A6 automatic says- depress clutch pedal before starting
 

now i'm really stumped. anyone seen this come up on the dash display before?
this is a 99 2.8 automatic 30v that I just got done doing the timing belt on for the second time. the first time i was replacing the thermo from overheating issues and the belt slipped off. have all the tools and have followed all the proceedures to the "T". if I depress the gas pedal and hold it it tries to start as well as just cranking relentlessly without the pedal.
but just semi-sputters. WTF on this coming up on an automatic???

That message should only be displayed if you have a MT coded ECU, I swapped form TIP to MT, even when I used the TIP ECU it would say, apply brakes ....., once I swapped in the MT ECU it said depress clutch...

thanks 77 but what does this mean? is it a normal message
then ( i have not seen it in the 6 years i have owned this car)
or has something happened that I need to replace or repair
to get it running again? I'm not sure what to do next.......i have to beleive the timing is now correct.

on the manual trannys there was a clutch safety switch which needed to be depressed before the car would start. Its is seriously weird that you are getting it on an automatic. Has this car been an auto its whole life? Anyone know if the autos have a safety switch for the brakes that is similiar to the clutch switch?

... just to throw it out there, maybe someone came in the middle of the night and swapped your ECUs... gremlins I say...

i know , i've owned no less than 20 foreign vehicles over my life and have worked on all of them at one point or another. possible the ecu could be just toast and the car doesn't know what the heck to do or does that not happen often? it is and always has been an auto but it does have the triptronic tranny......just ordered a vag com off of e-bay so maybe the codes can clue me in. I bought a superchip years ago for an expediton (new in 2000) and it has been invaluable. 198k and it runs perfect. any little odd thing that goes , just plug it in and tells u what is out of wack. I hope I have luck with the one for the audi as i'm done guessing.

when you get your vag keep us posted. I am really curious to see what is going on in your cars brain that makes it think its a manual

u got it, should have the vag by wed.
this is a car we no longer use daily but I'd love to get it running at a performance level again to keep the miliage off of the new ride. we used it ourselves back in the early 2000's and then just kept it as a great safe car for two teens to beat the crap out of before we made them buy their own rides.
all in all it's in decent shape and I really have not put much dough in it because I always did the work myself.
ie: 1 driveshaft and boots, struts, brakes, tie rod ends and such, abs module rebuild and the regular BS. i can't remember much else going arry.
not much over 10 yrs........

Any news. I just did my timing and camshaft seals. I got the same message. I double checked timing and turned over twice by hand, everything is fine. I don't know if I should order the vag com also.

This is my main car, and so I would like to figure this out asap. Please help.

Your saying you got the depress clutch to start engine message? If so I would start by checking all your fuses you may have blown one that feeds the trans control module. if they are good I would visually inspect the tcm which is in a plastic box under the carpet in the front passenger area I have rebuilt two flood cars caused by the battery drain problem and both gave me this message because the tcm had failed due to water damage. Open the box and inspect the connections but since it happened after you did the timing belt I am thinking you may have done something to cause a fuse to blow giving you this problem.

Post back if you find the cause since the previous posters never posted a resolution.

Ok, No blown fuses. I think the battery was low. I charged it and also unpluged the ECU under the winsheild wiper driver side. This lets me start the car, but now the idle is rough and very low, about 500 rpm. Also it will stall out when you have been revving the engine, but the let off the gas it drops down to about 100 rpm then stalls out.

The code I get when I start is:P1392-Manufacture Control. However when I look online it says the code is for the Camshaft Pos.Sensor,Bank2 Open Circ./Short to B+. What does that mean? Did I mess up the timing, or just the sensor? It seems to run smothly over 1000 RPM.

Thanks