I will preface this by saying I got completely taken when I purchased my A4. I don't regret getting the vehicle, I'm just upset at the super shady situation I was put in. Oh, I'm also a 23 year old woman who runs an Optometrist's office. Not ridiculously car savvy

So I have a 2003 A4 Quattro 1.8t with 150k on it. Got it on the 18th. As I drove it home from the dealership, my brother followed me (he took me out to pick it up) and noticed it was puffing a slight white smoke every time I shifted. The check engine, ABS, and a third light was on. The third one is an exclamation point with arrows circling it. I didn't really notice these when I was test driving it, but I was also so caught up in the car, I could have just been an idiot and not seen them. I tried calling the dealership and couldn't readily get a hold of anyone, so I took it to a local shop I take my Suzuki to regularly. The mechanic looked it over quickly, plugged it in and said he was getting an O2 sensor reading, meaning one of my O2 sensors was probably bad. He said overall though, the engine looked great. So I took the car back to the dealership (roughly 30 miles away from where I live) because I couldn't get a hold of anyone. Of course there were employees there when I pulled in, but whatever. I asked about the sensor, he said no problem he'd replace it, he'd have it in a week and he'd call me. When I asked about the smoke, he said the car had been sitting for a while, it'll stop on it's own once I drive it a while.

My husband has always worked on his own cars, and should honestly have gone to school for automotive. I was given full reign on this purchase. Whatever I wanted, I was to get. So I took my brother, who also works on his own car half the time, with me to make sure I didn't get anything that had any blatant mechanical issues. The Audi seemed great.

Please understand, before I went into optics, I was a cosmetologist. I don't pretend to know ANYTHING about cars. All I know is what fuel to put into them, when to change the oil, where to get them repaired, and that I like the way my new car looks. I'm also halfway decent at knowing when someone is trying to b.s. me because I have tatas. I got that general impression from the dealership.

So whatever. On the 19th, my husband Justin took the car to work. Maybe 5 miles away from the house. Going to work around 9AM, no problem. Car drove beautifully. On his way home, around 6pm, it started hemorrhaging white smoke. Justin pulled into a parking lot and called me, freaking out thinking it was a head gasket issue. We call the dealer, get a song and dance because the guy is shady as hell, guy tries to lie to me about a bunch of stuff, so I flipped and said no, I'm taking it back, I'm done. We drive it back to the dealership, smoking almost the entire way there, again roughly 30 miles. It smoked heavily when we shifted and/or punched it. About 5 miles away from the dealer's shop, it subsided. Of course. When we pulled into the shop's bay, I got out and pretty much started into him, asking why he sold me a bum car.

At this point, my husband stayed in the car because he doesn't do well with people like that guy. He gets real irritated, real quick and has a short fuse. So the dealer tells me it's not a head gasket, the engine is fine, he ran all sorts of compression tests, inspected the engine "himself", and the engine is fine. He then proceeds to tell me that the one thing he didn't test was the turbo. So I said "Why didn't you test the turbo?" He tells me it's not part of the engine. Fair enough. Part of the exhaust from everything I've read and heard. Whatever. He then proceeds to say, "The turbo could be going." I then made a comment about how I had an engine warranty, I signed the warranty papers, etc. The icing on the cake is when he tells me, "Oh, it doesn't need to turbo to run."

My husband whips the door open and starts into him. I call my shop, the mechanic pretty much laughs at me and tells me that guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I call my dad's shop, almost the same exact response. So at this point, I don't believe anything this douche says to me. My husband tries to reason with him, trying to make him understand our point, and nothing was landing so we got back into the car, pretty much told him to go eff himself, and left. As we were driving, it was still slightly smoking, but not nearly as bad.

The car is also not over heating. It stays at a pretty consistent mid-range heat.

So I take it to the first shop I hit in town. I've used this shop in a pinch if I can't get into my usual one, and I've never been given any reason to think they exaggerate or lie to me about issues. I had them run diagnostic tests on it. They did as much as they could without ripping apart the engine, because that specific shop doesn't work with turbo's typically. I get it back on the 20th and my husband and I get told point blank "Get your money back." which makes my heart sink. I ask why. He shows me a water bottle that he used to collect fluids from my car. It had two layers; the top layer looked like a pinkish color, and the bottom was almost a dark grey or brown of some type. When he shook it up it looked like chocolate milk, pretty much the best description I can give you. He tells me I have oil leaking into my coolant, but not coolant into my oil.

Here's where they completely lose me. He said looking at the engine, it looks great. It's clean, all the belts are newer, within the last 6 months he estimated, I just have oil...leaking into my coolant. He said the only thing he didn't look at was the turbo, because they don't work on them. He said he's almost positive the issue is the turbo is going bad. Whatever. All I'm seeing at this point is money adding up. I don't understand how the two are connected or related, but again, I'm far from any kind of expert or even novice.

So, to sum it up, it's now been sitting in our local Audi certified shop waiting to get looked at tomorrow afternoon. I have a rough idea of what I'm ok with spending on repairs, because I know Audi's are not cheap to repair. My husband did preemptively order the following: k04 turbo, new turbo supply and return lines, oil cooler, diverter valve, oil cooler o ring. Along with the g12 coolant and new wiper blades, for good measure.

I guess what I'm looking for is any input anyone may have. I apologize for the novel. I genuinely feel like such an *** because of the whole situation. I honestly try to be one of those "Anything a man can do, I can at least try to do" women, because my husband may not always be here, and this has just been a huge blow to my confidence. So I signed up here, hoping I can lurk a little and at least become familiar with the terminology and whatnot so I don't sound like a complete idiot when I get work done.

Thanks for reading, I promise not to get this long winded anytime soon

 

Could be a few things:

* Could be a head gasket. I would do the following in this order to check for symptoms/testing:
* Check for bubbling going back to your coolant resevoir (big blue cap)
* Check for overheating. Your gauge would tell you, if you are not overheating then I would be suspicious something else is going on. If you're pluming white smoke then overheating of some sort (more than halfway on the needle) would be seen.
* Pull your plugs and check the color. If they're heavily stained white then it may be an indication of coolant (could also be indication of running lean or something else).
* Check the oil for water. It will look milky, frothy, bubbly.. whatever you want to call it.
* Run a chem/litmus test on the coolant. If you have a head gasket and there is oil or carbon/exhaust gases in it then the test will tell you.
* Pressurize your coolant system and see if it holds pressure. If not then you have a coolant leak.
* Run a compression test. Disconnect coil packs, pull all spark plugs, pull fuel pump fuse (usually #28) and screw the gauge into the cylinder one at a time. Let someone crank on each cylinder for about 10 seconds or less. Stock readings are 170-180. A HG will have 1 or 2 cylinders low.

To be honest I could keep going down the diagnostic path, but if the car doesn't overheat and is pulling otherwise fine then I would suspect your Turbo more than I would the Headgasket.

Are you positive the smoke is white? Has your husband or brother done any of these things? Fair warning, if you've blown seals on turbo.. you may also find coolant in your oil; making it look milky. But I would think you would see more bluish smoke than white... they can look to be the same color when you're driving from inside the car.

I would first take off the Turbo inlet pipe and check for lots shaft play on the turbine wheel. I'd also take off the lower hose to the turbo and check for oil and such. After that I would do the basic steps I listed above.

 

Other thing it might be is the oil cooler. Seems that is a fairly common reason for oil in the coolant but not coolant in the oil. Still doesn't explain the smoke.

Do a quick search for oil cooler and you will see some recent threads about that.

Good luck, hopefully not a head gasket or turbo situation, but if it is and you end up with the new K04 you'll have a nice build and even more fun in your new car!

I had a similar shady dealer situation but no where close to the engine problems at least. I have the same exact vehicle, just not quite as many miles. What kind of deal did you get with that kind of mileage?

 

I paid $5000 for it. Which maybe should have been the tip off. The shop called today and told me the turbo is definitely blown, and so far it looks like that is really the only huge issue. They told me once they get the turbo working, they'll finish looking everything over. They're pretty sure the only other issue is the O2 sensor. We will see!!

 

You can find a good used k03 or k04 for about $200 - $300. A rebuild of the current turbo would probably also cost about the same IMO. That includes new bearings, seals and re-balancing.

 

We ordered a k04 turbo, new turbo supply and return lines, new oil cooler, new diverter valve, oil cooler o ring, g12 coolant as well as windshield wipers haha. The shop we took it to knew we ordered our own parts, and they're ok putting them on.

Let me ask you all this, I have yet to look this up because I literally got home and hopped on here, but I heard that the k04's are standard on some of the beefier audis. Any truth to that? I only ask that because the shop warned me that sometimes "aftermarket" parts take more time in labor because they need to rig crap, but if the k04 comes standard on the higher models, then I would think no rigging needs done, right?

I just want to make sure the shop doesn't try to take me for a ride. He may just have said that in case I ordered some completely ridiculous crap, but I want to make sure all my bases are covered!

 

The K04 was standard issue on the B5 RS4 in Europe, and some variant of it was used on the US-spec RS6. It is a standard OEM part, but in truth, many of the known aftermarket turbos may be better than OEM, not only for their power potential, but because they don't seem to grenade as much as the OEM K03 on the A4. And no, there should be no issue with "rigging" - the difference between a K03 and a K04 isn't very dramatic (physically) and I believe they use the same CHRA (center section) so there shouldn't be any issues with oil/water line connections.

 

Thanks! I should probably just take a male with me to the shop, but I really want to start doing this stuff for myself. I'm ridiculously independent in every other aspect of my life, but when it comes to cars, I'm pretty much of the "Eh, it's dirty, you take care of it" mindset. That's changing!

 

I agree - there are a lot of honest mechanics but there are a lot of cretins too. Soon as a female walks in, they see dollar signs. Don't be her - bring a car-savvy guy with you to sniff out the BS, and when your car needs work, get involved. You'd be surprised how straightforward a lot of this work is.