Cam follower - you're all perverts!

[Tortaruga]

Just spoken with a VW mechanic. He's only seen one instance of a failed cam follower, on a car that had been treated like dirt - never been serviced and had had a head rebuild without changing out the old follower.

He told me not to always believe the girls and boys on these seedy internet chatrooms. This was after I offered him the job of changing mine as a precaution, so a main dealer turned away some easy cash...


 

[valle]

Hehe great!!!

There u have , cam follower from Robiform's car ( he is member up here )
car had 130.000 km done:





so , something has to be , on this ...

[Nodz]

I had mine changed as a preventative measure and wasn't that bad. Mines an 05 car and probably had about 68k on the clock when done.

Also dealers don't like doing anything for preventative reasons or if it's not in the service schedule. I've heard them say the same about DV's, fuel filters etc

[Tfsi_Mike]

Several on here have failed.

Worth doing with a 5 or 10k service imo for the cost of it

[Kregiel]

It's one of those things that is so cheap to change that people do it as preventative measure! Better to do it than to be sorry I guess.

Paul

[valle]

It's one of those things that is so cheap to change that people do it as preventative measure! Better to do it than to be sorry I guess.

Paul

x2

 

[ianv5]

I have seen a guide somewhere on how to change it?

[MC71]

It's one of those things that is so cheap to change that people do it as preventative measure! Better to do it than to be sorry I guess.

Paul

Spot on.

Treat it as a serviceable item IMO, prevention all day long for me.  

[sub39h]

what would you prefer? £60 odd for a new cam follower or however much it costs for a new engine?

failure is more common in the US where they add grit to the oil by the sounds of things, but mine was worn when it was replaced at less than 60k miles

iirc VW even revised it, so there has to be something to it

[Marshall]

I've never seen any fail although I've seen some fairly worn by 25k
A VW mechanic probably won't see any failures as most of the cars they work on are under 3 years old and in warranty so low mileage.
Also very few modded cars go to dealers.
You usually find most independents have much more knowledge and understanding than dealers on what's what as they see cars from the real world and much more of them
I think a standard car I'd change every 20k
A car running updated fuel pump etc change 10k

[Mk5 GTian]

It's one of those things that is so cheap to change that people do it as preventative measure! Better to do it than to be sorry I guess.

Paul

x2

 

x3! It can cause all sorts of problems if it does fail, and it's only 25 quid.

[vRSAlex]

That's dealers for you.  If they have never seen an issue then it must not happen.  Its us specialists that see all the failures or soon to be failures as we inspect the followers at service.

[sub39h]

That's dealers for you.  If they have never seen an issue then it must not happen.  Its us specialists that see all the failures or soon to be failures as we inspect the followers at service.

Lord AKS has spoken. 

[RedRobin]

.
This pic has just been posted by richwig:



^ Cam follower porn for perverts?

Mine was 'Safe' and didn't need changing after 100,000 miles but JKM advised we may as well change it anyway while my APR HPFP was being installed. Apparently with an APR pump the cam follower might need checking more often.

Whereas it's true that not everyone on a car forum knows what they're talking about (except me of course), it's also true that some VW dealer staff don't have a clue. If he has only seen one instance of a failure you have to ask how many tuned cars has he serviced? And especially with an aftermarket pump.

[stealthwolf]

A VW mechanic probably won't see any failures as most of the cars they work on are under 3 years old and in warranty so low mileage.

+1. The mechanic will see only a limited cross-section of the population and hence have a skewed impression. What you need is someone who deals with cars from brand-new to 10yrs old to get a fairer idea. Most things tend to fail outside of the warranty period.