You'll want to see this!
 

FYI: This is what it takes to clean the carbon build-up in FSI engines due to our "low grade fuel" in NA.
The service department manager at Audi Halifax tells me that some serious re-engineering is likely to take place to address this issue and that BMW are having similar problems. To clean the ports using a little wire brush on a flexible shaft, took just 30 mins. The entire job took 19.2 hours due to the need for dropping and replacing the entire engine and gearbox assembly.

WOW !

Quite a major surgery event, isn't it ?

Is this occurring on the v6 engine only ?

Did they say why ? Is it due to these factors ?
1) Too little flow in that area
2) Cooling too quickly to allow the deposit of the carbon from insufficient
burn rate.
3) Too few HARD acceleration runs to 'clean' out the engine :)
(this will never be a problem on my wife's cars :) )

:eek: How many mile are on this engine?????

Whoa! Is there some type fuel system additive that can help prevent that? Maybe like seafoam or something. Its hard to imagine that Europe has better quality fuel than N.A., I would think it would be on par. Wonder if it has to do with the crap Ethanol that we blend in?

This is not only a problem for the V6. The 2.0T or the larger V8s face the same issue. Though the frequency you'll hit this problem depends on the engine type. It has nothing to do with your assumptions. FSI's inherent problem is that no fuel is passed through the intake tracts and the intake valves. The fuel used to be able to clean the intake tract and intake valves on its way in, which cleans the oil fumes being routed back to the intake. With the FSI tech, there's no cleaning agent on the intake side, thus causing the oil fumes to build up which is what you see gunking up the intake manifold, valves etc.

Driving it hard will only be able to clean the combustion chamber, nothing before that.

LOTS of questions, few answers and a lot of speculation, unfortunately.
The car has 138,000km, mostly highway, I am a spirited driver around town and open it up on back roads every now and again.
Apparently it's not an issue of heat/cooling or driving habits, simply that Europe get's high grade fuel from Saudi Arabia (light crude) while NA uses lower grade fuels like Venezuela crude and tar sands crude. European Octane levels are higher (98-100) while we get 91-93 at max.
In Europe they simply don't have this issue and if they had it would have been addressed long before.

In looking at the picture, it looks like the gasoline was derived from the Athabascan oil sands. Are you sure it's not just a provincial plot against NS?;)

On the serious side, was this covered under warranty?

In CA my octane choices at the station are usually 87-89-91, but in Germany (where I just spent 2 years), 91 was the lowest octane available! Of course, they also pay close to triple (w/exchange) than we do here.

They previously had around 5% ethanol in the gas, and last year they tried to market the E10 gas (10%)...but the Germans don't want to put it in their nice cars, so it's looking like an epic fail!

Total cost was around $2,500. Audi covered $1,500 as a goodwill gesture.

What prompted you to bring in the vehicle ???

Dave
Cole harbour native