Hey everyone, my mom just got a 2002 A4 1.8T with Quattro and I must say it's an awesome car. I have a question; the check engine light went on, and I don't want her to have to go to the dealership for a diagnosis. Is there a way to check the codes without a scan tool? I know on my car I can stick a screwdriver into a port on the ECU and it will make the light blink in morse code, then you look up what the code stands for and you can go about fixing the problem. Does my mom's car have a feature like this? And if it does, where do I go about decifering the code(s)? Thank you all for your help.

 

Go to autozone and have it scanned for free. They will give you a code. Bring it back and post it for me. Go grasshopper go.

 

I will definately do the same! I'm going to have it checked out tomorrow.

Before I made the mistake of scheduling an appointment with the dealer- big mistake (95 frickin' dollar mistake). But thank god someone told me about this Auto Zone thing before it was too late.

 

So there's no way to do it yourself? I didn't know Autozone did that.

 

yea, just call before you show up to make sure the guy who does it is there. For example, the guy at my Auto Zone in Hartford is usually there from 8 to 2, but today he was off.

But anyways, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THIS!!

 

You can buy a scan tool (aka vag-com) from ross-tech.com. Best tool I've got for my Audi. It plugs into a laptop. The scan tool at autozone only can scan for generic fault codes relating to emmissions. This cool for CEL, becuase they are typically emission problems. with the vagcom tool you can scan many other things like your radio, instrument cluster, locking system, etc.

 

OK I got over to autozone and I got the code, it's P0171. Anyone know what that means? Thanks a lot for all your help. That autozone tip was friggin' great!

 

P0171 Fuel Trim - System Lean (Bank 1)

Could be a bad MAF, O2 sensor or a vacuum hose leak.

 

Cool. Thanks a lot, you've been really helpful.