shredding and flowing to the pan with oil?
> 
> Have you pulled the valve cover yet?


Re-read the top post, both the top cam cover AND the windage tray in the oil pan both melted. The "cam cover" was all melted inside the head all around but not on or in the lifters or valve guides. Just crusted onto all the metal


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## ps2375 (Aug 13, 2003)

The windage tray is not plastic, the small baffle attached to the oilpump pickup is.


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

Muldermutt said:


> I hate to be a problem here.....but, I am having a very hard time wrapping my head around this. Any you other guys ever seen anything like this?
> 
> Did the top plastic (cam cover) crack, break apart, and then slowly get "consumed" by the cam lobes? Eventually shredding and flowing to the pan with oil?
> 
> Have you pulled the valve cover yet?


I too have an issue that the plastic melts but the engine was running normal temps. The fact is that it is impossible [unless there is a chemical that caused the plastic to deteriorate]. 

So the fact is that the oil pump sucked up a bunch of crap, plugged the oil filter and caused the pump gears to seize. The weak link would be the oil shaft breaking and the lack of oil starving the engine bearings. It is highly unlikely it will happen in your life again. I would check your coolant temp gauge and have your vision tested.


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

Butcher said:


> I too have an issue that the plastic melts but the engine was running normal temps. The fact is that it is impossible [unless there is a chemical that caused the plastic to deteriorate].
> 
> So the fact is that the oil pump sucked up a bunch of crap, plugged the oil filter and caused the pump gears to seize. The weak link would be the oil shaft breaking and the lack of oil starving the engine bearings. It is highly unlikely it will happen in your life again. I would check your coolant temp gauge and have your vision tested.



Gauge works fine man, no need to be negative. I think the order of breakage was oil pressure sender(s)...then oil pump drive...then plastic breakdown


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## Eric D (Feb 16, 1999)

I've seen this happen on New Beetles, all female drivers. Summer of 2007, two of the cars were 8v and one was an 1.8T.
Cause of failure in those vehicles was a summer heat wave, driver neglect (maintenance) and a lack of a true temp gauge. Beetle uses a red icon for hot, and blue icon for cold.

In the case of the Beetles, the thermoplastic in the cooling system turned into a grey slurry (plastic used has glass fibers for reinforcement)

All the vehicles had their motors replaced because the melted black plastic couldn't be removed from many crevices.
I can tell you that the smell of burnt plastic is horrific, it lasts for days. What sucked is that we had to keep these stinking monsters till an insurance adjuster could come out and investigate.

OP, make sure you replace your cooling system too. Radiator, heater core, expansion tank. Don't want that crap circulating through your new to you motor.


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

Eric D said:


> I've seen this happen on New Beetles, all female drivers. Summer of 2007, two of the cars were 8v and one was an 1.8T.
> Cause of failure in those vehicles was a summer heat wave, driver neglect (maintenance) and a lack of a true temp gauge. Beetle uses a red icon for hot, and blue icon for cold.
> 
> In the case of the Beetles, the thermoplastic in the cooling system turned into a grey slurry (plastic used has glass fibers for reinforcement)
> ...


Ok so I'm not alone here. I have to say, I have never neglected a car like that before, however that being said, idk how the previous owner treated it. I did a full motor change, stayed with the 2.0 power plant to keep cost down. And yea I changed the cooling system as well as the motor. Only thing that stayed was the trans and the clutch. Planning on eventually building this motor into a fun little toy


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## Butcher (Jan 31, 2001)

wetheitalians said:


> Gauge works fine man, no need to be negative. I think the order of breakage was oil pressure sender(s)...then oil pump drive...then plastic breakdown


Sorry, bad day.

As a Mercedes/BMW tech for over 30 years, I can assure you, there is no way the engine would of run long enough without oil pressure to melt the plastic parts. I do believe there is something missing in this equation. In reality, it does not matter what you or I think. The engine is toast and we agree on that. 

I have only seen one engine that was run until the internal plastic melted, a brand new Mercedes SL that was loaded on the car deliver trailer [backwards]. The engine was never shut off. The engine ran, overheated, and continued to run till it just stopped. Of course the factory was involved and a new engine was installed. I do not know what happened to the semi driver. Since it had to be a new engine [new cars/not sold, cannot have rebuilt parts], it was not a cheap repair >$40k [in 1991].


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

Butcher said:


> Sorry, bad day.
> 
> As a Mercedes/BMW tech for over 30 years, I can assure you, there is no way the engine would of run long enough without oil pressure to melt the plastic parts. I do believe there is something missing in this equation. In reality, it does not matter what you or I think. The engine is toast and we agree on that.
> 
> I have only seen one engine that was run until the internal plastic melted, a brand new Mercedes SL that was loaded on the car deliver trailer [backwards]. The engine was never shut off. The engine ran, overheated, and continued to run till it just stopped. Of course the factory was involved and a new engine was installed. I do not know what happened to the semi driver. Since it had to be a new engine [new cars/not sold, cannot have rebuilt parts], it was not a cheap repair >$40k [in 1991].


In any event, I swapped the motor and the car can continue its life with a new heart transplant lol, maybe I've missed something along the lines of the equation that may have caused this to happen, but it happened lol. As for that mercedes, that sucks! Lol. And no offense taken on that one post, everyone is entitled to a bad day rant lol. Cheers,:thumbup:


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## srgtlord (Jun 4, 2010)

How many miles were on the motor? On my 8v engine with 200,000 miles I pulled the valve cover off to change the gasket and noticed the oil baffle seemed more flexible/ready to break than I would like it to be. I ended up swapping in the spare I had lying around. Just as little background the motor has been overheated unintentionally various times due to a flakey temp gauge and a radiator Fan that did'nt kick on when it was suppose to .


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## wetheitalians (May 3, 2008)

srgtlord said:


> How many miles were on the motor? On my 8v engine with 200,000 miles I pulled the valve cover off to change the gasket and noticed the oil baffle seemed more flexible/ready to break than I would like it to be. I ended up swapping in the spare I had lying around. Just as little background the motor has been overheated unintentionally various times due to a flakey temp gauge and a radiator Fan that did'nt kick on when it was suppose to .


right about 200k miles on that motor


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