"Juey Ong" > wrote in message
news
> When I bring my 98 Passat Wagon in for service, the dealer tries to sell
> me an "Engline Flush". Best I can tell from the literature is that it
> uses some 3M product that's supposed to flush out "gunk" from the engine.
>
> Question is: is it worth the US$65 or so they're charging and how often
> is an engine flush necessary?

If its a 1.8T DON'T do it. These engines are prone to sludging -
particularly in the USA. For some reason we don't seem to see much of it in
Europe - not sure why. If you use a standard type flush on this engine (and
a number of others) what can happen is that big lumps of crap get dislodged
very quickly which can then block oilways, filters & worse still the oil
pump pickup screen in the sump with obvious consequences..

If you want to run any kind of de-sludger/flush then the best stuff around
is probably Auto-RX (www.auto-rx.com). This has been quite widely used on
1.8Ts with great success - it involves a 2 stage process over about 3000
miles & works slowly but seemingly very effectively without the risk of
blockages etc. Hop on over to www.clubb5.com & read the forums for accounts
of people using it. Also read "Bob is the oil guy" at
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/

The problem with the 1.8Ts is that they have a relatively small oil capacity
& so the oil has to work quite hard. More so again because its a Turbo. You
can help your engine a lot by making sure you let it run at idle for a
minute or so before you switch it off to let the turbo cool down a bit -
particularly if you have been driving quite hard just prior to parking up.
If you don't do this there is a risk that the oil that's left in the turbo
at switch-off literally cooks down into a nasty black gunk.

In the US VW has now put out a TSB mandating the use of Synthetic oil and a
much bigger oil filter (in fact the one that goes on the deisel engines!).
Ask your dealer about it & if they don't know about it then find another
dealer!

HTH

I.