Ok..I used the search feature but have not found the problem I have. Well what happens is that I start the car, realize I forgot something in the house and have to turn it off. I come back after a minute or 10 or so, with the engine cold, and have to crank it and/or press the accelerator pedal to get it started. I have had the car 2 days and its done this twice. Could it be excess gas on the plugs? I get no Engine light or anything.

But once its warmed up I can start and restart it as I please. Its weird. Any help would be aprreciated and I would be greatful for it. I am taking it to the Audi mechanic sometime next week, but want to see what other people think.

Also when stopping the RPM drops to about 25 then raises back up...any ideas?

 

Hello,
I have a 2001 A6. I have recently noticed this problem with mine. I have an appointment at the dealer for Monday. It seems that it only happens if you do not let the engine run for a few minutes. I have had it happen when I need to adjust the location of the car in the garage. I am not sure if the computer gets stuck in a certain mode or if a sensor locks out something. Anyways, I will let you know what the dealer says.

Carl

 

I re-searched this on Audiworld.com and they said its just a German car thing. The cold start injectors, well inject a very rich mixture in there and it does not get burned out. They call it "car wash syndrome". Well if you go to Audi world and search this you will get quite a bit of information about it.

But, please get back to this also and tell me what the mechanic/dealer says.

 

Well I got the car back from the dealer. They agree that there is a lot of gas pumped in to the cylinders during the first two minutes of start up. They claim that Audis and VWs continually have a problem with carbon buildup in the cylinder heads. They claim this carbon acts like a sponge and holds all of the gas from the prior short start. Then when you start again, you have twice the amount of fuel you would need to start the car and causes a flooded condition. They said to fix it I have two choices. One - have the heads removed and manually cleaned. Two - Have them perform a "carbon blast". They explained that they remove all of the hoses from the intake area and brush the area clean with some type of solvent. Then they start the car to blast out the carbon. It didn't make a lot of sense to me. They said that they perform this on quite a few cars a week. It was curious when I explained our situation with the restart to the service manager, he had never heard of this before. Yet he performs this carbon blast routinely. Also, the computer never stored any error codes for this situation. He explained that computers after 2000 are very sophisticated and would have picked up a code if there was a problem with any of the sensors.

So anyways, for now I think I am just going to make sure that I run the engine for more than two minutes every time and save some money. I was even thinking about an over the counter gas treatment to see if it helps. If someone has any other ideas, I am all ears.

Carl

 

Hm...thanks for clearing this all up, kind of weird that the manager did not know about it, yet they do it all the time. I added a gas treatment to mine yesterday and will do it again on friday. Its the Lucas brand. I will tell you to see if I see any results.

Oh and how much did they quote you?

 

I was so confused by their diagnosis, that I didn't pay attention to the price. I bought a prestone brand that is supposed to clean the valves and compression chamber. If I get any more info, I will let you know. Carl

 

It seems that the Lucas brand helped a bit. I need to do it I think one or more times to get best results.