Just how bad is the Wasserboxer motor?

[GBA 88West LA]

talk about a loaded question
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88 Westy GL Vanaru 07 2.5 EJ25/AA Trans/oiling plates, 1.14 3rd-.77-4th..solar powered cabin

[dspieg]

You have to remember my state of mind when I started this thread. I had just had the engine vaporize on a Vanagon with only 116K miles that I had bought all of three days and 20 driving miles earlier. My initial research on Samba and elsewhere on the topic of this motor, and options for rebuilding it, came up with a whole bunch of conflicting information (much of it negative), and a large number of folks who had discarded their Wasserboxer engines and put something else in their Vanagons.

Thus the wording of the question. In hindsight, a bit more rash and emotional than it should have been. My bad!

[240Gordy]

[Typhon2222]

[Jedi]

Don't give in to the chest thumper hype. The WBXer engine is a stout little beast that can last a long time if you treat it like you are supposed to. To each is own but it is unfair that here on the samba people have a venue to bash others who choose to be a fan of Volkswagen and drive Volkswagen engines in their Volkswagens and try to share their love for that on a Volkswagen social website
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1961 Westfalia SO23 Mango Green/Seagull grey
1961 Westfalia SO34 T/BW
1961 Westfalia SO34 SWR
1964 Westfalia SO33 pearl white
1965 Westfalia SO42 Velvet green
1986 Syncro Wolfram grey with black int GL
1986 Syncro Doka
1987 Syncro Sevana beige Adventurewagen
1987 syncro Sevana beige GL
1973 Pumpkin orange Thing
2 1963 Rag top bug's
1965 Manx
1970 Single cab
1971 combi
1990 Vanagon GL
2007 Audi A4 3.2L quattro

[ftp2leta]

Want my opinion? I guess not!

The water cooled 4 cyl horizontally opposed was built in the 80', same time as the petroleum crisis. They modified the old air cool engine because... well, they didn't have good engineer and VW was not in his best years.

The engine FOR SOME was plagued with problems at first. They tried to fix those with time with the 2.1L, bad mistake!!!!

So here we are, 20 years later. Was it so bad, NO!
Finnaly it was not a so bad design because SOME people have dove well above the 300K mile mark with those funny engine. Now, It's time for a change and a breath of fresh air. This is how I see things.

But the van will outlast the power-plant. Time to make a change and save those van.

This is what I do for a living.

Best regards, Ben


Link

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Working with rust, grease, dirt and dust is a sad truth.
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[modok]

For me this week has been WBX week
I spent a good third of it inspecting 2.1 WBX cases and cranks and bearings and trying to figure this thing out for a client

There does seem to be a lot of controversy as to if the thing is a lemon or not.
I have seen the insides of thousands of engines, and honestly the design is quite brilliant in some ways.
If there are design flaws other than operator error, it is in a few details that may not have gotten the R&D they needed.

The oiling system is unusual and suspect, the strange recirculating pressure relief and very large main oil galley could be the cause of oil starvation under some conditions, but I do not know how we could know for sure.

The oxidation problem is not unique, other aluminum block engines can suffer the same fate if the coolant is not changed yearly, some have problems and some do not, but it is sure that most people do NOT change the coolant yearly.
Subaru dealers do it for free now to try to get people to do it.

The connecting rods are the same as type-1 on the big end
If a type-1 rod fatigues after 250,000 miles, would it not happen twice as fast in the 2.1? I think so

So I find three silly flaws that you could point to and call it a lemon, but at the same time they are not that hard to fix or get around.

The thing should need a top end rebuild at 150k average, and being a 2-valve per cylinder design truck that is completely normal.
But being as it is you need to also change the rods.


Overall it could compete with the famous 22r as far as being a long life little truck motor. The block and crank and bearings and cooling are very good from what I can see.

The four valve per cylinder subi has a huge advantage(16 valve!), but it also has many not so good qualities.
Put one of those new ones in a truck and feed it cheap gas and penzoil and lets see how those pistons hold up after 100K.

As for what killed the OP's engine, i have no idea, sometimes it is just what they call and act of god, like getting hit by lightning.

[soundmasterg]

[vanjoe]

Don't think I purchased my Vanagon with blinders on. I knew going into the purchase that I was getting an excellent vehicle hampered by a mediocre engine. That's the nature of the beast. You defenders of the WBX motor, I think if you can take your blinders off and be truly objective, you might come to the conclusion that something remarkably like the Subaru flat-four (or flat-six) is the motor that VW SHOULD have designed for the Vanagon, rather than taking a pre-WWII air-cooled motor and building some water jackets around the cylinders in a futile effort to save money. Sorry for the harsh words, but that's how I see it.

Ok I can't keep quiet about this! (surprise) This is a quote from one of the OP's reply. Your talking shit about the VW waterboxer and praising the Subaru. But yet you are rebuilding a VW waterboxer. This makes absolutely no f@#king sense.
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1990 VW Vanagon tin top weekender Carat
1998 Mercedes S420

"Why is there never time to do it right the first time, but there is always time to do it twice?"

"Back to the basics!"

[Captain Pike]

They suck so bad I have only been able to put 250,000 on my Auto Rebuilt twice BUT MOTHER FRENCHEMEN.
That's just me
SorryIlike WASSER BOXERS
Where is my Gaskenixxxxxxxxx..........SNIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
AAAAAAAHHHHHHAAAA
Im not Prvetedddddd


How many have you done?

[modok]

I have only got to see 3 2.1L WBXs
One of them I bought myself just to have

I think people are afraid to rebuild these, for whatever reason

5 cylinder audi?
Neat engine, but nobody has brought me one yet to play with, so i don't know

[GrindGarage]

Mine went 240,000 miles.

It needed rebuilt.
It needed full exhaust.
It could use some FI wiring fixes.
It needed intake and throttle body work.

Did I like it YES.

Is it cost effecive NO.

Spent 5gs on a smallcar subaru swap. Now I have a cheap replacement engine with better power torque and mpg, OBD2 Diagnotstics, EGR, No dizzy modern clean and efficient. Oh I Also Have about 1/2 the rubber In my cooling system all parts I can replace at a FLAPS. I hope that the penut oil helps my exhaust last at least 10 years
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-cliff

91 Vanagon AUTO
97 Single Port EJ22 all smallcar.com

[modok]

I do believe the most important factor in deciding to rebuild an engine is if you like it or not, and cost.

If there were reasonable price OE quality parts availible and people that knew how to do it, this thing could be rebuilt for 1500$ or less, compared to other engines that is pretty darn good.

But it does seem to be pie in the sky, those IFs are just wishes, and it ain't the engines fault

[JWPATE]

The four cylinder VW boxer was among the greatest designs ever, in the field of internal combustion engines. Arguably, it was the finest of them all. Dr. Porsche went at the issue with a blank slate and came up with the unique engine which became the underpin for one of the worlds major car producers.

The boxer engine, in my view, is still a marvel. Smooth, beyond any other four cylinder design, even today.

The above accounted for the great success of VW, more than any other factor.

In my view, the company decided to shift to the inline four primarily for the higher profits inherent in a lower production cost. It shakes like hell, but it is higher horsepower, and cheaper to produce.

The water boxer, is nothing more than an extension of the older 1600 design expanded in size and covered with water jackets. It actually worked well, I think. The several times I have had the engine apart, I have been impressed with how little wear has been present in the cylinders. They run cool (relatively). In hot ambient temperatures it is the oil that overheats (unless you add a cooler).

The 1980's in USA came with EPA requirements which required all the "Heath Robinson" add-on's which make the engines now look encased in a mass of hoses and gadgets. Especially starting with the '84 models, and not really improved much until the company gave up on the design in '91.

I myself, am well along in a project to replace the VW Water Boxer with a Japanese EG33 engine. I am doing it primarily because I climb mountains, a lot. Still, the WBX has never run smoother.......and I approach the swap with a sigh.

My current Westy camper is the third I have known. I ordered it in Virginia in 1984. Delivered in October of that year, it now has over 350 thousand miles. It is well run in, and has seen every corner of this country, and always on a VW water boxer engine. It has NEVER let me down!

As someone above said........it's only an opinion.

[uncommonvw]

I could never figure out why VW chose to redesign the air cooled flat four to use water cooling for the 1983.5 model Vanagons when they used the inline 4 diesel in the 1982 model years.

Would it have been easier to beef up the inline 4 to make more power and torque than to completely redesign an engine? I think it could have been done and would have used the easy to maintain CIS injection instead of the digijet/digifant.

Just saying..... Thoughts.....

[D Clymer]

[Zeitgeist 13]

As always, I find much to respect with Dave's posts^. As I've stated many times before, VW should've made the Audi five the powerplant for the GL/Westfalia/Syncro versions of their vans, both in turbodiesel and gasser models. The base models could easily run the rougher and more spartan 1.8L engines, while they offered upmarket options to encourage aspirational brand loyalty. The WBX is hands down the most durable and long-lived flat four VW ever built, but really it should've been offered during the T2 production era, as a farewell segue leading to the more modern T3.
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Casey--

'89 Bluestar ALH
'01 Weekender --> full camper
NEAT, no ICE.

[soundmasterg]

[VisPacem]

[tschroeder0]

I have been very happy to have the "dreadful" motor, even here in Colorado over all the passes.

The lack of power is very well compensated for by the mileage (mpg), if you are truly into travel and by that I mean multiple long trips >3000 miles each year then having the little boxer is pretty great. I hate spending money on gas.



The last thing I want to do is exchange my stocker for something that not only cost me a bunch of time and money to get into but gives me less mileage, granted when I go with a tc engine upgrade when I need one, it won't be cheap, but the mileages that most people have shared here for thier swaps are not at all impressive, with the exception of the tdi.

It seems that many here are into the power aspect much more than I am?