Low Oil Pressure Issue Resolved

[bobby_fodge]

Hi, just thought I would post this up in case anyone finds themselves in the same boat as I was with mysterious low oil pressure.

The symptoms were that when the engine was fully warmed up and the revs dropped down to 1500 rpm the oil pressure warning light and noise would happen. If I drove without letting the revs get that low then no oil pressure warnings would appear.

Initially the pick up pipe was replaced, I thought maybe it was blocked up even though i change the oil every few thousand miles and had done the pick up only 6 months previous. After this didn't help I fitted the VIS freewheel balance shaft sprocket. As the balance shaft were no longer used in the running of the oil pump they were locked tight.

The idea behind this sprocket is that it stop the balance shafts from spinning, the balance shaft assembly is wildly expensive and are known to fail, seize up and causing low oil pressure which not dealt with can mean oil starvation and a seized engine.

Even after this work I was still getting the low oil pressure warnings. My conclusion was that i must have some wear in the engine and would need to get mine rebuilt or source a used one.

Whilst looking for quotes to rebuild my engine I came across and engine builder who has rebuilt plenty of these engines. He said "The balance shaft bearings are knackered. Had it a few times. Even with them locked off they bleed oil pressure away".

So i bought and fitted a modified balance shaft assembly that had its balance shafts removed and the oil channels modified. This has now been fitted for ten days and I'm no longer getting and low oil pressure warnings. I now have a dash mounted oil pressure gauge and it reads higher pressure since the new assembly was fitted.

Hope that helps anyone who may have a similar issue.

[LC5F]

That's great news Bobby - you were struggling with this for a while
what modifications were done to the oil channels?
were they tapped and plugged?

[bobby_fodge]

That's great news Bobby - you were struggling with this for a while
what modifications were done to the oil channels?
were they tapped and plugged?

Yep, this took a few months to figure out. Totally fell out of love with it. It's a DSG so I was having to drive it in manual and watching my oil pressure gauge so I changing gear before the revs and the oil pressure droppped.

The oil channels were plugged. I bought my assembly already modified from AKS. It wasn't cheap and if this hadn't solved the problem I was thinking of a new engine or rebuilt, which isn't peanuts when you compare it to how much these car are worth nowadays.

here the AKS part
https://www.akstuning.co.uk/shop/home/550-2217-tfsi-oil-pump-balance-shaft-delete-modification.html#/417-balance_shaft_delete-i_am_sending_you_my_pump_1st

[GVK]

Great news!

[pudding]

Apart from very early GTIs which had a recall to replace a bolt/nut on the oil pump drive sprocket, failures of the oil pump / balance assembly are extremely rare.  What kills them is stupid 7500+rpm remaps.  VW set it to 6700ish rpm for a reason.  Over spinning the balancer assembly causes the bearings to seize up, which then sheers off the oil pump drive sprocket. And then people like VIS et al sell you a delete kit, touting it as a massive issue and VW design flaw, when it really isn't.   There are 150, 175, 200K GTIs out there still running the original pump/balancer unit with no pressure issues.

It's not a design flaw, it's an aftermarket flaw thinking they know better than the factory.