I have a 1998 A6 2.4.

I am having a cold start issue with no engine management light on the dash, I thought I would investigate the light as I thought it may be faulty. I removed the instrument cluster and to my surprise I cannot find an engine management light of any sort? Should I be looking for the obvious engine icon with the lightning bolt? Would appreciate is someone could confirm?

Next I have a cold start problem with no fault code registered in the ECU? The engine would normally turn once and fire everytime even in freezing conditions. Now it takes several cranks to get it to fire and then the smell of fuel generally associated with this problem. Engine takes less cranks to fire on a cold morning than a warm one but both need to crank. When it does fire it stutters and then the revs pickup. Once running the car perfoms as normal with no obvious performance issues.

One this to note, some weeks ago the car started having problems whereby it would try to cut out when at junctions & islands, the revs would drop low and the engine would have to compensate to prevent cutout. This just disappeared as quickly as it appeared but left me with the cold start problem.

I have removed and cleaned the MAF, I have also ordered a Coolant Temp Sensor which I intend to fit this week. The question I have is that surely if the MAF or Coolant Sensor were defective surely I would get an ECU Error code?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

 

DTC retrieved?

(As a rule here we'd appreciate details on the car - mileage, transmission, drive train, location, primarily driver, repair history....)

 

Yes, the engine with the lightning bolt should be the icon for the MIL.

If the MIL never came on, then the ECU would have no code to register.

As far as the starting trouble, you can experience that without a code being thrown.
You can have a vacuum leak; you can have a valve cover gasket leaking and sucking moisture in - is your starting trouble more accentuated when raining or hot-humid?; you can have fouled spark plugs; etc....all these without causing the MIL to come on.

 

Misfire of any kind gets detected (usually).
Especially accompanied by the strong smell of fuel!
(we are talking OBD2 - correct?)