Volkswagen EA897 (3.0 V6 TDI)

The revised Volkswagen Group V6 diesel that took over from the EA896 from 2010 and carried the group's 3.0 TDI badge through three further revisions — evo, evo2 and evo3 — into the mild-hybrid era. 2,967 cc throughout.

It is not the EA390, which is the petrol VR6; the two share a manufacturer and nothing else, and the mistake is common enough to be worth checking before a part is ordered.

Where a body stayed in production across 2010 the published sources genuinely disagree about which family a given car carries — some file the 2010–2015 engines as a second generation of the EA896, others as the first EA897. This catalogue lists those generations against both engines rather than choosing, because the answer is the letter code on the car: CASA, CCWA and CDYA are the older family; CDUC, CLAB and CRCA the newer.

It keeps its predecessor's timing chains at the rear of the block, so the same rule applies — an age-related rattle from the back of the engine is the warning, it precedes any stored code, and access means the engine or the gearbox out.

Emissions hardware is the other theme, and on this engine it is substance rather than a footnote: EGR cooling, a particulate filter, and on later cars SCR and AdBlue. Several of these engines were subject to emissions-related recalls and software updates, so establish what has already been applied before diagnosing a driveability complaint as original.