argep

To ferry the kids around we run a five year old Ford Galaxy. This has the 2.8 V6 as appears in the VW range.

The engine has sounded a bit rough for a while, but not having a sweet engine like the S2k I just put this down to age etc. Gave it a spring clean yesterday and checked the oil only to find that it had none in it

Who knows how long it's been running like this. Just lucky it did not seize up. Anyway point of the story is that it is still making a noise which sounds like a tappet banging. Any thoughts on what damage might have been incurred

Bada Bing!

My VTS used to sound like a rattly piece of sh*t when it had low oil, but after a few miles on a topped up engine it sounded okay again. You might be the same, just drive it around for a while, let the oil heat up and circulate.

Xd

What you should ask is where did all that oil go?

s2uk

could have the tappets adjusted to see if this is causing the noise. garage will need to have car first thing engine still cold then the work will take a hour or so just depends on who is doing the work. my CRX had this done and it was alot quieter.

Steve54

Kelly's Fi-esta started making sounds like this around the same time the oil warning light came on, no one ever found out what the problem was because it was gonna cost a few hundred quid to have the engine stripped down to look at it. We were told

fluffyninja

VW's tend to have hydraulic tappits. If your oil level is low you'll probably have tappit setting problems where the clearance between the cams and the tappits is too big. The cam profile slaps against the lifter instead of rising gently as it would normally and hence you get a lot of head noise.

Only other alternative is you've let the oil get WAY too low the bearings are shagged and you're getting the noise of the piston slapping against the cylinder head cause the big end bearings have worn away.

If the noise goes away if you refill the oil I'd go for the former. If it doesn't I'd get the engine looked at as soon as possible

Nick Graves

Tappets don't bang, they tap.

They also tap at 1/2 crank speed.

You can hear better if you put your lug on the flat silver bit at the top.

If it's any faster, more of a knock or a graty rumble from lower, trade it in now.

Steve54

DISCO!

Sounds about right, the noise increased in volume and frequency with engine speed.

argep

Cheers for the advice. I think it must be the tappets, but will get them checked asap. We have a 300 mile round trip planned for this weekend so fingers crossed!!