Not starting - cylinders "washed down"

[jacobimIII]

My '99 Audi A4 wasn't starting so I took it in a few days ago. After confirming the starter, battery, etc. were fine, my mechanic took it apart to look at the engine because they did a timing belt last year. They found no problems with the timing belt but were a little confused to find the cylinders "washed out" as they called it. I asked what that meant and he said the cylinders didn't have appropriate oil and they weren't sealing. He asked if the car had been sitting for a long time and I said no because I drive it every day and get regular oil changes.

They are doing some testing today on temperature sensing and other things.

I've been using a fuel additive for a few months to test it. It's made by h2oil and it's supposed to improve fuel economy by allowing the fuel to burn more completely which also creates lower emissions and less buildup in the engine from incomplete burn. It's supposed to create a steam cleaning effect that gets rid of build up inside the engine. So I'm wondering if in addition to cleaning out fuel deposits in the engine, did it also wash out the oil. Is this possible? I only have a basic understanding of how engines work and I though oil is continually dispersed throughout the engine while it's running. My mechanic didn't say the oil in the pan was totally gone. It just wasn't on the cylinder walls. What do you make of this?

My mechanic isn't really good at explaining things but I do trust him. That's why I'm asking the question here.

[Tony Silva]

Wash out refers to the gasoline washing away the oil in the oil control ring which is below the compression rings near the top of the pistons. This situation is known to occur when the engine is cold upon start up and the computer is dumping lots of fuel into the combustion chambers till the car is warmed up. If you turn the car off when the engine is still cold and you shut off the car.The raw fuel sits on top of the piston and eventually drips down past the rings 'cleaning' the oil off the oil control rings. This is a VERY common thing that happens to rotary engines, Rotary engines don't have pistons, but rather two 3 sided 'Rotors'. The reason this happens to rotary engines so easily is because the raw fuel drips down the two rotars and washes the oil out of the two lowest combustion chambers. I have never remedied the wash out situation in a piston engine but I have fixed the wash out on rotary engines. This is what I did to get the rotary engine running again: I pulled the spark plugs out of the motor and poured transmission fluid into the sparkplug hole, I then cranked the engine over (using the ignition key) until just a fine mist of trans fluid was puffing out the spark plug hole. I then reinstalled the spark plugs and the engine started right up.

[gmtech79]

What made him decide to tear into the engine? Was a compression and leakdown test performed?


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