Hello group.

I've purchased a 2006 A4 Avant Quattro, my first Audi. The car is in excellent condition, well cared for. It has the 3.2L engine. The car is USA specifications and I live overseas. The car has 57,000 miles, the service manual shows it was factory serviced up to 35,000 miles and the owner assured me it was serviced beyond that just not at the dealer. The car sat a lot in the past year or so and was quite dirty. I gave the car a good wash and cleaned inside the engine compartment which had a lot of leaf debris and filthy.

The following day I drove the car for some registration stuff and when departing the location the car suddenly lost power, stalled, and could not be started again. Luckily we were near a service facility. The determination, that turned out to be correct, was an electrical problem. A 50 amp fuse in the panel inside the hood in front of the drivers side had blown and one of the ignition coils was blown. Both of those items were repaired and the car started right up, drove it to work, happy.

3 hours later leaving work I start the car, it does not run smoothly, then runs very rough, a puff of smoke form under the hood and an electrical smell, car dies. Tried to start the car again and it started, but barely running, 400 RPMs, I shut the car down. I did not investigate the problem at that point as I had to find a ride home.

I suspect another of the ignition coils failed and perhaps blew the main fuse again. So I suspect my cleaning of the engine compartment and the introduction of moisture may have caused this. The car ran fine prior to this, no problems, up until I took possession. I read some online postings after the fact and it sounds as if I should have protected the ignition coils and other electrical areas with plastics to avoid direct contact.

I'd like some advice on how to proceed. The replaced ignition coil was from late 2005 so I suspect the coils need to be replaced anyway. I think the wetness of the coils probably caused them to fail although I'm not sure how or why. I've cleaned other engines the same way, even my 2010 Volvo, and have never had an issue. I thought the engine compartment is supposed to be water resistant. Is it just bad luck and the coils were due to die or have I majorly screwed up spraying water on the engine?

Any advice is appreciated.

Regards,
Hortumbey

 

my 05 allroad needed to have all 6 of the coils replaced and Audi covered it. This was at a dealership in Denver. It was a recall issue. I would check with them anyway. I've had my engine steam cleaned a few times and never noticed a correlation.