need help big time, 2 days ago was driving my car the red oil warning light came on i was stuck in traffic and couldnt stop right away, i would say i drove it maybe a few miles. then i hear this noise coming from the engine bay and pulled over in the middle of the highway. but anyway i had just checked the oil level about 20 minutes prior to this happening. now whenever i turn my car on i get this HORRIBLE AND I MEAN HORRIBLE knocking noise coming from the top of the head, the knocking is concentrated more towards the back of the engine. i will try and post a video. my car is a A4 B6 2003, 1.8T with 63000 miles and change. can you guys tell me what can be wrong and if its fixable or is my engine toast. i brought over a local mechanic and he says i might need to rebuild or replace the whole head. ive also been reading around and ive heard mention of camshaft tension chain or something like that. please any input thanks in advance. btw i had the car towed and didnt drive it home like that.

 

here is the video i took with my phone. please guys tell me theres hope http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwExglnSB4E

 

It is hard to tell from the video but it may be an exhaust leak. If the exhaust leaks at the cylinder head where it connects to the exhaust manifold it makes a pretty violent sound and you hear the chatter from the exhaust valves venting. This would be a best case scenario because all you would need to do is replace the interfacing gasket.

This doesn't logically follow the series of events you described with the oil light, though.

Did you check the oil level after this happened?

Did you find oil leaked anywhere on the engine?

My engine design experience is mostly with American V-8's, but I think that something catastrophic would have to happen to block the oil from feeding part of the cylinder head which would result in serious valve train damage from the lack of lubrication. If there was a total system failure with the oil pressure then the main bearings supporting the crankshaft would likely go first. I'd imagine the valve train bearings are mostly anti-friction, roller type for Audi cylinder heads meaning that damage to the valve train from oil starvation would take more time to occur, but as I said before I have not researched or had experience with the design of these engines. I'll let someone more familiar with these engines comment on this. My Audi experience is with being a driver.

Just be careful with what a mechanic tells you. Back when I was 16 I had an issue with my truck misfiring and so I took it into a mechanic. The mechanic described the problem as being a bent valve in a cylinder head. He said that I needed to have the cylinder head rebuilt and that while they were in there they might as well rebuild both cylinder heads. And for that price I might as well have them replace the engine.
Well long story short the problem was actually that my distributor was loose and my ignition timing had slipped causing the misfiring. The mechanic just Bull Sh*@%(ed everything else. At a young age I learned to mistrust mechanics. Not all are bad, of course, but a lot are.

 

i was driving my car and the oil light went on i check my dip stick and it showed my oil pressure was high .. mechanic said my oil pump maybe going bad.. does it sound familiar?