I've read what I can find about the cam follower issue, but I'm left with a few questions. But first some background:

My 2007 A3 60k miles (still covered under CPO) had been getting a very intermittent and brief Low Oil Pressure warning light. Took it in and dealer claimed that they couldn't get any codes related to this out of the onboard computer. The Service Writer then told me that without some codes to reference Audi would not reimburse them if they just started taking things apart to find the problem. He recommended I keep a camera ready and take a picture of the warning the next time it appeared (sounds stupid, but w.t.h.) It took a month, but I got my photo and took the car back (last Friday).

I spoke with him today and he told me it was the cam follower problem: claimed that the Low Oil Pressure was due to part of the follower getting occasionally and briefly sucked up against the oil pick-up in the pan . So, Audi is buying me a new camshaft, follower and High Pressure Fuel Pump and they are going to drop the pan and find the follower bit(s) that is floating around down there. He told me that any damage that might have been caused by the LOP condition would be easily detected when they replaced the camshaft (as that would be the first place to suffer from any starvation, rather than the main bearings.)

This brings up the following questions:

Could my Low Oil Pressure warning really not be recorded in the ECM?

Is it possible for bits of the follower to migrate from its correct location down to the pan? If so, how much damage could it do in its migration? And how much damage could be done by it floating about in the oil pan? If not, then what?

Will it really be that easy to see the damage that might have been caused by the LOP condition?

 

I remember one fella on the forum that had his follower go at 76,000 miles, and it trashed the entire engine. He had to get a new $10,000 motor. Worse case senario though. How long he let the light come on before taking it in, I don't remember.

 

Follow-up: I went back to the dealer Friday afternoon hoping to see the parts they took out of my car. Not only did they show me the parts, I got to spend 10-15 minutes in the service area talking to the mechanic and he walked me through the parts, explained how the relevant bits of the engine worked and were interrelated (all of which both jived with and clarified what I'd been reading.) He also gave me a rough explanation of how I could get an LOP warning light without having it set a fault code (still seems odd and poor firmware design - if you're going to show the warning, then for the love of all that is holy, record it - but it is believable.)

In summary, I now feel comfortable that they have found the problem (though this seemed pretty clear from the beginning) and that there shouldn't be any damage beyond the immediate problem (cam, follower, and HPFP). And, I'm very happy with the service department at my dealer - Tom Williams Audi. Adding to my satisfaction, they provided me with a loaner car for the duration of this process.

Still somewhat disappointed in Audi, though. It would've been in their own best interest and ours to just do a straight-up recall on the cam follower as soon as they were aware of the problem - instead of replacing a cheap part, they get to replace 1 cheap part and 2 very expensive parts. For the cost of fixing my car, they could have prevented the problem in my car and at least a dozen others. (FWIW, there was at least one other car in the service area with the same problem.)

Also, for those that haven't experienced this yet I got the impression from the mechanic that the fault codes specified in the TSB should really be treated as warnings of dire problems. Basically, these faults only occur when total HPFP failure is imminent and it's HPFP failure that will trash the entire engine. I suppose then that I was lucky then to get this weird, intermittent and unrecorded Low Oil Pressure warning (and to have a service writer give me the advice to photograph the warning light - the mechanic indicated that having this photo was very important to getting Audi to authorize the exploratory work needed to find the problem.)

 

I agree it is a bit odd that Audi didn't just do a recall, but I'm guessing there's some bean-counter somewhere that figured up what a straight-up recall would cost them and what percentage of cars had this issue (it's by no means every one). In the end, it was probably cheaper to do it the way they did it. It always comes down to money.

Glad they are fixing it up for you. My dealership service department is also really good. They had to replace a hydraulic engine mount on my car and the tech took me out there, showed me the leaky mount, and explained everything very nicely. Anytime the work takes more than 2 or 3 hours, they offer a loaner, so I got a 2011 A4 6-speed for a day. Man, that thing was sweeeeeeet.

 

I went back and re-read the TSB - looks like the problem part is the intake camshaft, not the follower, so it is an expensive part to do a recall on. At least they've extended the warranty for this problem (I never received or didn't notice the letter, but I think I've seen where this problem is now covered out to 10 yrs/ 120,000 miles.)

Kind of hard to fault them for doing the math/accounting.

I got a Q5 as a loaner: very nice car, not as fun as the A3, but great on the highway - there might be one in my wife's future. Kind of surprised to hear of a dealer using a car with manual transmission as loaner (or was it a 6spd DSG?)