I just got stung with this for my GF's 06 B7 A4 2.0T, Now we're looking at camshaft replacement, follower (of course, the new better one), fuel pump, water pump, timing chain and belt (might as well since it's all apart).

total pricetag in the few thousands... I sure hope there's nothing else after all this, any of you similar owners have any warnings for other things that can snowball like this on this model/engine?

Thanks!

 

One other thing, does changing the follower help with the diesel-engine clacking noise?

 

this exact noise, actually!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO1D...ature=youtu.be

 

Unlikely. That noise is just a part of the FSI engines and pretty normal. My '06 sounds like that (although you don't notice it nearly as much with the hood closed and your head not in the engine bay).

I am going to assume you know that Audi offered an extended customer service action for the cam follower, HPFP, and cam, but if you're outside 10 years from in-service date or 120k miles, you will be out of luck.

My car just aged out of the program, so along with an oil change and a few other things, I just had the follower replaced. $200 every 30k miles is cheap insurance in my view. Incidentally, mine is the original follower to my knowledge (I've had the car since 34k miles and have never replaced it and there is no record of it being replaced by Audi prior to that which would be unlikely anyway) and it looked nearly mint. I had them save it for me so I could keep it as a memento. So, it's clear that not all of them exhibited this problem. Not sure what caused it or exacerbated it in some cars.

 

I got the same noise on the 2007 A3 - before and after the Follower (no change really). I only pay 50 bucks to replace it every couple of years (at home, not a shop). The reason those things fail is because of the design of the HPFP as well as the cam hitting it and supposedly the weak material of the follower. On the newer engines they round it up more and it's a smooth tap while on the FSI engines it's more like a triangle and it hits the follower hard (thousands of times while running). This puts excessive stress on the material until it brakes. Audi should have just listed this in the maintenance book (service manual) to check every 20k and there would have been less problems overall. However when they designed it they probably had a better prototype or material and didn't expect this kind of failure rate.

 

I would have done it myself, but I tend to break things that weren't broken and it was going in for a couple other things anyway. Plus, I have the freakin' banjo bolt and didn't want to deal with that. Here's a pic of my 94k mile follower. The black coating is completely worn off and there is a faint circle developing. Honestly, it doesn't look much worse than when it was pulled, inspected, and reinstalled about 18 months ago, but I'd rather replace a $60 part than the entire cam and HPFP.

 

looks like you got yours just in time. My 08 was completely worn through at 111,000 miles. I ran across all the stuff online about the follower and decided to check mine the week after I bought it. I almost died when I saw the hole, but I changed it and it's been over 5,000 miles and all seems ok so far....