Piggie Pipes Leads to Water Pump Issue
#1
07-08-2015, 11:49 AM
Piggie Pipes Leads to Water Pump Issue
A little background here....to a challenge I'm having.
I took my A6 C5 into the performance shop for the piggie pipe upgrades (gutting the pre-cats and moving the O2 sensors, etc.) and it's lead to more issues. The cap used to cover the old O2 sensor location failed and within a day after leaving the shop, I had an exhaust leak noticable below the car, just behind the turbos. I figured it was going to be an easy fix for the shop and they agreed to take the car back and fix her up. So I drove the car for about 2 days with the nice obnoxious "race car" sound as my kids described it. Yesterday I was on the way to work and pulled over at a shopping center to make a quick conference call. Sitting there idling for a bit (15-20 minutes) the car started to heat up and I figured it was because the exhaust was dumping out below the back of the engine, where's it's not usually exhausting. Since the car wasn't moving forward at all, the heat was stagnant and with the engine still running, it was consistent too.
I pulled away from the shopping center, only to be surprised to see white-like smoke coming out from under the engine. I pulled over and saw that the coolant overflow tank was nearly empty and there was water or coolant spewed all over the front of the engine.
After shutting the car off to make sure there wasn't an active fire or flame; I then fired it back ON, only to watch the engine temp guage peg itself as it was over overheated.
Petrified that something may have melted or blown due to excessive ambient heat under the back of the engine, I slowly drove the vehicle 2 miles to home and then had it towed back to the shop.
Diagnosis:
Mechanic says that the water pump appears to have failed, stating that he's seeing excessive pressures in coolant system, plus wildly variable water pump action. He feels that the water on the front of the engine was due to water pump issue. He also recommends that I replace the timing belt at the same time. It was previould done around 80,000miles....car now has 176,000 miles.
It is just a total coincidence that the water pump and timing chain need replacement; just a few hours after the piggie pipe mod is completed and a small exhaus leak appears ?
I'm no auto-mechanic....but the "timing" (no pun intended) with all of this is in question.
I took my A6 C5 into the performance shop for the piggie pipe upgrades (gutting the pre-cats and moving the O2 sensors, etc.) and it's lead to more issues. The cap used to cover the old O2 sensor location failed and within a day after leaving the shop, I had an exhaust leak noticable below the car, just behind the turbos. I figured it was going to be an easy fix for the shop and they agreed to take the car back and fix her up. So I drove the car for about 2 days with the nice obnoxious "race car" sound as my kids described it. Yesterday I was on the way to work and pulled over at a shopping center to make a quick conference call. Sitting there idling for a bit (15-20 minutes) the car started to heat up and I figured it was because the exhaust was dumping out below the back of the engine, where's it's not usually exhausting. Since the car wasn't moving forward at all, the heat was stagnant and with the engine still running, it was consistent too.
I pulled away from the shopping center, only to be surprised to see white-like smoke coming out from under the engine. I pulled over and saw that the coolant overflow tank was nearly empty and there was water or coolant spewed all over the front of the engine.
After shutting the car off to make sure there wasn't an active fire or flame; I then fired it back ON, only to watch the engine temp guage peg itself as it was over overheated.
Petrified that something may have melted or blown due to excessive ambient heat under the back of the engine, I slowly drove the vehicle 2 miles to home and then had it towed back to the shop.
Diagnosis:
Mechanic says that the water pump appears to have failed, stating that he's seeing excessive pressures in coolant system, plus wildly variable water pump action. He feels that the water on the front of the engine was due to water pump issue. He also recommends that I replace the timing belt at the same time. It was previould done around 80,000miles....car now has 176,000 miles.
It is just a total coincidence that the water pump and timing chain need replacement; just a few hours after the piggie pipe mod is completed and a small exhaus leak appears ?
I'm no auto-mechanic....but the "timing" (no pun intended) with all of this is in question.
#2
07-11-2015, 10:00 PM
If you see coolant at the front of the engine then I'd agree that the water pump / thermostat housing would be at fault. It's been about 100,000 miles since it was last done. You are over the recommended service interval as it is, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to have it done if you plan on keeping it around for a few more years.
I can't see exhaust work like you mentioned to cause this issue. Unless of course they needed to drill out a bolt from the manifold and didn't quite drill straight and hit a coolant passage and tried to rig it with JB weld or something. However, you don't need to pull the manifold off to do what you mentioned, so they would have to be really careless.
I can't see exhaust work like you mentioned to cause this issue. Unless of course they needed to drill out a bolt from the manifold and didn't quite drill straight and hit a coolant passage and tried to rig it with JB weld or something. However, you don't need to pull the manifold off to do what you mentioned, so they would have to be really careless.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post