Audi A4 - any ideas?

jackieb

We have a 2002 A4 with almost 94k on the clock. It has been running fine. Today, I took my daughter to school and when I slowed down the engine seemed to vibrate, like it was about to stall, and the engine management light has came on (it's on all the time, not flashing, if that makes any difference). Wasn't sure if i'd make it home as everytime I slowed down it seemed to vibrate more.

Any ideas as to what it might be before I phone the garage?

TiTheRev

Could be one of many things, fuel or air starvation, blocked air pipe, a sensor gone haywire and sending the wrong signals to the engine management system (that'd be my guess), but the ECU will have stored a fault code for the issue. Take it to a garage and get them to read the fault, should be a quick diagnostics, and hopefully quick fix too...

jackieb

I hope so. Thanks. I phoned the garage and they wouldn't be able to fix it until Monday but they said if I took it down they'd get it onto the diagnostics computer today. The light was flashing when I drove it to the garage though.

TiTheRev

Let us know how you get on...

jackieb

Will do.

jackieb

It was the ignition coil. And they managed to fix it today after all.

jackieb

Hello again.

My engine management light has came on again today, although the car seems to be running fine. About 3 days ago the engine seemed to shudder when I started up, although no lights came on, but the car has been fine since (done about 250 miles since. Not going to run it until I get it to the garage now because the engine light has came on).

My question is, if it's another ignition coil, would I be as well getting the remaining ones changed at the same time? Are there 4 in total?

The last time the part didn't cost much, and the garage only charged for half an hour time, but it cost £35 to put the car onto the diagnostic computer, bringing the total bill to over £90. As the last one failed last month, I don't fancy having to pay to get the car on the computer every time a coil goes, if the chances are they're all going to go one after the other.

Hope this post makes sense!

MX5huggy

There is only one coil (but i do stand to be corrected) so unlikley to be that. There are 4 (pressuming it s a 4 cylinder) plugs. Really you will just have to go and get the fault code read. You could get yourself a OBD II scanner to read them yourself.

goldspanners

MX5huggy wrote: »

There is only one coil (but i do stand to be corrected) so unlikley to be that. There are 4 (pressuming it s a 4 cylinder) plugs. Really you will just have to go and get the fault code read. You could get yourself a OBD II scanner to read them yourself.

there will be 4 coils, they have independant coil packs. one for each cylinder,its fitted on to of the spark plugs.
if youive got the cash to change all 4 ( well the other 3) then i would,if its going to cost you £90 every time and the parts are cheap enough then change them all.
i would have done this when the first one went,its just like on older cars when one H.T lead went down it was best to change all of them.

jackieb

goldspanners wrote: »

there will be 4 coils, they have independant coil packs. one for each cylinder,its fitted on to of the spark plugs.
if youive got the cash to change all 4 ( well the other 3) then i would,if its going to cost you £90 every time and the parts are cheap enough then change them all.
i would have done this when the first one went,its just like on older cars when one H.T lead went down it was best to change all of them.

Thanks. Last time I just put the car in they said they'd only have time to run it on the computer, but they actually phoned me up and said it wasn't a big job and they'd actually managed to fix it straight away. After reading up a bit on it I think I might have asked about replacing all 4 at once - but at the time i'd no idea how much it would be. The part was actually 20 something £'s (can't remember exact cost).

curlyfairy

Is it a job you could possibly do yourself?i have done it before,not a major job and not many tools required,might save you a few pounds if it is the same fault.


Ben.