Sump Strength or General lack of

[Black Knight]

I just got my Leon FR Tdi back today after having cracked the SUMP 9 days ago ! The Garage fixing it said that the way the SUMP is situated it actually is lower than the crossmember & the Front Spoiler !
I was trying to park in a Multi-Storey in a space where other Door Denters would not get at me ! I was so focused on Parking I did not take into account a protruding Kerb on the side of one of the Up ramps. I heard a crack & thought I'd damaged the front spoiler but I'd actually hit the sump & broken a bit off ! Which was obvious by the amount of Oil cascading out of the car.
Why make a sump so weak for it to break at impact when I was doing a maximum of 4 mph ?
The Garage had another 2 Leons in last month for the same type of repair, The mechanic said the constraining design of engines these days means that manufactures have to use lightweight metals to keep weight to a minimum. Obviously that means gone are the days when you can take a Humpback bridge a bit quicker than you should just in case you crack your sump ! What about harsh speed bumps.
I still have to laugh at my **** parking though !

 

[stoneyfordNI]

there was a group buy a while ago on briskoda for steel undertrays , effectively sump guards for this very reason , if ur worried , u still might be able to get one

is a bad day tho all the same

 

[basstard]

Broken two sumps, roads in Roma are complete **** [tho slowly they're deciding to spend some money on them] and the 1st suspension setup I had was low as f*ck,,, so I had to drive everywhere very slow and that eliminated the point of having a fast car.

Now it's a bit higher so I can drive around quite easily, but still got to pay some attention.

After the second time tho I had the mechanic to build for me an iron sumpguard.
Aluminium was too weak, steel was very costy,,, so I went for iron, it's very heavy and might be prone to rust but it's very effective indeed. I had to get a custom one since there was no sump for the mk3 ibiza, just one from OMP but it costed an arm.

You can have one built custom for your car if you find someone who knows how to do it,,, or you can do one yourself, there was even a tutorial on some offroad site somewhere,,, try a search on google.

 

[deezal]

Ive just had my sump replaced, there was a hairline crack in it caused (I think) by hitting a stone on road. It cost £160. It does seem very low slung, which worries me as it could happen again eg.potholes, parking with wheels on footpath etc.

 

[slick]

You can get a Diesel Geeks sump guard, Timbotdi has one, they are VERY STRONG, so strong you can jack the car up on the guard alone!