Fellow forum members,
I’ve been a member for just about two weeks now, and in keeping with the spirit of the board I decided to post the following story in the hopes that it will help the next person.

I apologize up front if this story seems over the top at times but to that I would say, what happened to her was over the top. But if you can endure it to the end, it will warm the cockles in your heart.

Ironically, I am not the Audi owner in this story. The owner is a friend of mine. She’s had this problem off and on for almost a year now, and she has been completely taken advantage of at different stops along the way. Now I know we all have our stories about mechanics (indies and dealers) and I won’t bog down this post with that minutia. Suffice it to say Inskip Audi in Warwick RI should fold up their operation for what they did to her only to have her drive away over $3k poorer with the very same problem she asked them to solve. And she says she has stopped keeping track of what she spent on indies.

Enter Audiforums.com!

She learned that I am somewhat handy so she asked me about it. Having owned a couple of BMWs I know the deal. I knew there would be an Audi owners forum out there like this one. I found you, created an account and did my due diligence. I searched, lurked, pm’d my way to a very happy ending.

Her problem:
DTCs
P0300, 0303, 0305, 0422, 0432, 1392
Those translate to multiple cylinder misfire, cylinder 3 misfire, cylinder 5 misfire, cam position sensor short to ground, and both cats efficiency below threshold.

Now at any given point, she’s been told she needed two new cats, two new cam position sensors, new o2 sensors, coil packs, plugs, ignition control modules, etc. Now……. I know my way around an engine, and I’m an even better trouble-shooter(if I can say so myself). You give me an alldata subscription for it and I’ll fix the LHC! (well maybe not the LHC but that wouldn’t stop me from trying).

I spent a couple of afternoons isolating the different components in the loop. From the beginning the problems sounded cooky. Her car would just drop cylinders randomly. No consistency whatsoever as to when. It would just happen. It was a scary situation for her. She had no idea what was going on and it had been going on for almost a year. A flashing MIL and a car that couldn’t get out of its own way. She didn’t know not to continue driving it (after all, she’s a chick! Just kidding ladies). Anyhow, I felt in my gut it could not have been mechanical but I certainly wasn’t going to buy parts just because my gut said so (attention Inskip Audi – a policy you should adopt!). I will admit, at first, I was slightly intimidated with volunteering considering the number of times she’s been told it’s fixed. And by folks with a lot more credibility than me when it comes to Audi repair.

Fast forward

After doing all the necessary tests (if anyone would like to know what tests I performed per ALLDATA, just pm me.), I isolated the problem to one component. The ECM.

Now, I’m not suggesting anyone simply jump right to swapping out the ECM, but after reading a lot of similar posts, there were a number of ideas being shared that were not listed as possible causes. Some of them were things I did need to check first, but some of them were not.
And I even read where some simply don’t trust DTCs. I’m not sure I trust them implicitly either, but they are always the best place to start when applicable.

I convinced my friend to order the ECM. Ironically (there were a lot of ironies in this story), I probably had the hardest time convincing her to do anything after what she had been through. I wish she had been as thorough with the guys who took all her money but I digress. She just didn’t think it was possible to fix the car anymore. We found an ECM on eBay for $80 bucks (they list for $268 at the dealer).

I swapped it out in 10 minutes and fired her up. Immediately, I noticed the MIL was not lighting up the cabin. Scanned her, no DTCs. No way this is right. Scanned her again, no DTCs again. Took her out, got on her. Threw her into manual and high curved her for a good distance. Not a problem at all. No codes thrown after pulling her back into her driveway. Hoo Effin Ray!!!!

It’s communities like these that keep hope alive in the world of DIY auto repair. My friend can now put her kids in the car and zip them off to where ever they need to go with no worries. She now remembers why she bought the car(as do I, I know it’s been said before but - thank you German engineering!!). She thanks you for helping her love her car again. And I thank you.
Here’s to many more happy endings because of the members of Audiforums!!

 

I always enjoy posting on forums whether it is for my Audi, BMW, Porsche or my Lotuses.

 

when you said you took her out and got on her .. were you still talking about the car ?

 

HAHA I was thinking the same thing ^^^^

 

Great post!