Hey Guys, i just bought an 02 a4 1.8t(amb) that has a sludge issue i believe based on the rough idle when first started but smoothes out after a couple minutes(I put in a new battery it started right up), after about 15 min of local driving the oil light came on(i got my hopes up thinking i just stole a nice audi that needed nothing lol) I shut the car off and tried to restart and it took 3-5 cranks before it started! ...sludge has happened to this car before and was cleaned out by previous owner. Supposedly there are some type of "caps" that wear out due to the lack of oil up top when sludge is an issue near the cams( there is no top end knocking but there is a sound coming from there thats hard to describe, i guess its stupid off me to even mention it without being able to describe it, maybe someone will know what worn out caps sound like) anyways...my mechanic mentioned that the lady i had bought the car from took the car to the dealership where he works, they checked it our and he said that it would be best to change the engine because the "caps" are worn and the cam is slightly scored because of this. QUESTION 1: Id like to know if this is fixable(can the caps be replaced)?, QUESTION 2: obviously i am going to drop the pan and clean or change the pickup tube, Is there any solution that works really great to clean out the "SLUDGE" internally? QUESTION3: If i drop the pan, change the tube, should this get me through the winter at least? (I can get a new motor with 4yr/50k warranty and turbo installed from the dealer for $2000 but dont have the cash just yet for that, so im looking for a temp fix.)Question 4: Is the "hard time starting" likely related to the sludge or anything else i mentioned?
If anyone has any quality input it would really make my xmas. I only have a few days to decide whether to drop the pan(is it worth it??) or get the new motor.

To everyone looking Happy Holidays!

 

SOunds like a steal to get a new motor and turbo! some have reported on this forum 10k for a new 2.0t engine. My guess is you could get peace of mind by dropping the pan and hopefully that would fix it??? 50000 miles divided by 2000 is about 4 cents a mile if my math is correct.