(the “didn’t fill” from above are all from AFTER the fix)

I did this a long time ago but I only posted it now because I wanted to make sure the issue is gone. And it is!

I finally found the culprit that’s been filling up my damn air filter, making the car run like shite and using oil like diddy.

It’s this at #4, the oil separator.

This car hasn’t had an oil change in a LONG time before I got it, gunked up the oil separator, clogged it, and the oil started going up instead of back down into the engine. Swapped, and you can see in the photo above how it was immediately fixed after. It’s actually pretty easy to remove, it just takes time to take off the airbox first, or at least that’s my mechanic told me. How he didn’t figure it out when I asked why I had oil in my airbox is beyond me, but whatever.

The whole job is almost as cheap as the oil I had to keep adding.

If you have this issue, you will see oil coming our from this tube that goes in the airbox at #36.

You didn’t ask for an auto troubleshooting tip? Well too bad!!!

Mine’s a Golf 4 1.4 petrol AXP by the way. Though, I think many cars have similar things.

If you know a community that could use this info lmk, I’m still trying to figure out lemmy.

  • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    The valve would fail catastrophically and basically siphon oil into the engine. It’s a questionably complicated German design of course. It was particularly vulnerable to freezing, which happens if the engine wasn’t run long enough to boil off all condensation.

    It got close for me once. The only time it left me stranded. Stopped at a light. Pulled away. Bam, thick black smoke and the engine stalled. I’d replaced it about 45000 km before and most trips were 70km but I guess it was too much.

    I ran my mk3 golf without coolant for a summer. I abused that poor thing so much.

    • 87Six@lemmy.zipOP
      1·
      3 days ago

      The valve would fail catastrophically and basically siphon oil into the engine

      Damn. Wait. Are you talking about a 1.4 Golf too? How would the oil get sucked up into the airbox?

      I mean, the oil separator on my exact car doesn’t even seem to have any sort of valve. I cut up the separator. Inside, it’s just a maze covered in oil. No valve whatsoever.

      Are you talking about a turbocharged car, maybe? This one is NA.

    • blarghly@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      I ran my mk3 golf without coolant for a summer. I abused that poor thing so much.

      oh … oh no …