Knocking, power loss, flashing CEL...f**k

[rockymountain]

hopefully there's not too much damage and you just blew a head gasket. Still a ton of work to do, but someone with expertise will hopefully chime in. I wouldn't run it anymore until you tear it apart and get 'er fixed. MAN another '02 bites the dust. wtf.gif

 

[Prospect62]

Yep I'm calling it quits. Time of death 112,690 miles. Father in law owns a towing company and a friend of the family is a mechanic. You do the math...lol.

Mechanic is on vacation until next week. Hoping to hear it's just a head gasket but with the knocking...crap who knows. Spending the rest of the day trolling for a beater on Craigslist...need something to drive while this thing is laid up in the shop for what will probably be a month or so.

*EDIT* Hooray my 300th post. Can you guys feel my excitement? Incidentally, Budke I have two years on you on this forum, how do you have 3,700 more posts than me?

 

[moparman]

milkshake oil and noises almost guarantee crank work with headgasket. If the rod bearings haven't spun yet, they will.

 

[kb0nly]

Whats with all the sudden deaths of the 02' KJ's lately??

Budke - Did you ever get a solid answer as to what failed that took your motor out?

Prospect - Will be watching anxiously to see what failed in yours as well.

I'm starting to wonder about the 02's, thats two on here that died, and i have seen a few 02's on eBay with blown motors. Would be a good idea to determine whats causing it, maybe some preventative maintenance can prevent it from happening to others.

 

[yellocoyote]

maybe some preventative maintenance can prevent it from happening to others.

Definitely the case in Budke's scenario... and who knows about any of the others. I wouldn't be too early to say the '02's have bad engines yet. I agree - let's get some feed back as to why.

Of course, I'm probably just biased...

 

[ridenby]

"People" in general do not take care of the basic items on vehicles,guns,etc.

Not a dig at OP, responding to kb0nly's post.

 

[JeepJeepster]

Wow, an engine failure at 112k is very disappointing. Read of a few other engines failing at low miles for no reason.

Sure wish it had the I6..

 

[Prospect62]

Tjkj is going to blame this on my lackluster maintenance, I just know it. Truth is, I'm pretty good about oil changes. This all happened about half way between oil changes. Oil is full. Just milky. Purolator filters. Temps in my area have been below zero degrees farenheit for several days. Wonder if that has anything to do with it?

 

[moparman]

How bout a valvetrain problem in combination with a blown head gasket?

That makes sense, especially with the one noise he describes. But I fear that the milkshake oil will cause shear failure.

 

[KeswickDave]

Spending the rest of the day trolling for a beater on Craigslist...need something to drive while this thing is laid up in the shop for what will probably be a month or so.

How long do we give it until TBJ arrives trying to make a Paseo deal?

 

[tjkj2002]

Tjkj is going to blame this on my lackluster maintenance, I just know it. Truth is, I'm pretty good about oil changes. This all happened about half way between oil changes. Oil is full. Just milky. Purolator filters. Temps in my area have been below zero degrees farenheit for several days. Wonder if that has anything to do with it?

Not going to harp on the oil changes but it could have accelerated the problem.


Ever change the coolant? Since HOAT coolant in our KJ's is based off of Ethylene Glycol it shares the one big disadvantage of it also,electrolysis(goggle it).Granted it takes longer for it to happen with HOAT but still will happen and very prone in a alloy head/cast iron block engine and kills head gaskets,more so the metal ones like our engines use.

#1 reason why I have flushed my coolant 4 times in 8 years and 70,000miles.

 

[kb0nly]

"People" in general do not take care of the basic items on vehicles,guns,etc.

Not a dig at OP, responding to kb0nly's post.

Yeah your right, but some of these failures are regardless of owner treatment. I watch eBay for KJ's all the time, i keep telling my wife jokingly she should get one and have matching vehicle, but anyway i like looking through eBay to see the ones that have been modded and are for sale as the owner moves on. The disturbing thing is the 3 or 4 02' KJ's i have seen with motor damage. I think one might have been an 04' but unfortunately after 90 days on eBay you can't view an ended auction so i cant look back again.

Anyway, one stood out... I remember reading the description because it was like a page and a half long. This guy had everything done from the dealer, every maintenance item checked off, meticulous records kept, the KJ itself was immaculate in every detail, and it was only about 800 miles away from me, yeah i considered buying one to put a rebuilt motor in or rebuild the motor in it in my spare time. But anyway, that guy had a fairly similar failure, running fine one day and rattling the next on the way to work. So i'm guessing there is a connection here.

Now i'm not saying that 02's are junk or have bad motors, its merely that most of the 02's on the road are 100k plus miles and starting to experience failures related to age and wear. Now since my 03' isn't much younger i want to keep an eye on the track record of these higher mileage 02's to give me some insight as to what might happen.

Ok, maybe its head gaskets failing, if that's the case then we need a good sample of the mileage at which they are failing, if its over 100k then maybe at 100k we should consider new head gaskets even if there is no sign of failure yet. Thats what i meant by preventative maintenance. As an example on the 95 Neon i had you pretty much had to do a tear down at 80k and replace the timing belt and water pump, as the pump is driven by said timing belt, and as long as your tearing into it you might as well pull the head and replace the head gasket if it hasnt already failed. They had a problem with head gaskets failing and the cure was a new multi-layer head gasket. I did all that on that car, and despite all its weird problems over the time we owned it the motor was still solid at 160k when we got rid of it.

 

[J-Thompson]

after reading this and thinking about it
I am now even more glad I got rid of my '03 when I did
it had a build date in '02
it had the 45rfe
it was lifted ect.
but it had 70K+ on it
and we have put almost 2K on the Tiguan in 5 weeks
and have not left town ,only driving from town to town
as my wife commutes 80 miles round trip 3 days a week but if we want to do
ANYTHING we do it in the Tiguan as it is that or the TJ
and lets be honest the TJ is not fun driving 80 miles to visit grandma
yeah the KJ would have died after a year
the Tig has 50K of warranty left on it

 

[kb0nly]

It ran too low on oil, spun a bearing, shavings circulated around too much and did too much damage. He also said there was wayyy to much oil on the outside of the filter. So the problem was probably around that area somewhere.

Hmm... Another oil pressure sender failure that allowed all your oil to run out?? Thats been pretty common on here lately, leaking oil pressure sender.

 

[bmrrwolfe]

after reading this and thinking about it
I am now even more glad I got rid of my '03 when I did
it had a build date in '02
it had the 45rfe
it was lifted ect.
but it had 70K+ on it
and we have put almost 2K on the Tiguan in 5 weeks
and have not left town ,only driving from town to town
as my wife commutes 80 miles round trip 3 days a week but if we want to do
ANYTHING we do it in the Tiguan as it is that or the TJ
and lets be honest the TJ is not fun driving 80 miles to visit grandma
yeah the KJ would have died after a year
the Tig has 50K of warranty left on it

70k isn't really much especially for an 03, and a build date in 02 with a 45rfe is a good thing?
i have almost that many miles on my 06 with no real issues.

 

[sleeve]

Haven't most of us been on these boards long enough to know that any mileage over 100,000 on the 3.7 is barrowed time? The valve springs are prone to breaking. The plastic impeller in your water pump is probably shot and you should be thinking about a second or third replacement radiator. These vehicles are great, but they take a lot in maintenance to keep them running once you pass that magical barrier.

 

[JeepJeepster]

I had been thinking about just replacing the heads at 100k after reading about the valve spring issues. Probably replace the water pump around then too if its not started leaking yet.

Guess it could of broken a valve spring and beat up a piston. Punched a hole in the wall and theres your milky oil since it probably beat a hole in the piston. Just a guess though..

 

[Prospect62]

I never had any leaks or ANY signs/symptoms that this was coming. I know enough to heed warning signs, especially on a daily driver that I depend on very much.

Anyway, she left on the flatbed about a half hour ago. Got an engine guy that's going to tear it apart and rebuild it. I'll let you guys know what he finds and what the damage is. Better tell him to replace the valve springs while he's in there.

And yes, at this point I'd be comfortable telling any KJ owner over 100-110k that your motor is probably on borrowed time unless you do stellar maintenance for the life of the vehicle.

Man if I had all kinds of time and money, I would have loved to try the 4.7L swap. Gotta get it back on the road though, no time for that.

 

[LibertyTC]

I look forward to hear about the re-build when completed.
I would agree with the "borrowed time" over 100k syndrome.
Every vehicle is driven differently and some times not used for a while over the years possibly.
The heads should only be rebuilt by a professional engine rebuilding or machine shop. Chances are your mechanic will probably send therm out, but double check what is up there. They can deck the heads, they are aluminum, and need to be spec'd perfectly flat.
They can do the valve spring/seat replacement etc and then you can be confident that all is correct and well again.
Preventative maintenance should include check reservoir tank for fluid level and flushing the Hoat system every 35K miles. Heat is a problem as well, so no long idles in summer. Ensure your fans are working correctly and get a OBD2 gauge reader, where you have a more accurate temperature reader. Then you can view the actual temps. I don't trust the KJ temp gauge, it does not have physical temperatures "just something in the middle does not cut it"
Install a better temp gauge is a good idea.
If storing Kj, start it every few days, to keep seals wet. Don't let it sit for a week or more on end without starting it, and of course use staybil in the fuel.

 

[Prospect62]

Yeah I have a bona-fide engine guy doing it, not my usual mechanic. The guy comes highly recommended. I'll let you all know what he finds.