I just bought a 99 A4 2.8 manual with 121000 miles from an auction. It's battery was dead so i jump started it and it barely started. Shut down a min after disconecting cables... as it was on it was making a vibrating/clanking noise...if gas was blipped the noise would speed up with the engine.... After bringing it home, it won't start at all now...I bought a new battery and when i turn the key, it doesn't even try to start. Just shows all lights on speedometer and after a sec only check engine light and the light right next to it (not sure what that light means- never seen it before) are still shining. I bought it for a good price so i expected something to be wrong. Can you guys tell me what this could be or the steps i should take to narrow down the problem, or to troubleshoot it. Thanks for any input!

 

You need to figure out what the fault code is. Autozone will loan you a CEL reader I believe. Or if you want to get serious, go buy a VAG-COM tool from Ross-tech.com (the cable hooks up to your laptop to read fault codes and program certain things on your car). Anyone who wants to do their own maintenance needs one of these. If you are a trusting person you can find somebody close to you who will help you scan your car:

http://www.steve-hall.com/cgi-bin/VAG-Locator.pl

Most of the people are very good guys. I've "vagged" half a dozen people who have contacted me through this list. Oh yeah welcome!

 

definately check out condition/amount of fluids,pull all spark plugs and inspect/clean,check battery and distilled water in it if need,check air filter,and get a repair manual,BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO START YOUR CAR AGAIN.

 

Ok, it starts now but dies after a min....There is a clanging noise coming from the engine and it dies because it seems to be chocking...

 

Check the oil man, change it and put some new plugs in it, put fresh gas in and maybe some injector cleaner

 

what do you mean by chocking? as jest said, if you plan to do these repairs yourself you should definitely invest in a vag-com cable from www.ross-tech.com

they're $250 and that's the only place you'll find them for sale...no other websites sell the real ross-tech cables...ebay has cheap copies but they aren't fully functional, you have to use old out-dated ross-tech software, and you have no support whatsoever..ross-tech cables are tagged with registration codes that allow you to use the newest software, and they have awesome customer support..used cables are also extremely hard to find

 

go to auto zone,leave deposit and use obd2 checker to find out what the engine thinks.which pattern describes the clank;1...1...1...1.., or 1111.

 

Ok, i found out what was wrong... The water pump was broken - took the front apart to check - and the settings on the throttle body got erased because the car stood with a dead battery for a long time.