Today while sitting at a light the car began idling very rough. Simultaneously, the check engine light began flashing. When I say rough idle I mean the entire car was shaking. I pulled off the road and let the car sit for a few minutes which made no difference. The car continues to sputter with loss of power until I get going at a decent clip when it straightens out to a point. Even at higher speeds the car is rougher than usual and there's a noticable lack of power. I'm calling the dealership tomorrow. Not sure if I should attempt driving it or not? Anyone else had similar experiences? My gut feeling is that it's some kind of sensor. Car ran perfect before. There also is a slight hot smelling odor. All the gauges remain normal including temperature and oil pressure. Any ideas

 

Sounds like a misfire, may be a coil pack failure. It could also be an intake air leak. I would start there.

 

I had it on my 05 3.2 A6 on Friday - coil pack on bank 1 had gone - Audi had my car down for a recall to replace all coilpacks in February 2011 but FAILED to bother to contact me - it is at the dealers today to sort this but now I have problems with the camshaft sensor on that bank and the car is running like a piece of crap - only done 52k miles and already had to have a new gearbox at only 30k - complete waste of all that money