I have a 2004 New Beetle 1.8t with 116,000 that recently had a new head put on due to snapped timing belt. (stop laughing 
)
Even when this car was new it seemed to have a valve tick on the next to last valve on the intake side and has been verified by an app I had on my phone for decibel reading. The old cams were used and the exhaust cam sprocket seal leaked like a drunk on 2 for 1 night. Being an engineer by trade and grew up in a motorcycle shop and being married for 28 years the moans and groans finally became to much to handle regarding the spots in the driveway.
Now I do understand that all my years spinning wrenches on motorcycles and the last 30 years engineering does in no way shape or form qualify me as a car mechanic BUT she has had 3 of these damn things over the last 10 years or so and I have replaced 9 window regulators 4 oil pick up tubes several of the cheap plastic so called hoses and my god only knows how many oil changes and little things that don't require much time since I work like a pack mule and don't have a whole lot of time to do major jobs but am confident in my abilities to do them.
Upon removing the leaking rear cam sprocket seal I noticed the man had dug a groove with a screw driver getting the seal out (trying to fix it when her did the job and gave up). MI have since taken emory cloth and a stone and gently gotten rid of the gouges and even took the time to go over the end lobe of the cam to ensure it's smooth as well and am about to put it all back together with new seals that I might add have the spring in them.
My question is should I bite the bullet and replace the cams or can I simply get them resurfaced? I have ordered a new lifter for the intake #3 side that I feel is causing the tick and would like to do this as painless as possible IF possible.
IMHO the idea of not using an inner cooler and running the oil through that hot ass turbo and not telling folks that American oil has a different viscosity rating compared to German oil seems like an idea the design engineers cooked up at their local pub to screw with us Americans just like that damn plastic wheel used on the bottom part of the window regulators at $600-$700 a pop and lets not foget the door latches that short and won't drop the window for the convertible top. lol
If you go to your local Jiffy Lube or oil change facility and allow them to run their cheap barrel oil in these things you WILL burn a turbo every 70-80 thousand miles or so and the internet is filled with the same story time and time again.
I will say the darn car makes her happy so we married guys know not to poke the bear with the stick if we want lovin so simply put the damn bug stays. Gotta love it. The cam does show signs of not having any assembly lube used on the top end job and as stated they are the same cams that were in it when the belt broke and bent the heck out of the valves.
Oh another thing leave the stock radio alone for after I had a nice system installed and they cut into the wiring harness error codes and infrequent fault lights were in spuratic to say the least. Oh and the dealer cannot turn off the air bad light since they don't have the 2 wires to remove the non factory radio. GO FIGURE.
Over the years I have traded all of these jobs for ...let's just say love tokens so once you get good at them it works out in the end lol but simply wanted to ask the experts regarding the valve tick it has had since it was new but have noticed it getting louder (about 10-15 decibels on my phone app
Wow I feel better ty guys for allowing me to vent 10 or so years of working with a good car that has a few half ass engineering mistakes that I feel are intentional to get back at us Americans for some reason or the other.
Have A Great Day
)Even when this car was new it seemed to have a valve tick on the next to last valve on the intake side and has been verified by an app I had on my phone for decibel reading. The old cams were used and the exhaust cam sprocket seal leaked like a drunk on 2 for 1 night. Being an engineer by trade and grew up in a motorcycle shop and being married for 28 years the moans and groans finally became to much to handle regarding the spots in the driveway.
Now I do understand that all my years spinning wrenches on motorcycles and the last 30 years engineering does in no way shape or form qualify me as a car mechanic BUT she has had 3 of these damn things over the last 10 years or so and I have replaced 9 window regulators 4 oil pick up tubes several of the cheap plastic so called hoses and my god only knows how many oil changes and little things that don't require much time since I work like a pack mule and don't have a whole lot of time to do major jobs but am confident in my abilities to do them.
Upon removing the leaking rear cam sprocket seal I noticed the man had dug a groove with a screw driver getting the seal out (trying to fix it when her did the job and gave up). MI have since taken emory cloth and a stone and gently gotten rid of the gouges and even took the time to go over the end lobe of the cam to ensure it's smooth as well and am about to put it all back together with new seals that I might add have the spring in them.
My question is should I bite the bullet and replace the cams or can I simply get them resurfaced? I have ordered a new lifter for the intake #3 side that I feel is causing the tick and would like to do this as painless as possible IF possible.
IMHO the idea of not using an inner cooler and running the oil through that hot ass turbo and not telling folks that American oil has a different viscosity rating compared to German oil seems like an idea the design engineers cooked up at their local pub to screw with us Americans just like that damn plastic wheel used on the bottom part of the window regulators at $600-$700 a pop and lets not foget the door latches that short and won't drop the window for the convertible top. lol
If you go to your local Jiffy Lube or oil change facility and allow them to run their cheap barrel oil in these things you WILL burn a turbo every 70-80 thousand miles or so and the internet is filled with the same story time and time again.
I will say the darn car makes her happy so we married guys know not to poke the bear with the stick if we want lovin so simply put the damn bug stays. Gotta love it. The cam does show signs of not having any assembly lube used on the top end job and as stated they are the same cams that were in it when the belt broke and bent the heck out of the valves.
Oh another thing leave the stock radio alone for after I had a nice system installed and they cut into the wiring harness error codes and infrequent fault lights were in spuratic to say the least. Oh and the dealer cannot turn off the air bad light since they don't have the 2 wires to remove the non factory radio. GO FIGURE.
Over the years I have traded all of these jobs for ...let's just say love tokens so once you get good at them it works out in the end lol but simply wanted to ask the experts regarding the valve tick it has had since it was new but have noticed it getting louder (about 10-15 decibels on my phone app
Wow I feel better ty guys for allowing me to vent 10 or so years of working with a good car that has a few half ass engineering mistakes that I feel are intentional to get back at us Americans for some reason or the other.
Have A Great Day
