Hi all! New to the forum.

Buying a 98 A4 2.8 30V from a friend. In good condition in general, but seems to have a fairly serious electrical/computer glitch.

LED gear indicator doesn´t show gears in auto or tiptronic mode, oil level light and alarm flashon, although oil level is right, tach doesn´t work, traction alarm or similar displays also.

He´s been told it´s a chip in ECU that needs to be replaced.

Does this sound right? Could all of this be caused by one chip or ECU? Is this a used part or unit that can be easily found?

Thanks for the help and looking forward to responses.

 

usually if the ECU is bad the whole thing is replaced but i could be wrong. as for the LED, it could just the light itself. oil level light is not a good sign. tach could be a bad engine speed sensor. definitely get the car scanned for codes. right now it's worth about 1500 in my book lol

 

buy another one.

 

sell it....

 

Thanks for the responses. I´ll take it in on monday to have it checked for computer faults. Yes, it´s not the car of my dreams, but it´s the car I can get right now as I just moved here to Ecuador, have no credit, and my friend is letting me pay him as I can.