Hey Guys,

Being new the forums, its a bummer my first post is about a car problem,butI'm asking for your help. I just got a great deal on a 2001 2.8L A4. However, I had to drive it back home 1600 milesbackto Colorado from New York. Before I left I checked the oil and all fluid levels to ensure everything was where it needed to be, which it was. The car was driving great and I continued to monitor all gauges and fluids during the trip and everything seemed fine. However, after 1500 miles into the trip (basically straight driving) as I was coming in for another gas stop the car seemed to have a significant loss in power and a general feeling of sluggishness (I did not notice while on highway because I was just cruising without using much gas). I thought, gee this cant be good. So i popped the hood and noticed a *small* amount of smoke coming from the engine which lasted for a couple min, and I could also feel a very considerable amount of heat in general coming from the engine. (I had no warnings on the dash of the car) I thought, damn better check the coolant. I did, and found it to be boiling in its resorvoir. So I let the car sit for awhile to cool down, began driving it again and the problem persisted. I finished the drive home and just got back to post to the forums. What could be the problem? What should I do? I'm a bit of a n00b and your advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot everyone.

Oh, and I did do a carfax on the vehicle and there have been no previous problems.

-Alex

 

there is 79,000 miles on the car.

 

The smoke could either be oil leaking from the cam seals onto the exhaust (most likely) and the overheating concern is probably your thermostat.
Its recommended to do the T belt, thermostat, water pump ect right at 80k so you are right there.
Get that done and have someone check for oil leaks.

 

but none of those things could explain the loss of power? the car feels very sluggish now, much worse than before. I believe there could be an oil leak becuase I did have to add 2 quarts of oil when i got the car, but the oil only seemed to be a fraction lower at the end of the trip...

 

Have a diagnostic run while you're getting the timing belt done, our cars will throw a fault code for just about anything.

 

bump. i just realized that i drove from 100ft to 9600 ft and that the change in elevation probably caused about a 50(?)hp drop which is probably a major contributor to all this mess.

 

Listen to auditech, he's half-man half-German engineered vehicle, so he'd be able to tell you anything that's wrong. And I do mean *anything*. You don't even have to finish your sentence and he'd give you a statistical analysis of what's wrong.

 

How much smoke i know my MAF sensor smokes when i have been driving the car hard. I dont know why been meaning to make a post on it maybe your MAF sensor broke... But IDK just guessing listen to the tech before me tho.

 

I have the same issue, did you find the solution?