1.4 ahw nightmare

[whatsupwatson]

i have a 1.4 ahw 75 bhp lupo, ive had oil problems from the start. During winter it had a high oil pressure and kept on spitting oil out of the dip stick, i flushed it, removed the pick up pipe and cleaned it out, changed oil filter blah blah, it was fine again for a while but still had a small amount of oil loss aswell as cooking some. Then one morning i went out to it to see oil running down my street without starting it, i did how ever try and run it but it was coughing and spluttering, lots of smoke and was basically empty of oil. Anyway, i tried to top it up but it poured out as fast as i put it in, i took off the throttle body and the inlet manifold was full of old oil, and ideas to what would have caused this? i know the engine is pretty much a lost cause now anyway.

From my experience and what ive been told (VW mechanics) this ahw engine is a piece of junk generally, what are other peoples experiences? thoughts?

[LupoEnvy]

I have a lovely 1.4 16V AHW engine too(!!!) I think the manual says 3.2 or 3.5 litres of engine oil to fill it up to maximum - now, in my experience this overfills the engine and that really doesn't help it as you'll get mayo gunk in the throttle body, the air filter box etc (basically because the crankcase breather isn't very good on the AHW engine and it easily gets blocked up with gunk). I've now started to put no more than 3 litres of oil in it. That's plenty and it puts less pressure on the breather system, reducing the mayo. In terms of the overall problem, I've had the throttle body removed and completely cleared of gunk (there was tons of it) - I have constantly cleaned the air filter box of gunk - particuarly the breather pipe running across the top of the air filter box lid. I've probably got to replace the breather pipe as its warped and that probably doesn't help with getting rid of the build up of stuff (but they are £40 for a bit of pipe!!!). I also replace the oil every 5000 miles so that the mayo gunk can be gotten rid of regularly and I'm thinking of using an oil flush to help do this more. Despite all of this, I've had no problems (other than the cutting out issue due to the gunked up throttle body - which is no longer a problem since it was cleaned out). I use my car every day for motorway driving to work - putting it under a bit of pressure. So I think its a case of keeping on top of it if you can - I think its a built-in problem though with that particular engine. I'm sick of seeing yellowy oily gunk!!!

[NOCK]

I'm pretty sure that mine is an AHW and it hasn't missed a beat (apart from the obvious throttle body needing the occasional clean out), I rarely have to lift the bonnet. I think I have put about 5 litres of oil in it in around 3 years / 40000 miles (as well as it's oil changes on it's yearly service).

I haven't seen any of this 'yellow gunk' mentioned above either. Mine is approaching 80000 miles. I'm surprised that you have had so many problems with the same engine as I have got, as I have had no problems whatsoever.