1.2TSI CJZD: leak at engine speed sensor?

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2017 Cross Polo 1.2TSI 81KW CJZD, 55000km.

Busy trying to figure out where oil leak is coming from.
It's coming from either the oil separator or the engine speed sensor.
I have cleaned up the block around these. The front of the engine around these was gunked up and there was a thin film of oil down the front of the sump, underneath and along the gearbox mating surface.

Pic I managed to get this evening.
This is where most of the remaining stubborn gunk is sitting. I noticed no new oil today.



Is this likely coming from this sensor or oil separator?
Do they leak often?

Everything above that like the oil cooler were all clean prior to me washing everything down to start monitoring.
Awkward area to do any work.

[RUM4MO]

I've not noticed that issue, but to be honest I have not worked out where the engine speed sensor is located on that engine, any chance of a picture from "further out" to high light some familiar components?

I have oil mist creeping out from the top of the TB area but that is due to slight corrosion on the alloy where the charge pipe connects to it, and the O-ring seal has been replaced and the corroded area smoothed down to try to stop this happening.

The corrosion on that car will be down to very poor design that leads to a vertical pipe stub being close to the front of the car and so road salt hitting that stub and collecting inside the top area and so salty water creeping down across the sealing O-ring groove, exactly the same poor design issue as on my 2011 Audi S4 in that car it is on the alloy engine front water stub that Audi later replaced with a plastic version - but due to most plastic VW Group "liquid containing" parts distorting or cracking - I'll just live with this slight coolant leak on that car, which in actual fact seems to have been stopped by me cleaning up that area with a Scotchbrite pad and replacing its seal O-ring.

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Photo I found of the CJZD.
Red arrow shows the engine speed sensor location, loom plug removed.



I don't think it'd the sensor as that would mean this stuff is coming in from the gearbox side.
It must be the oil separator. The sealant must be lifting or something.

I still need to clean the area a bit more and keep monitoring it.

[RUM4MO]

Oh, useful picture for future use!

I'll have a look down in that area using a mirror and report back.

[2226]

Just completed 1000km since last check. No oil consumption and that area on the engine is bone dry.

Now I have no idea where all that stuff came from.

Maybe it was the remnants of spewed out oil from the previous filter having been fitted badly by VW dealer at the last service?
I have no idea. Going to just keep an eye on it.

[2226]

Has anyone replaced the oil separator on the CJZD with the intake manifold still in place?
Just looking for a how-to on getting in there.

I have consumed just over 600ml of oil in +- 1800km and the oil stain is back and it is clearly from the oil separator on the front of the engine.
I just have the time to do a coolant drain to access that from the top of the engine.

[RUM4MO]

No, not me, I did have that "oil drinking" problem with my wife's 2002 VW Polo 1.4 16V 75PS when it was 9 years old maybe 85K miles, replacing the oil separator sorted that out!

I've not yet worked out what form the oil separator takes or where it is located on the CJZD engine yet, I have hoped that as the years passed by VW Group had found a better design than the cyclone type one used back in 2002.

[2226]

It goes where that black silicone is showing on the image above. Lower right of the block, above oil filter.

Good to know replacing it solved the issue for you. Hopefully the same here.

I'm just going to try to order the part from the usual suspects this week and see if I can get into that area from underneath. I hate just going gung-ho on something like this especially when there's just one car in the garage. Will follow these instructions:

https://www.vwgolf.org/assembly_overvie ... -1680.html
https://www.vwgolf.org/removing_and_ins ... -1681.html

Also think I'm going to try the Liqui Moly Silikon sealant. Loctite 5970 seems to be the equivalent to the VW stuff. Apparently that is a alkoxy type sealant and the Liqui Moly is a oxime type sealant. I saw one of the listed issues with the alkoxy is slow cure time which could lead to contamination. I wonder if that's what weakens this sealant here. Not sure on whether it is essential to replace the bolts as indicated in those instructions. Will have to check what they want for those.

Going to throw in some Liqui Moly engine flush and injector cleaner before dropping out the oil. Just in case the consumption issue is related to rings. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.
Thinking of going with Ravenol full synthetic. 50GBP for 5 litres of the stuff. Does my head in considering I'm used to my mk1 Golf needing just 12GBP for oil.

[RUM4MO]

After reading your last post again today, if I was you, I'd be buying in 4 new screws for the fuel rail, and a set of O-ring seals for the inlet manifold, and just remove that stuff - if you do that you will be able to reach the 4 screws that secure the fuel rail to the head, being able to do that could mean that you will not need to do this in the future if any of these screws shear their heads off because Skoda messed up when setting up its tooling at engine assembly plant in CZ, it sounds like your Polo is either "just" in the time frame when this might have happened or is "just out" of that time frame - I can't say when that time frame started or finished, but any EA211 engine built between late 2016 and sometime up until mid 2017,could well have been affected by this issue. Also dropping the G13 coolant out is not a bad thing as G12evo seems to address the issues that were created by G13.

Of course none of this is accepted by VW UK at least, maybe different elsewhere.

One other issue concerning these cars is, my wife's August 2015 (late June build in ZA) lost the head of one of its subframe main securing M12 bolts - now that was either down to severe rusting due to trapped water/salty water(something that can happen in Northern European countries where rock salt is used in winter to melt ice on roads), or over torquing at initial build in ZA - or a mixture of both. It is in an good local VAG Indie today to get all its subframe bolts replacing and the 4 wheel alignment checked/corrected due to any possible subframe movement caused by that main M12 bolt's head popping off. If it had not ended up on the garage floor I would not have known about it having "gone" - it was a front bolt, RHS you can find them above the track control arms which have a large hole in them to enable access to these front bolts, the rear ones are on show where the 2 small flanges bolt to the body - and the subframe through the 2 rear bolts.

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Yes mine is a MY2016, registered 2017 here in South Africa.
Didn't know there might be an issue with fuel rail bolts.
Are all EA211 built in CZ?

And there's issue with G13 as well?

Looks like my morning is gonna be spent on google
I want to buy a vacuum coolant refill kit to do that job. Generic Chinese one isn't too badly priced here. It'll help on the mk1 when I get around to that.

As for subframe, I've already had to have the reset. It was tweaked over to the one side and affecting alignment as it seems the previous owner did a bit of offroading. If I recall correctly those are single use bolts. It wasn't replaced at the time as it was done at the tyre/alignment shop. I do plan on taking the car to a specialist alignment shop some time as I'm done with everyone setting up the car to pull left due to "regulations". One thing at a time.

[RUM4MO]

Yes the subframe bolts get stretched so should get replaced every time they have been removed, though casting my memory back to maybe 2006, my wife's previous 2002 Polo got its ARB replaced that year, and that involved the lowering of the subframe, and my VW dealer did not include any charges for new bolts, it got its subframe re-aligned when it got it's console bushes replaced, again no extra charge for new bolts - but nowadays I'd expect that these bolts do get replaced if removed.

G13, some models across VW Group marques get a "silicate" pouch placed in the coolant reservoir to allow the G13 to add in more silicate to the mixture to preserve so surfaces, maybe the alloy ones - some of these pouches subsequently split and allowed the silicate granules to circulate with the coolant and choke the cabin heater matrix, and VW Group dropped that version of coolant and replaced it with G12evo and then, as far as I know, no cars needed these silicate pouches - so putting all these facts together, I've considered that getting rid of G13 and replacing it with G12evo would be a smart move - until bad stories come out about that!

As far as I know, all these EA211 family of engines are built in a Skoda engine plant, so no chance of escaping that unfortunate issue if your car was built over a certain period in time. It has been said that the torque setting on the tooling that added these HP fuel rail bolts to the car was low, or very low, in time with expansion etc the bolts work loose and the flexing of the fuel rail and the "push" from the injectors trying to escape out of the cylinder head, tends to fracture some of these bolts at which time high pressure petrol is free to escape and spray around the engine compartment! It really does sound that this issue should have been addressed with urgency due to safety, but it seems not much was done other than correct the assembly tooling.

I think that my wife's late June 2015 Polo, built in ZA, should be okay as it's engine would have been built before this was an assembly line issue, but I have bought a new set of bolts. Initially I panicked and tried to source better/higher quality/strength stainless steel bolts, the offshore oil industry does use that type/strength of stainless steel bolt, but the cost to an individual is quite high, roughly £90 for a box of 100 certified bolts and so no supplier would ever split a box as traceability would get lost. There is an even higher strength version, but they are only ever manufactured to order and so more expensive, but after I discovered that the issue was not a bolt quality one but an assembly tooling one, I gave up the idea of buying a box in.

Edit:- I did buy in a Draper coolant vacuum refill kit and it works very well, I bought it in to change the coolant that was 10 years old in my old S4.

[RUM4MO]

By the way, have you removed the air charge pipe and found a lot of engine oil in it, my wife's car does not seem to "use" any engine oil, but when I have removed the charge pipe, there is usually some oil in it, probably light misting getting drawn into the induction side.

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Actually just went to check and yes there is oil in the intake. Charge pipe is lightly misted with a some oil having pooled around the throttle body o-ring and in the turbo outlet.

I've seen people do catch cans to help reduce that, but which PCV line would one connect to the can? I think most of the crank vent is coming off the cylinder head cover.
The one out of the oil separator is just a tiny tube and leads into the intake after the throttle so it won't be venting under boost.
I'd love to see what crank case pressures are like on these engines.

Haven't pushed the button on ordering the parts I need.
I'm stuck on the oil separator.
ETKA indicates part 04E103464K.
Supplier has something listed, not available, for that part and I can sort of match to mine by cross referencing their vehicle list and the ETKA usage list.
They do have 04E103464AM in stock. Actually the K part is listed off of that. No idea if it is still coming or whether it is discontinued.

When I look up 04E103464AM:

https://parts.vw.com/p/67800641/04E103464AA.html

See supersessions indicate the K part. Is the AM part replacing K or the other way around?
I hate when VW/Audi do this. You'd think the revision lettering would advance forward.
Some other older ETKA sites do not show the AM part, but do have K.

It was interesting to note that the newer 1.5TSI have a similar oil separator, but they come with a pre-installed gasket and even bolts. I guess they finally figured it out