Well the gasket in my 01 TT quattro is finally out.Previousposts were questioning about smoke coming out of the turbo.Theres power, but no where near the power that was there. There is also a slight whining noise between 2,800 and 3,100 rpms. After that, the whining is gone along with most of the power. I figured that once some pressure builds up the gasket somewhat re-seals itself.

The question is, how much is a repair going to cost from a dealership and how much could I do this by myself. What parts are necessary for this and what is the cost. Overall, is this a difficult repair? Thanks.

 

Sounds like a manifold to turbo gasket. It cost you nothing to pull it and bolt the stuff back together. Just remove the charge piping and then loosen or remove the manifold bolts. If you loosen the bolts you can slide it out and if you remove them, you can remove the manifold and clean both surfaces. I recommend removing it and cleaning. Then you can reinstall the manifold and then be back to normal.

 

Theres no replacement part I should get?The old gasket needs to just be taken out and put back together without any gasket?

 

I among many others dont runone and have no problems. You can go to the dealer and shell out $6 for a new one, but i still wouldnt waste the time and money for it to do it again.

 

Sounds good. I'll give it a try. Is there any major sign that the turbo is failing that i need to watch for? The cars got about 68k on it and was driven by a 60 year old small school teacher. It was hardly driven. Its probably comparable to a TT with 15-20K on it.

 

You will know when its bad. You with either have a very high pitched whistle (differnt from normal), make no boost, or have a massive cloud coming out the exhaust.

 

The turbo to manifold gasket blew out on my 180TT; it was making like a puputput sound when it was cold, then it would warm up seal up and not make much noise. Still there was a noticeable loss of power throughout my comute.

The way I found out that it was that and not the flex section or some other aspect of the exhaust system was because I raised the car on jack stands, turned it on, and put my hand up against the flanges where the gasket is supposed to be (make sure the car is cold). I felt a clear surge of exhaust gas against my fingers. I ordered the gasket from my local VW dealer for like 6 bux and did all the work my self.I was running around with about 1/2 a gasket. Took me about a good 5 hours to replace it, given that I had never taken this car apart since I got it.

These Germans are thorough with their complexity. i though my old Mercedes was bad, I can hardly put my hand in the engine bay without removing alot of things. You have to remove all of the upper charge pipes, engine covers, hoses, vac lines, heat shields, upper strut tower brace, etc, etc, etc.

 

I'm probably going to do it tuesday. I'm not looking forward to all the ripping apart.

 

take some pics. im in the same boat

 

Its really like a3 on a scale of 1-10. A first timer should have it done in less than 2 hours. I have done it a few times and should have it done in about 20-30mins.