Hi!
A little background on my car:
2001 A4 1.8t quattro
118k
New timing belt as of january, all maintanence up to date

So here is the problem. My timing chain tensioner whas been getting progressively worse the past month. So last weekend, I changed the tensioner- it took a few hours, but I swapped the sucker out, and fixed the problem. Car started right up after, I drove it around for about 20 minutes and there was no missing, rattling from the tensioner, or anything. No CEL or anything.

Then, all of the sudden, I am pulling away from a stop (at normal acceleration in traffic) and while in 2nd gear at about 25% acceleration, i feel a slip (similar to a really bad slip you would feel with a dying clutch) and then all the sudden I throw a CEL and am missing on all 4s. (random misfire codes) and individual cylinder misfire codes). I limped the car 5 miles home (which may not have been a good idea)

Im almost certain that this is a timing chain or belt slip. When i replaced the tensioner, the tensioner was tight and was working perfectly for the first 20 minutes.

I have 2 questions. Its a pain to check the timing on these cars (in order to see the crank i believe you have to put it in service position.

1) What could have caused the timing to slip? Chain or belt? Could a defective tensioner have caused this?

2) is there a way to check the timing without putting the car in service position?

I hope I dont have to spend the time ripping the front end off the car again and resetting the timing. Doing a TB on a b5 is enough work in itself as you all know

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!

 

Did you reuse the belt and tensioner?