Audi Piston Ring Replacement - 4-Cylinder Engines by CarHavn
Updated: Sep 1
VW/Audi have been leaders in the engineering and manufacturing of fuel-efficient and powerful 4-cylinder engines for decades. The current, most popular one is named ‘EA888’ – and it was first introduced in 2007. It is a high-tech power plant with features such as port-fuel injection, variable valve timing, a timing chain, and many others.
The one area where it falls short is the piston rings.
1. Background
What is a piston ring?
In internal combustion engines, the piston is a fast-moving metal component contained within a cylinder. Piston rings attached at the piston head make the piston tight. A piston’s purpose is to transfer force from expanding gas in the cylinder to the crankshaft via a piston rod. The intake, compression, combustion and exhaust processes (the ‘4-stroke’ cycle) take place above the piston in the cylinder head, which forces the piston to move up and down within the cylinder, causing the crankshaft to turn. Each piston experiences tremendous amounts of force and heat during normal engine operation.
2. The Issue
Due to a combination of manufacturing and materials issues, the piston rings in some engines fitted to model years 2009-2015 Audis with the 4-cylinder EA888 engines fail. Specifically, they tend to wear prematurely, not sealing the combustion chamber properly, and sending microscopic parts of the ring all over the engine. This leads to, at best excessive oil consumption, and and worst, engine failure.
3. Symptoms
Most of our customers with this issue experience:
Excessive oil consumption. While every engine normally consumes a certain amount of oil due to the lubricant properties and function of oil inside the engine, it is normally considered that a rate above 1 qt/lt of oil every 1,000 miles is excessive. A message. reading ‘Add oil, max 1 lt’ with the yellow oil can in between oil services should be a warning sign.
Increased fuel consumption
At the worst, engine failure, as pieces from the piston rings have traveled inside the engine and caused scoring in the cylinder walls, or premature complete engine failure.
4. The Repair
The only and definitive solution is to replace the piston rings, and ideally, the pistons as well. This is a very delicate and time-consuming job that is best left to a trained specialist such as CarHavn. To successfully perform this repair, three factors come into play:
A very experienced master mechanic
The perfect parts, either original Audi or OEM (Rheinmetall AG manufactures pistons for Audi)
A factory laptop or scan tool, to program and adjust the engine after the repair
The job involves removing the engine from the car, removing the valve cover, cylinder head, and oil pan, disassembling the entire timing system, extracting the pistons, removing the piston rods, replacing hte pistons and rings, and re-assembling the entire engine again.
We at CarHavn have extensive experience with this delicate job. We advise our customers to maximize the benefit of the labor, and replace also the following components and no additional labor cost:
Timing chain, guides, tensioners
Head gasket and bolts
Camshaft bridge
Valve cover gaskets
Oil filter housing gaskets
Water pump and thermostat, with the upgraded metal impeller version
Obviously oil, oil filter, and coolant
5. The Result
The positive impact in the performance is immediate. The oil consumption stops right away, along with the annoying dashboard message. Long term, you will decrease the likelihood of a major mechanical failure, and prolong the life of your EA888