mishar

Not really. He reported that it was reported. Could it be reported as a selling feature? Was it necessary at the first place, if performed at all? Than now it is clean as a whistle after 10K miles. Deposit forming is continuous process, so if it should be cleaned in the next 2K or 10K there would already be significant deposits. If it is clean it will stay clean until it starts spitting oil into the intake. Than again, it is your car and your money. You may decide to clean muffler from inside too. Of course if you clean those deposits for living it is very reasonable to tell scary stories about that.

SaltyIrishman

How much does the carbon cleaning cost? I searched but never saw an actual cost displayed on any of the threads. Sorry for the drift here.

Pashamad

[QUOTE=mishar: ...Of course if you clean those deposits for living it is very reasonable to tell scary stories about that.[/QUOTE]

Money doesn't smell?

EHLO

Carbon buildup in the area surrounding the intake valves of a direct injection engine such as Audi’s FSI is a when, not an if, proposition.
It’s caused by oil deposits from minute leaks from around the valve seals, and from small amounts of vaporized oil in the PCV system making it past the Fine Oil Separator over time, which turn to carbon deposits in the presence of heat.
Symptoms are loss of power and possible misfires.
Some RS 4 owners have found buildup in as little as 10K miles.

Purely chemical cleaning such as with Seafoam or BG44K is ineffective, instead the intake manifold must be removed and the carbon physically worn away with walnut shell blasting, or the plastic tie wraps in a drill chuck method.

VAG has unintentionally fixed the issue in a version of the EA888 I4 and the Huracan’s V10, and hopefully the new R8’s similar V10, by adding a second set of port injectors for lower emissions.
This brings back the cleaning action of fuel running over the intake valve area, which was the case before direct injection.

My S8 just hit 100K, so when the weather improves I’m going to remove the back part of the manifold and try to feed a borescope down into valve area to see how bad it is at this point.

Here’s some other people’s experience with the problem;

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a6-...-dyno-2796154/

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a6-...oblem-2797935/

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/a8-...aning-2839352/

hunterp27

The records I have from The Audi dealer in FL that performed the service list the price as 249.00. That seems really low to me if you really have to remove the intake and clean it out. I cannot see that costing only 250 bucks. My assumption is that for that price all they are doing is running some sort of chemical through it. The further assumption is that's why they recommend it to be done once a year or 12k miles. The rationale being that this process keeps you ahead of the curve of having to actually remove anything and do real work. Again, this is all speculation since I've not been thru the process.

SaltyIrishman

Thanks Hunter. Indeed, if it is $250 I'll book an appointment today to get it done....if it actually does something. Once it gets warmer here I am going to do an italian tune up on the S8, but that could be weeks.

EHLO

Yeah, $250 is most certainly just the chemical treatment, unless they work for cheap.
I ran Seafoam through several times, and from the part of the valves I can see looking through the spark plug hole with a 45 degree mirrored borescope, it did nothing.

An Italian tuneup could actually contribute to carbon buildup, as Audi's description of the Fine Oil Separator admits that it's bypassed under conditions of high revolutions and light load.

I'd suggest Red Line SI-1 over Techron, because they actually list the percentage of Polyether Amine in their MSDS, but these products clean the combustion chamber, not the intake area.
I use 3.75 ounces of SI-1 with each tank of gas.

SaltyIrishman

This is a good point [duh] for an FSI Motor...I can't believe the carbon gunk issue is still a problem after all these years.

hunterp27

Gang,

I have a proposition. Since we are all from different parts of the country, make a call into your local Audi dealer and ask what the "Carbon Cleaning Service" consists of and what it costs at your dealership. If the product they use is some sort of Audi Exclusive product that removes the build up without removal of any parts (as long as things have not progressed to a point of no return), then its worth doing on the regime they suggest. Its cheap PM. I just find it hard to believe that a chemical can remove all the deposits if they have really begun to adhere.

MP4.2+6.0

over on the Mini 2 board--aka a Euro vehicle albeit it a Prinz motor with Peugeot taint--the norm for the Mini FSI is often just to Seafoam it up the intake. Purists here at least in the past seemed to have apoplexy when Seafoam was brought up. The Mini probably has one of the crappiest design PCV systems of all time on their early FSI motors. They quietly revved it at least three times while trying to keep a lid on the fouling issue and not recall. Almost guaranteed to eat an oil plus water vapor sludge mess during cold starts, to where some fit catch cans that are sold for it. But meantime, I can confirm that at least for the rough runing type stuff it does indeed appear to work. I was skeptical but applied it myself with a quick to develop chattering motor and somewhat rough idle at about 30K. Sure enough, smoothed it out and it quieted way down virtually on the spot--or at least by the time the huge oil cloud came out with the first real acceleration. And it stayed good many miles later. Just sprayed it into the intake with an assistant revving the motor so it wouldn't die--inserted spray in tube well past the MAF of course.

Not sure if the S8 V10 scenario for fouling is just valves or also some passages in the head. For just valves the chemical type ideas or Seafoam probably have some merit. On the ground zero 3.2 FSI foulmatic, apparently it involves some ports too to where you have to get access to the head--and maybe in some cases even the exhaust side.