Cylinder Head problems

[direwolf]

I live and work in France but communicating technical issues in French (appart from buying baguette) is not easy.

I have a 2006 T5 California LHD 2.5 174d (about k60 miles)which after a several perfect years just started hissing a bit when putting my foot down to accelerate, I thought it may be the Turbo so took it to the VW dealer. They told me it is a small crack in the manifold , the pipe taking the exhaust from the cylinder head.....They had the van for two weeks without contacting me when I went there I was told they had a problem with removing the bolts and had to re-tapp them. I understood that this could be an issue but they then explained that they-when re-tapping-made a mistake and went too deep and they have now removed the engine in totality and sent it to a specialist who deals with repairs to cylinder heads to repair it !!!

My question...has anyone else had a similar issue, I am wondering what would they drill into if they went too deep and can it be repaired without problems in the future with coolant or oil getting to the wrong place?

The dealer seems honest and explained they would pay(damn right) but I am wondering about future problems like turbo or head gaskett caused by this....Do any of you have any advice apart from sitting down in a dark corner with a strong Dram! Thank you for any advice.

 

[Hotel California]

My guess is the went to deep and gone thru the material straight in the engine causing a leak in the cilinderhead.....
Could be wrong ...but in that case the engine needs to go open first to clean and second to fix the hole they need to weld in new material ...guess aluminium?

 

[sidepod]

Is it an ally head or iron on that motor?

I'd be surprised if a manifold stud went anywhere near a water gallery. You'd have to go pretty deep to make an arse of that.
Normally if a stud is seized in adding heat should get it out. Procedure is to strike up a few times on the stud with a welder, that usually gets enough local heat into it.

It will probably just heed a helicoil.
It does sound as if someone fooked up!

 

[direwolf]

Thanks for your comments, it is an alluminum head. The dealer admitted to causing the problem.

If the specialist who repairs cylinder heads has the whole engine I am told it could be returned to the dealer later this week but I am not sure if they dismantle the head to repair it and then reasemble it whether they should replace gaskets etc. I wasnt sure what is behind the hole for the stud, I looked on the internet and one site showed some engines have water galleries behind and they stated it should be ok with a repair but they may be very different engines.

Thanks for your thoughts.