Club 80-90 Forums

Hi Guys,

Just spent a good load of hard earned cash on my camper with my local garage having the gearbox sorted. It had a what i can explain as a swelling of oil around the gearbox area before the gearbox was removed. Since the work i have noticed a reasonable patch of oil on my driveway which was not happening before. Rang the garage and they mentioned that the beetle engines leak oil and its nothing to worry about.

Why would VW build an engine that leaked oil. Oil seal not working somewhere between engine and gearbox I would imagine. Someone with more knowledge than me will be along shortly I'm sure, but I'm guessing a trip back to your garage and some firm words will be coming...

They haven't fitted the gearbox oil seal properly, by the sound of it. Get the van back down there, and tell them to do it again. They shouldn't charge you, as they clearly didn't take enough care the first time round.

jamesandtheopenroad wrote:Why would VW build an engine that leaked oil.

It worked for the British motorcycle industry... <grin>

Tell them to change the oil seal properly then (once satisfied) change your garage.

Ian

There is a chance your input shaft bearing in crank is u/s causing excessive play in input shaft and damaging input shaft seal, try to establish if it is engine oil or gearbox oil that is leaking, place some white card under van to check colour of oil

I think you need to explain to us what'd you asked the garage to do and ask them what they did before going further
Exactly where on the gearbox was the the oil leak before

As said try and find out if its gearbox or engine oil gearbox oil has a very strong smell
No point complaining to the garage if its a different fault

Also its not a beetle engine

itchyfeet wrote:Also its not a beetle engine

In the grand scheme of things, it is.

The original work was to fix the gearbox as it was bothched by previous owner. At the same time they replaced the clutch.

I noticed it was slight weeping oil underneath and mentioned this at the time. I have taken it back and he mentioned it is the main seal between the engine and the flywheel that has gone. Bearing in mind the original work was done 2 weeks ago. I now have to fork out another £250

nin73 wrote:The original work was to fix the gearbox as it was bothched by previous owner. At the same time they replaced the clutch.

I noticed it was slight weeping oil underneath and mentioned this at the time. I have taken it back and he mentioned it is the main seal between the engine and the flywheel that has gone. Bearing in mind the original work was done 2 weeks ago. I now have to fork out another £250

That's more than a bit shoddy on his part. Putting a new seal in at the time would have been very little extra work.

thing is it is a very reputable independent vw specialist that is doing the work.

They did mention that it wouldn't have made any difference with my work as i had the gearbox section out of the engine and not the flywheel section out.

The gearbox has to come off to get to the flywheel so it would be easy to do the flywheel/crank seal at the same time

You said this was not leaking this bad before did you ask them to look for the oil leak?
If you did then they should have done it

If it was just conversation and not leaking badly then they may have misunderstood what work you wanted done

i have checked my list of work done and they have charged me for a rear main seal. Where would this be located?

There is a seal on the input shaft to the gearbox
I'm not sticking up for them but its possible that the crank seal wasn't leaking badly at the time and so may not have been obvious
You said yourself it wasn't leaking like that before

Sniff the oil to be surewhich seal has failed
If you are unsure sniff the dipstick to compare

Snap

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