prinz charming

Don't you just hate it when this happens? You've got the whole family truckster loaded for the annual road trip. You're just cresting the high mountain pass and with all systems go, feelin' fine... when suddenly the radiator fan disintegrates and throws plastic Ninja stars into the radiator, and by the time the dash display lights up with a flashing "Achtung!." your overheated allroad becomes a no-road.

Happened to me last week. The car is now at Autobahn in Denver, for evaluation. They're probably stalling to give me a cooling-off period, after I renamed the car "The Antichrist." One head gasket, at least, was "geysering" just after the Vail mechanic replaced the radiator and tested the system. I could see little white puffs from the tailpipes when it started, looking like The Little Engine that Couldn't... anymore.

I wonder how often this happens? before I bought the '03 AR 2.7T last November, I spent hours on this site, scanning all 2000 pages of allroad topics and almost as many 2.7T threads. Using search again tonight, I find only a couple references to fan trouble, and no incident as damaging as mine. The only warning I got was from my mechanic. He visually inspected the fan, and I had a receipt showing the fan was replaced last July. That's just weird. Is this a rare failure, or are people just not writing in about it?

I'd also welcome advice about how to proceed with this car. It's in otherwise excellent shape, fairly low mileage. I'm guessing that a used engine swap makes more sense than repairing the old one. Does a head job require engine removal?

And on a more personal level- how do you ever trust a car again after something unforseeable like that?

Peter Badore

The broken plastic fan is not a common 2.7l biturbo problem in my experience but do you think the viscous fan coupling locked it up and caused it to over speed?

Bergelvis

I also live in the high country, and am an allroad owner. I bought mine off ebay and had it shipped. The moment the truck driver drove it off his rig, I smelled coolant. I drove it from Broomfield to Summit Cove (near Keystone). The moment I shut it off it spewed coolant all over my driveway. Boy! was I lucky.

Anyway; I replaced a coolant hose under the intake manifold, and that fixed that problem. But; I noticed it had brown coolant. Who ever worked on this car didn't know what they were doing. So, I immediately did a timing belt job. During that job I noticed cracks in the plastic fan blades. I also noticed the pitch of the blades was the wrong direction!?!? When you look at the front of the car, the motor spins clockwise. My fan would be blowing the air forward!?!? I don't know how to explain this. The blades of the new one I purchased is pitched correctly and blows the air backwards. I'm really glad I fixed it before it threw ninja stars at my radiator.

I did a search, and did read a sad post like yours where the $75 plastic fan caused a tremendous amount of damage. I'm sorry to hear about it.

I've replace head gaskets on a 2.7t A6 during a dual turbo and catalytic replacement. It isn't the end of the world, (or the car) unless you're paying $100 an hour for labor. I would definitely do both head gaskets. If one failed, the other one is probably a few rpms from failure. Also, while the heads are off, I'd lap the valves which will give better compression when the motor is put back together.

Bergelvis

Sorry, I forgot to answer your questions.

Does and engine swap make more sense than repairing this engine?:
I think a 2.7 would probably run about $2200 plus labor. I think if you put that money towards your engine it could be better than a used motor. I would pull the engine, tranny, and cats out all together because in order to get the heads off the exhaust manifold nuts have to come off, and that would be really hard without removing the engine. The engine is much easier to work on when it's out of the car. I'd remove both heads and check that they are both flat and true. I'd lap the valves, like I mentioned earlier. I'd remove and clean the crankcase breather and baffle which is easy once the intake manifold is off. That can reduce oil leaks in the future. I'd put it back together with new head, exhaust manifold, and intake manifold gaskets, new coolant pipe o-rings, and a deluxe timing belt job.
You wouldn't necessarily get any of that work with an engine swap.

How do you trust a car after something unforseeable?:
Try to forsee as much as you can. The first thing I do when I buy a car is a deluxe timing belt job. No matter what receipts I get with the car. In fact if I get receipts I check that work. Its often done poorly or incompletely. I inspect everything. I change all fluids and filters. I try to fix stuff before it breaks. I have two Audis, an allroad with 127k and an A4 with 170k. I'd take either on a huge road trip (towing a boat) with my family tomorrow. Even new cars leave people stranded.

zreichwagon

had a ninja star in my radiator too a shop here in denver said 1000.00 dollars atleast just for the rad i did it at home for 300 hundred dollars and that include a vast performance fan kit it runs perfect it took me one saturday to do mad props to RMcQ for his write up prinz charming im no audi pro but i would be down to turn a wrench i play with a dsm so these audi dont scare me hit me up im in lakewood co would love to meet some allroad guys