In a message dated 8/29/2009 4:39:39 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
tstone8359@AOL.COM writes:

My  experience with a 1.8 T as installed in my wife's 2004 Passat is that
there  was an oil sludge problem which caused a restriction of oil flow to
the crank  bearings and other critical places. ?The engine was replaced under
warranty by  VW with less than 50k miles on it. ?I always changed the oil
regularly and  used the recommended viscosity, so it wasn't the lack of
maintenance that  caused the problem. ?I recently ordered some new oil filters for
the Passat.  ?They are now larger, like a Vanagon diesel filter. ?I am
assuming that this  redesign was done, in part, to attempt to address the sludge
problem. ?If you  google "1.8T" and "sludge", you will find that I was not
alone with my problem  and that many of the engines in the junkyard referred
to earlier most likely  died of sludge-related issues rather than excessive
chipping or timing belt  failure.

Tom

This is very true and one reason I wouldn't choose this motor.  Now it  has
been shown that if you use synt. oil this problem is less likely to happen.
 Also VW had BG products make a system to remove the engine sludge. This
system  isn't sold to the public only to VW dealers .BG does sell a product
for  compression performance restoration that would probably work, but there
is a  warning on it that says do not use on badly sludged engines.  I
personally  installed a 1.8 92 jetta motor in my vanagon mainly cause I had
everything to do  it with and I really like these motors.  needs about 20 more HP
to make it  right.  later  mark dearing