Hey guys. I'm new to the forum and to audi's. I have a 98 A4 2.8. I've had it for about 3 months. I dropped it off at the dealship yesterday because I was having a few problems. Loss of power, engine started getting real noisy, sporatic idle, etc.. They called me last night and told me the cause of all my problems was having the wrong oil filter on my vehicle. The filter that was on there was a Fram filter and is the one they told me to get at autozone. I assumed my problem was a timing issue. Any opinions would be great.

One other question. There is a small button on the post inside the drivers side front door. It has a picture of a car with a few lines coming down from the ceiling. Anyone know what that does? I didn't get an owners manual with my car.

 

The button is for your motion sensor for the alarm. Pushing it will make it much less sensitive for say, if you like to leave the windows open and alarmed.

As far as the dealership goes, they are right about not using the Fram filter, they are pretty much crap. Like, use them on a Ford crap. But, I doubt that it causing all those problems.

 

thanks for the input. i've been trying to figure that button out for quite a while now. still trying to figure out what could be causing the other problems. guess ill find out on monday if its fixed when i pick it up.

 

LOL, if all they do is change your oil filter, it won't be fixed. How would the filter have anything to do with all of that?

Yes FRAM is pretty crappy. They fooled a lot of people with advertising. At some stores they have a display with a filter cut open and you can see that the FRAM looks cheap compared to some other filters. Anyway, most people recommend MANN filters. Personally I use the Mobil 1 oil filters that you can get at Autozone / Advanced Auto along with Mobil 1 oil. You are running a full synthetic right?

And find somewhere else to go other than the dealer. They charge so much more than everyone else. Search around for a good shop in your area and you will save a lot of money on repairs you can't tackle on your own.

 

Audi/VW switched thier filters they were using do to oil slugde issue a few years ago. If you use aftermarket filters you risk oil slugde problems that would cause the above issues. Yes just changing the filter will not fix the problem but it is highly likely that this is the cause. At VW we do BG engine flushes just for this issue andthey work wonders

 

thanks for all the input. you dont know how helpful it is.

 

Doubt that the oil filter is the problem.

Did you have any check engine light? Did they scan for codes? If so, what codes did they get (get the numbers from them), and post them here

Some more information on you car would be helpful.
How many miles on the car?
When was the last time regular maintenance was done (eg spark plugs, air filter).

 

you would be suprised what the wrong filter could do over time. Fram is a big no no

 

I agree that fram is a big peice, but i dont think that it would directly cause this. deff ask the dealer if you were throwing any codes, it cold be slyudging problem but since u have the 2.8 its not as likly, i would check the ICU and ECU first to see if they are garbage that is of course after you check\get your codes

 

i did have a check engine light on, but the only code it was giving me was the one for the secondary air pump(since that thing sounds like a jet engine), and the light turned off the day i dropped my car off. the car has 109000 miles and the spark plugs and air filter were changed right after i purchased the car, so that was about 5-6000 miles ago. should i have them flush the engine regardless? will it help? is it something i can do on my own? if so, where can i get it at?