Looking for some help. While driving today my car started vibrating and rumbling. It was very bad, didn't have much horsepower (maybe i was hesitant) but the check engine light was flashing too. The car is a 2003 A4 1.8T. Haven't had the codes checked, but anyone have a similar problem or have any advice???

 

codes are required as it could be anything, car having no power means its in limp mode

 

flashing CEL means you have a misfire. Get your ecu scanned for fault codes (autozone will do it for free). Post up the codes here. But if it says "cyl 1 misfire detected" swap the coil pack on cyl.1 with cyl.2, drive, scan for fault codes. If it now say "cyl2" misfire then you know its a bad coil pack. Which is probably the case.

 

You shouldn't drive the car with a flashing CEL. +1 ^ , probably
a missfire. Could be spark plugs or an ignition coil.

 

Same answer

 

or your ignition module if an 03 has one. if an 03 is similar in configuration to a 99.5 as in my case, even though it showed a cyl 2 misfire it was actually the ignition module on top of the air filter that was the root of the problem.

 

last time that same thing happened to my car it ended up in the dealer because of engine sludge,. i hope thats not ur case but its something u should look into. the dealer told me that 90% of the time the sludge builds up on the cam train first. good luck though.

 

This just happened to me yesterday, I just replaced all four coil packs to be safe. Total came to 197 bucks after tax from the dealership, if u use the dealership bring ur registration or vin number.I swapped them out and tested the car one by one. Replacing one fixed it for about 1 minute of driving then i had to replace one more. Not sure if 2 of mine went bad or wtf i did, so im leaving all 4 new ones in and testing the old 4 when i get a chance to see which ones are good.

also dealership said not to drive it with misfires because it will ruin your catalytic converter so lace up or find a ride

 

Thanks for all the help...i'm just going to drive it half a mile up the road to my mechanic (works on strictly foreign cars) and isn't half as much as the dealer. I don't want to drive it far to check the codes, plus having no car sucks right now so i just want it taken care of. I will keep everyone posted...thanks again.

 

Great news, it was only a coil pack! Thanks for all the help and good diagnosis to all. Part only cost $31 plus $30 for labor. Can't believe that small of a part caused the car to run so bad, but now the car runs like new. I just hope it stays this way.

Also, during the absence of the Audi, i was driving an 02' Ford Taurus - if you ever feel you're tired of your car, just drive something like that for a couple of days and you will be thanking God for German engineering.