Mark: Hi, it's Mark Bossert. I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver. Vancouver's best auto service experience. We can say that because 25 times, their customers have voted them the best auto repair in Vancouver and we're talking cars. How you doing Bernie?
Bernie: Doing very well.
Mark: So today's vehicle that we're talking about is a 2018 Audi Q5. What was going on?
Bernie: The client brought the vehicle into us. He suspected there was something wrong with the engine mounts from having done some research, but that vehicle really felt when you drove it, like it might have a misfire. There was something off when you accelerate in the vehicle.
So we did a diagnostic on it and actually confirmed after verifying there was no other issues, that the engine mounts in fact were bad. You can see the engine mounts are bad when some of the tests we do, if you hold your foot on the brake, put it in drive and accelerate in either drive or reverse, with your right foot, you can actually force the engine to twist and usually see if an engine mounts broken. And you can see these were just jumping up and down in the engine bay. Not a good situation.
Mark: No. So did this create a check engine light?
Bernie: No, it didn't. There's no check engine light. I mean, most engine mounts are typically made of basically rubber that's attached, big piece of rubber that's attached to metal on each end. And one end is bolted to the frame of the vehicle. The other is bolted to the engine. That's a basic engine mount. But these of course being an Audi are much more sophisticated. They have not only the rubber. But they're also oil filled and they also have an electronic control.
So the computer can actually control the dampening of the engine mount to reduce vibration. And you know, you're saying with the check engine light, I mean, it's possible on some vehicles that are check engine light could be on from a motor mount problem.
Mark: But not this one.
Bernie: Not this one.
Mark: All right. Let's look at some pictures. Here we have the Q5.
Bernie: Beautiful Q5.
So these are the engine mounts. This is the engine mounts that we replaced and where the arrow's pointing to, so this is both of the engine mounts. These are the old ones. If you see certain holes through them, these are where the mounts bolt up to either the frame of the vehicle or to the engine. And where the red arrow's pointing, you can see some fluid there. That's oil. It's actually leaked out of the mount. And on the right hand side, that sort of yellowish thing, that's the electrical connector for the dampening control of the engine mount.
These are the two mounts, sort of a top down view, you can see oiliness on the top of the mounts. And that's where the, again, the fluid was leaking out. That's often a surefire sign that engine mounts are bad when you see oil, you know, that's leaked out of them, for engine mounts that actually do have oil filled. Not all mounts are oil filled.
Mark: So this is more on a luxury type vehicle, more expensive, they would go towards this sort of more sophisticated engine mount?
Bernie: Well, you would on a luxury vehicle for sure. But, you know, these kind of oil filled, electronically or some of them are actually controlled by engine vacuum. These kinds of mounts are actually found on much lesser priced vehicles than Audis. I can think of some Nissan vehicles that have them. And really the whole purpose is just an engine mount is there to obviously hold the engine in place, but it's also there to reduce the vibration that's caused by the engine.
I mean, there's a lot of parts and pieces that are moving in a variety of directions and vibrations. And it doesn't give such a smooth feel in the vehicle. If that vibration is transferred into the driver's area of the car. So these sophisticated engine mounts basically take that vibration out.
This is another view, a side view. You can also see, if you look at the right hand side mount, it looks sort of blackened and oily. That's that mount was actually leaking quite a lot more than the mount on the other side. And the new mounts basically look like the old ones, but they're just shinier and no oil leakage.
Mark: Is this an expensive repair?
Bernie: Yeah, it is. It's quite expensive. I mean, the parts are not cheap. And the mounts are buried. As far as fancy imported cars and Audis in general, you know, the labour was time consuming, but not as bad as it could be on some other vehicles. Although it's hard to see them when you look underneath the car, look under the hood, but removing a few things, they do actually come out more easily than expected. But yeah, it's an expensive repair job.
Mark: Right. And what do we have here?
Bernie: This is just an example of a broken engine mount. This is actually from a Smart car. But this is a very basic engine mount, the kind you'd find on either cheaper cars or that you used to find in the past. You see a lot of metal there and then there's rubber and the red arrow points to an air gap there where that rubber is torn apart. So that's sort of how an engine mount will typically fail in a lot of other vehicles.
But with the Audi, of course, there's so many parts cased over, you know, sort of cased over, the engine mount will never really come apart. But in the olden days, you know, engine mounts were even less sophisticated than the Smart car one.
This is a picture of the mount where it's sort of sticking together, but it's still broken. You can see the crack there. But mounts would break and the engine would actually literally twist in the engine compartment. So that's not a good thing when that happens.
Mark: Might even dent your hood.
Bernie: It might. And I mean, the other thing of course, is when an engine twists too much, or even if it just jumps up too much, it can cause damage to certain components that are not meant to have movement. Things like radiator fans. You know, there's only a maybe a quarter inch clearance between the fan and the shroud or hoses only have a certain amount of stretch. So it can actually tear them up, you know, break things. You want to fix it before it's too bad.
Mark: It's not good. So if I'm driving around and my car doesn't necessarily kick a check engine like for this issue, what am I going to see? You mentioned this, I would just like to emphasize, what am I noticing when I'm driving that might indicate this issue?
Bernie: Yeah, a lot of times a bad engine mount will be noted by a clunking sound when you either you put it into drive or reverse. Or if you're accelerating from stop or maybe there's a gear change and there's some kind of shake or vibration or clunk in the vehicle that can often indicate a bad engine mount.
There's also mounts for the transmission too. And those can wear out and break as well. So those are kind of the things you want to look for clunks, bangs, weird shakes. Sometimes too, if you get a vibration in the vehicle just never used to be there.
Engine mounts can also collapse. So they're not dampening as well as they should. And so vibrations from the engine will be transferred into the vehicle. And that can also be noticeable too. Sometimes they're easy to spot. Other times it can be kind of tricky.
Mark: Depends on how crowded everything is in that vehicle.
Bernie: Depends on how crowded, the type of failure, and sometimes we test them and you see, obviously the engine moves way too much. You go, okay, the mount's broken or worn out. But it's sometimes those vibrations where the engine doesn't move too much, but the mounts collapsed and you can't really see anything.
And so it's really a matter of telling the client, Hey, we need to change all the mounts. That can be kind of expensive. But you know, sometimes it's all you can do. And once it's done and fixed, it all works well.
Mark: So if you're looking for service for your Audi in Vancouver, BC, Canada, the guys to see are Pawlik Automotive. They're the experts. You can reach them on their website, pawlikautomotive.com. Or you can call them to book your appointment at (604) 327-7112. You have to book ahead. They're always busy. Pawlik Automotive, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Thanks so much for watching and listening. We appreciate it. Thanks Bernie.
Bernie: Thank you, Mark. And thanks for watching.
