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Last summer, I realized that one of the valves in my beetle was going out of adjustment much more quickly than it should have been. I've mostly curtailed driving it on long trips since then, since I suspected that one of the things it could mean was something badly wearing out in my engine.
I ran a post by Robert Hoover that confirms my fears. His post says, in part:
Mechanically, a loose valve seat will usually cause the valve's lash to CLOSE and in doing so, offer a significant warning well before the grand finale. Normally, valve lash becomes wider in use. The only times it becomes LESS is when the valve begins to stretch or a loose valve seat is be being hammered into the head, either of which is portent of pending disaster, well worth the effort to drop the engine and sort things out.Robert Hoover, by the way, is someone who's a long-time VW mechanic, VW airplane builder and flyer. Although his writing style is sometimes abrasive, I would guess that his knowledge of VW engines is second to very few living humans. Basically that failure almost certainly is what I feared it might be. The good news is, from what he's saying, it should be easy to spot once I get the cylinder head off.
So I'll probably be pulling the engine sooner rather than later. Maybe in July, we'll see. With a little luck, maybe this won't be a put-the-car-up-for-three-months repair.