Last night, my wife moved the car about 30 feet and it's been below freezing for several days now. This morning, it wouldn't start. I've done some reading and it several other owners describe a similar condition. They claim that by cranking the engine for about a minute straight, the car finally starts back up. I haven't tried this yet.

What could cause this? It has a good spark and I could hear the fuel pump when I crank the engine. Low residual fuel pressure? I thought I smelled fuel when I pulled the spark plug.

 

Anybody????

Buehler?

Buehler?

Buehler?

What about the Audi Technical bulletins? Know where I can find them on the web?

 

When I checked the fuse box, there were two wires, a red and a blue, going directly into the fuze connections. Only the red wire had come out of the connection. The end of the red wire is just bare, crumpled wiring. No idea where they go to. That I can tell, everything on the car is stock. Is this some kind of factory recall?



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The same thing happened to me last week,I bought a vag-com hooked it up,'bottom line it didn't help .I hate to say it but it may just be carbon build up or old wires/plugs because I just cleaned the cables charged the bat and turned it over for a min. and it started and beat the hell out of it and now it runs great. I do plan to change the plugs and fuel filter[/align]

 

check for fault codes

 

The only fault code that came up was multiple cylinder misfire. I might try replacing the plugs but they did at least make a spark.

 

Well I called the shop today and they say that the engine has no compression - like 10 psi per cylinder. My new theory is that the timing belt probably jumped a couple of teeth to where the valves were in contact with the pistons. It was very cold out the night before it wouldn't start; maybe some ice formed that caused it to jump. I just had the timing belt replaced about 10K miles ago so maybe the work is under warranty. They haven't confirmed that the engine is ruined but unless it's one of those variable compression engines, I can't think of any other reason why the compression would drop like that.

 

I think you may be experienceing what is known as The Lawn Mower Syndrome (volvo world). You start the car and move it 20 feet out of the garage to get the lawn mower out. You shut the car off and mow the yard. Once finished you try to start the car but it won't start. In Volvo's this was caused by a loss of compression in the cylinders. There is a long explaination for why, but I won't get into it. If you care to research it go to brickboard.com or Volvospeed.com and do a search. The suggested solution was to remove all the spark plugs and pour a SMALL amount of oil in each cynlinder, put it all back together and start the car. The oil will help the piston rings reseal to bring the compression back up so the engine will start. This was a common problem on the 850's with an all aluminum engine.

Best of luck,

Jeff

 

That's almost exactly what the shop did! They replaced the fuel-fouled plugs, squited some oil into the cylinders, hooked up two additional batteries and cranked and cranked it until it finally started. They said it ran really rough for a while but it finally settled down. They also said that the timing belt was off by 1/2 of a tooth (belt tension was a little loose). It also has excessive carbon build-up on the pistons. He recommended adding a quart of transmission fluid to the oil? That this would clean-off the carbon. Anybody ever heard of this? Are there more conventional ways of cleaning off the carbon w/o removing the heads?