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The early 2000s were Volkswagen’s boldest engineering years. Under Ferdinand Piëch the group built VR6, W8, W12 and W16 engines, and diesels with eight, ten and even twelve cylinders. One of them went into the first-generation Touareg: a 5.0-litre V10 TDI with 313 hp in Europe (310 hp in US trim) and enormous torque, the engine VW famously used to tow a Boeing 747 in an advert.
A mechanic in the US recently got hold of a failed V10 TDI from a Touareg with more than 320,000 km (about 200,000 miles). Someone else had diagnosed a bad camshaft. He took the engine apart to check, and called it the most complex diesel he has ever worked on.
What he found
- Heavy carbon in the EGR system. The EGR valve and passages were caked, a sign of deposits building up inside the engine over years.
- Two engine control units, one for each bank of five cylinders.
- No timing chain or belt. The camshafts are driven by gears, which is rare but usually very durable, and it let VW fit such a big engine into a mid-size SUV.
- Gears for almost everything else too. The starter, power steering pump, A/C compressor (through a clutch) and even the alternator are gear-driven. The gear case at the back of the engine holds around 20 gears and looks like a Swiss watch scaled up.
- A fuel pump combined with the vacuum pump, with internals that resemble a rotary engine.
- Oil traces around the turbochargers.
The diagnosis was confirmed: one camshaft was worn enough to stop valves opening fully, and it had already damaged its lifters and valves. Everything is packed so tightly that almost every job means removing several other components first.
You can see the whole job in the video below. Automatically translated subtitles can be turned on in the player settings.
If you own a V10 TDI or a first-generation Touareg
On an engine this unusual, generic repair guides do not help. The factory manual for the 2004 to 2010 Touareg covers the V10 TDI gear train, the camshaft and lifter replacement, EGR cleaning and the wiring for both engine control units. It also covers the V6, V8 and W12 versions, matched to your VIN.
Our manuals are the manufacturer’s own service information for your VIN, delivered as a PDF with working hyperlinks: click a step in the index, or a connector in a wiring diagram, and you go straight to it. No scanned pages, no guessing.
- 2003 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
- 2004 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
- 2005 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
- 2006 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
- 2007 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
- 2008 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
- 2009 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
- 2010 Volkswagen Touareg factory repair manual
