VW Transporter T5.1 / T6 BiTDi 180 CFCA oil consumption problems

There's no easy way to put this, if you're here because you searched the internet for 'VW Transporter oil light on' or 'VW Transporter BiTDI low engine oil' or something simliar, this is not going to make for a fun read I'm afraid.

Like most modern diesel engines, these egines have an EGR valve / cooler fitted (EGR means Exhaust Gas Recirculation). The idea is that they take some of the exhaust fumes and send them back through the engine, burning them for a 2nd time and this reduces emissions.

However, on these 180 CFCA BiTDi engines, early versions of these EGR coolers have aluminium cooling fins inside them that corrode. When they corrode they break apart and aluminium filings get sucked into the oil system and then pumped around the engine, causing massive premature engine wear in the cylinder bores and they also go into the turbo and ruin the bearings in there too. Not only that, but when they get burned in the combustion chamber they go into the exhaust and into the DPF (diesel particulate filter) and ruin that too.

It's not good news at this point, once you are at the stage where the engine is using oil, it's only going to go one way and you're going to need to replace all those items as the damage is done at this point.

Some engines have had the later revision D EGR coolers fitted and if replaced in the early years of the engine's life, then this might be ok, but revision A, B and C are known to fail and will cause these problems. You can see the EGR cooler if you open the engine and look towards the front of the engine (see image) and if you have any of these numbers fitted, you might be in trouble:

03L 115 512A

03L 115 512C

The solution is this:

• New engine
• New BiTDi turbo unit
• New DPF and catalyst

We are able to supply all these parts and the EGR coolers supplied are a later modified item from the factory that doesn't have the same problems as the older units.

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