Plastic engine parts suck

[quickshooter]

I own a 2011 B8 S4 which I picked up at the factory. European delivery is amazing and I hope they bring it back. I have 85,000 miles on the car and love it. I have added a few aftermarket suspension parts and other than that, the car is box stock. My issue is failing plastic engine parts. There is a plastic coolant pipe that dumped all the coolant at 85,000 miles. The problem? A bad design. The O-ring blew out. I checked on how to replace the part. Step 1? Remove supercharger. The pipe has obviously been a problem, Audi has revised it 3 times. Next up, a few weeks later, the DSG filter housing cracked and dumped the transmission fluid. What did these parts have in common? They were both made from German wonder plastic.

Has anyone else had these type of problems?

[Iwantyourcar]

Huge issue with a plastic coolant pipes in Porsche. Unfortunately it seems all too common.


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[fastboatster]

Old brittle plastic parts is a problem for all German cars, not just VW group. There's an opinion that this is because German wonderplastic has some recycled content, but I just don't think that plastic is not going to last forever when contacted by 100+C coolant

[Waffles_s4]

Wait, we are not even gonna talk about the PLASTIC parts that are INSIDE the engine.. The plastic chain guides which break, get loose, and wonder around inside the engine...?

Plastic screws for the SC bleeding ports

Plastic intake flaps

Plastic connectors

Plastic coolant reservoir

Plastic sensors everywhere, and the list goes on

Plastic and heat dont go well together. They crack, break, etc

[Morritse]

Wait, we are not even gonna talk about the PLASTIC parts that are INSIDE the engine.. The plastic chain guides which break, get loose, and wonder around inside the engine...?

Plastic screws for the SC bleeding ports

Plastic intake flaps

Plastic connectors

Plastic coolant reservoir

Plastic sensors everywhere, and the list goes on

Plastic and heat dont go well together. They crack, break, etc

You're forgetting the worst offender. The fucking plastic PCV

[LYKUNO]

[Waffles_s4]

You're forgetting the worst offender. The fucking plastic PCV

Oh ya that one too. Great idea, let's put a plastic pcv under the very hot supercharger, and between the two heads of an already warm engine. Fantastic. And let it heat soak till it cracks.

[Sleipnir]

Plastic is the bane of almost all modern manufactured vehicles.

Plastic parts are cheap, easy to mass produce, and lightweight.

Not much you can do about it, really.

But I'm sure there's a special place in Hell reserved for the executives and engineers that came up with the decision to use plastic.

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[Waffles_s4]

True. And any alternative will increase a lot the price of the vehicle.

Plastic for air box, fine. Plastic for sensors, fine.

Plastic inside the engine itself, or for the pcv or coolant reservoir, not so fine. It's all about context.