Be Sure To Change Your Cam Follower at 100K Miles

High Pressure Fuel Pump Lobes Are Scored

No 1 Cylinder At TDC

So your 2.0T engine gets 30+ miles per gallon. It is because of all that fancy crap that goes wrong as the engine gets up there in miles.

The high pressure fuel pump is driven from the front intake cam. The cam follower is a thimble like cup that spreads the load of the pump plunger rod across the entire surface of the cam lobe. When the cam follower  fails, the reciprocating pump shaft which is about the diameter of a pencil rides directly on the cam. Synthetic oil is good but the film of oil can't stand up to the forces as the metal plunger rod is honed down to cutting tool-like edge.

High Pressure Pump

After I install the new cam and pump, I need to drop the oil pan and try to find all of the parts that I expected to find in the housing that bolts on to that the right side of the engine.

The next time I am going for the 5 cylinder engine without the turbo and fsi. I am willing to sacrifice 5 mpg in order to skip this kind of trouble. This issue is costing me the equivalent of 17,000 miles, which is the same amount of money for one of those nice smart 50 in flat screens.

I can't image dealing with hybrid batteries.