I pulled my plugs and found Oil. Lots of it. What happened?

[The Captin]

My car has a bit over 100k on it. The original ownwer did little to maintain the car. I pulled the plugs and found oil all over the sides of them and some of the threads. NONE on the spark end and after looking down at the top of the piston the pistons look dry and oil free. Is this a sign of failing vavle cover gaskets, cloged PCV hose or valve?

I installed brand new plugs and on the up side the engine runs alot smoother. not to fix this oil prob and exhuast leek and it should be quite and smooth again.

Nate

[rayj]

http://www.blauparts.com/vw/vw_oil_l...il_leaks.shtml address's those issues i think

[bert06040]

I just changed out my plugs this morning, and I have oil on the plugs of my V6 also.

[rayj]

ditto above. It could be a leaky valve cover gasket allowing oil to get into the spark plug wells, The blauparts link explains it and why a clogged PCV system contributes to the problem.

[02GLXWag6stk]

The Prime Culprit:

IF you don't do a thorough and COMPLETE PCV OVERHAUL along with buying the 3 yr old Pressure
Relief Oil Cap you will find yourself doing this more often - especially when you live in climates
with wide daily temperature swings coupled with short drives.

[The Captin]

what do you mean by 3 yr old pressure relief oil cap? Is this a new oil cap for the engine that some how does magic?

The Prime Culprit:

IF you don't do a thorough and COMPLETE PCV OVERHAUL along with buying the 3 yr old Pressure
Relief Oil Cap you will find yourself doing this more often - especially when you live in climates
with wide daily temperature swings coupled with short drives.

[02GLXWag6stk]

The "NEW" PRESSURE RELIEF Valve that's been on the market the last 3 yrs does HELP which
can be bought either at the dealer or even aftermkt distributors like ECS Tuning.

BUT one really needs to do a COMPLETE PCV Overhaul given the mileage and conditions
experienced on a B5 and B5.5 series (the latter was redesigned and appears to be less prone
to clogging than the B5's).

Yours is a B5 with the dreaded Suction "Y" Pump that consistently gets clogged requiring
replacement.

[bert06040]

I researched all the pcv issues. The only problem is that I have a 2005 v6 2.8l that doesn't have the Y shaped suction pump. Mine has a hockey puck shaped pump. The dealer stated that those don't get clogged.

[Slimjimmn]

Mine has a hockey puck shaped pump. The dealer stated that those don't get clogged.

BS
They are just a rubber diaphragm rather then a suction valve, I replaced mine ($112 from the dealer!!!)
The new style pressure relief oil cap helps to fix the issue of sticking pcv valves on the 2.8/2.7/4.2 engines. I would recommend replacing it with the valve covers and CCT gasket ktis.

[kfzmeister]

It could be a leaky valve cover gasket allowing oil to get into the spark plug wells,

This.

[bert06040]

So what did you end up doing in order to fix the pcv system? Did you change out the "puck"? Install a relief cap? Has any of this helped?