Hello everyone,

This morning I ran into a problem with my 2003 3.0 A6. About a half mile away from my house I was at a stoplight and my car started idling extremely rough. Seconds later the CEL light started flashing. Once I started driving it again (to the nearest parking lot), the engine was still running extremely rough and I could feel the vibrations up through 45mph and when I stopped the car to turn it off. I then it sit for a couple minutes because I have had a rough idle problem problem before that was fixed by turning the car off and letting it sit for a minute or two and turning it back on. Once I turned the car back on, nothing had changed so I slowly drove it back to my home. During the ride home (no longer than about a half mile) it started to smell as if something was burning. When I parked the car and popped the hood I noticed two problems.

One was that one of my coil packs had came loose and popped up. It was the back right one closest to the steering wheel (it is the one in the picture).

The other problems was kind of behind the engine. I looked for where the melting could be coming from and seen what looks like some kind of bolt glowing red hot! I have attached a picture to show you where it was coming from.

Also, if it means anything, I changed my spark plugs last saturday. Everything had been running fine since this morning and I have put over 200 miles on the car this week since the change. Can anybody help me diagnose the problem and what the fix may be? Thanks so much.

 

if i'm looking at the pic right, i'd say you might have a plugged cat?

 

That looks as an exhaust copper nut. Must have been a hell of a temperature to make that nut glow like that.

 

I would order a vagcom cable. In the mean time while you wait pull the pipes and see how it runs unrestricted. You didn't have any CEL's before this?

 

i had that same problem, with it glowing red, i thought my engine was on fire!!! i also had the rough idle... i changed my cam shaft position sensors and it fixed the problem and i have not had that burning smell again!.. they are about 50 bucks each and there are four of them, you can change them your self.. all you need is an allen key.. i had some mechanic tell me that it was a vacum problem and that i needed to change those gaskets, and i used caurberator cleaner to find a leak and couldnt.. as i said the cps, change them all

 

If the ignition coil was loose, that is probably your misfire (flashing CEL). If you had no spark, you were burning fuel in the cat instead (glowing cat). Not sure about the original rough idle problem, get the VAG-COM cable and look at measuring blocks for misfires (15 and 16 IIRC). You may just have a bad coil.

 

Thanks guys. I'll check it out when i get back in town on monday and keep you updated. Thanks again for all the help. hopefully its one of the easy fixes you all said

 

Holy smokes! I only have one camshaft position sensor in my '95, 2.8L

 

Looks like its a misfire is Cylinder #5, can anybody tell me the mapping of the cylinders so I know which one is misfiring? I am assuming its the one closest to the steering wheel since that was the one that was popped up when the issue occured. The coil probably fouled out and is leaking gas into the exhaust which is causing the burning...man i hope I didn't roast my cat!

 

Here's your answer.