VW EA888 Passat Jetta Beetle 1.8T TSI Engine Teardown. Claimed "Bad Piston" What Was Actually Bad?

Using a prybar on the coils with a tote on your head as an improvised helmet has to be one of the silliest things I've seen on YouTube. Outstanding.

I watch your videos every Sunday morning with my coffee. My son Eric was a master certified tech who looked and spoke a lot like you. He passed away almost 3 years ago at the age of 43. He spent his entire life around cars, tearing them down and putting them back together. He would have loved your channel. In some small way, watching your videos is almost like having him still here. I know this may be a little weird for you, but I just wanted to thank you for your effort and today (Father's Day) was a good day to let you know I was watching.

VW specialist here. 1.8/2.0 TSIs are known for ring failures due to carbon buildup. This ends up snowballing as the stuck rings cause oil to burn and build up more deposits. IIRC a full piston set replacement is actually covered as a recall. Other faults of the TSI are mainly focused on the 1st gen up to 2012. Those had main timing tensioners that would overextend and cause catastrophic failure. Other than those, the TSIs are actually one of VWs best turbo engine series.

As a VW driver who is a avid watcher and fan of your channel I just would like to thank you for finally showing us some love

Very common for those boots to get stuck. Easiest way to get them out is with compressed air. Shoot the air straight down the middle of the boot.

i love these teardowns, it encourages me to upkeep my own vehicles maintenance, and let's me see how many different engines there are.

I’m sorry, but the beginning of this video is absolute comedic gold!

Would be awesome to see a VR6 teardown. Very unique "inline V" engine. Lots have been produced by VW over the years in displacements from 2.5L up. Should not be hard to find one by now.

Comments so far are spot on about the oil rings. That is the main problem with the engine. They are technically not bad rings, but over time, they do get gunked up, and carbonized because of lack of attention to timely oil changes. In the manual, VW states oil intervals are 10k miles. Problem is, most people don't spend the extra money on synthetic and run these engines on basic oil for 10,000 miles between changes. That is just asking for trouble, and trouble will find you fast. If anyone has a 1.8. I highly recommend a liquimoly Engine Flush and Running good quality synthetic oil and changing it that's 5,000 miles instead of the suggested 10,000 miles. I bought a used 2014 Passat with the same engine and his smokes like a fogger using the core of oil every 400 miles. After a series of engine flushes every 3,000 miiles along with the oil change at 3,000 miles using synthetic oil, the oil consumption problems have essentially disappeared, it no longer smokes and the car runs fantastic now. So far I put an additional 55,000 mi on the engine (bought it with 170k) without a single issue. So if you have this engine in your Passat, Jetta, etc get an oil flush and switch to synthetic and change your oil more than recommended.. It worked for me.

The VAG 1.8/2.0 TFSI engines EA888 series had the oil-burning problems due to smaller pistons involving smaller thickness piston rings, until end of 2015 . It was easy to notice because an engine consumed 1l/500-1000 km and even much more Oil from the cylinders walls could not flow through the carbonated piston rings and burned causing huge problems and in result charged a pocket significantly. Repair require ro change both pistons and their rings for thicker , to honing cylinders, and precise grinding of the head Problem was resolved after 2015 year by VAG

i’m and Audi certified tech. the problem with the pistons are clogged oil control rings. vw/audi doesn’t just sell rings. you have to buy pistons as an assembly and installed them onto the rods. overall this engine would have been rebuildable engine if it wasn’t for sitting outside in the weather for a while.

I'm glad to see you're finally wearing some proper PPE.

If you don't like doing removal of the water pump on a stand imagine how I feel doing it on the car with reassembly! Not my favorite water pump to do but not the worst one I guess. You don't have to worry about the belt breaking ever because it'll leak long long long before the belt goes bad.

I died laughing with the ignition coils because I deal with the same thing as I own a Gen 3 tsi powered car (fully built mk6 GLI). They all love to get stuck and they actually make a tool to pop them out. Best way is to get shop air and blast it while pulling the coil to the front of the engine. Also next time it’s a lot easier to pull that bridge off the cams for the vvt, that allows you to slide the guide down and out. That crank sprocket- the correct way is to shove the bolt back in there (with the special washer) if you were to put the engine back together so you don’t risk dropping it down the oil pump chain hole and it allows you to turn the engine over without bottoming out the bolt into the crank. But that sprocket is supposed to come off once you pull the tensioner and guides out and that will allow you to take the chain off. These early 1.8t and 2.0t were known for burning oil because they used a low tension oil control ring to minimize friction but it was too easy for the oil to get buy and be burnt especially with a high mile engine that wasn’t taken care of. The control rings get caked up of carbon and don’t allow the rings to effectively scrape down the oil which seems to be what happened to this engine, those oil control rings are absolutely gummed with carbon. Volkswagen typically replaces the piston and rings but now I’m seeing that they are replacing the motors. Other than that the later revision released after 5/14 don’t have any other issues apart from timing chain failures until 2016. They are very solid engines and rarely break. The ea888.3 can achieve around 500hp/475ft lbs of torque RELIABLY bone stock with just a turbo and fueling upgrades along with other stuff to support. That should say quite a bit about how good they are when they are taken care of.

"I know some things about some stuff, and junk." Amen.

"That is... just perfect!" chucks the timing guide halfway across the shop

Thanks for reminding me of the infamous 1.8s from the late 90s to early 2000s. The sludging problems with those engines.

I've been waiting all day for this! checked at 6pm, 630pm, and nothing. finally, its out! Hoping for more carnage tonight after last weekend.

A shout out to your suppliers, I've blown up a few engines in my days and it's always interesting to take them apart

So much gold in the intro, forklift VW coil pack removal tool, PPE blue bucket on head. Brilliant!!!