jseklund

Hi all, I'm doing the timing belt service, valve covers, cam shaft seals, etc. on my mom's 2001 A6 2.7T. Everything's going pretty well (taking it slow ...but it's not really that hard so far) - but I took the valve cover off the driver's side yesterday and noticed a few issues that concern me.

1. The upper (intake?) cam shaft has some deep scoring. It the caps are damaged, and the head has been damaged. There were pieces of metal that looked melted to the caps, so I knocked those off and got it flatter. The bottom cam looks perfect, it's just the upper shaft, caps, and the head itself that look like they've scored in two sections.

2. The cam tensioner has 2 plastic "feet" on it. One of these two feet (the bottom one) was cracked and a small piece was kicking around inside the valve cover. I found the piece, took it out. The foot does not stay on the tensioner by itself, but once the chain and everything is put back together it doesn't appear to be going anywhere because the tension holds it in place. The guy at the audi parts counter told me that he has seen people run with them like this in the past - but you never know if something will go wrong.

Now, this car has 160,000 miles on it and my mom's had it for 10 years. Frankly, I think she wants something new but doesn't have the money for it just yet. She drives about 25,000 a year. If I could get another 75,000 on the car she would be more than happy. She is short on money for a new car, and she's short on money for parts.

My question is this - what will happen if I run it like this? The car has had this problem for a little while it looks like and runs really well it seems. The only issue the car had is it has been leaking oil FOREVER. I mean, this has been going on for 3 years and two audi dealers charged her thousands and never fixed it. My thought is that they did timing belts, valve covers, etc. - but never changed the cam seals because they're a PITA. Upon break down I found oil all over the front of the engine EVERYWHERE. I'm sure this is most likely what caused the cam scoring - lack of enough oil.

I feel like if I present her with the option of, "spend $1000 on parts and fix the car that's worth maybe $5000 or role the dice with the likelyhood of getting 50,000 miles" she will keep the money and roll the dice. I think that she may even save the money if she realizes it may toast the engine if it fails. If I tell her that it will most likely fail in 5,000 miles and not 50,000 miles...that may be another story.

What are your thoughts? I'd really like to keep the car going to at least 225K - but is that unlikely without getting into some heavy parts costs?