I'm new to Audi, bought a 2000 2.8 A4 Quattro as a second car. The prior owner was a friend of a friend who took decent car of the car.

On Wednesday my CEL flashed on the dash for about 5 seconds and kinda stumbled for a second but went back to normal. The next day it happened again for a few seconds and back to normal again. I took it for a longer drive yesterday and had no CEL and the car ran fine, and today no problems, should I be concerned?

I took it to Autozone yesterday to have them run codes and nothing came up, weird??. Any ideas what can cause this, the PO had the plugs, wires and coil pack replaced a year ago, Timing belt done 8k ago, valve cover gaskets done 5k, next oil change due in 2k.

I've been reading a bit about VAG-Com, is this something I can get from Ebay and download to my PC and run diagnostics/, which one should I get.

Any help appreciated

 

You can get the VAG lite software here:
Ross-Tech: VCDS

and then get the cable off ebay, a cheap one, but it won't work as well as the one that you can get with the full software from Ross.

A lot of auto zone hand held scanners don't pull all the audi codes.... If you get the VAG or go to a service shop, it may pull the codes, or just see on this forum if there is a fellow audi enthusiast in your area that has a VAG Com already....

 

So your CEL flashes, then does not stay on? That is odd, because the flashing light means converter damage is possible. You should have had a misfire code stored.

 

I had the very problem with my 1.8T not too long ago.
It flashes because fuel is still going into the cylinder and not getting burned, and making your exhaust really rich which can lead to catalytic converter damage.
It turned out to be one coil pack. The one coil pack that wasn't OEM.


My cat just passed smog like a 5 star champ even after this problem but you should still get it fixed asap.



When it happens again, if you can, get out and pull one coil pack at a time. If the car stumbles more then you know that cylinder is good. When you find the coil pack that, when pulled, makes no change in the stumbling, that is your target cylinder.

 

Correct, CEL flashed for 3-5 seconds and then disappeared, hasn't come back in two days and car runs fine.


I had the car inspected for emissions three weeks ago it and passed with flying colors so I assume the cats are good.

what are the ebay kits that come with cable and disk for $9.99, are those code readers or garbage?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VAG-COM-KKL-409-1-OBD2-USB-Cable-Auto-Scanner-Scan-Tool-Audi-VW-SEAT-Volkswagen-/350766989906?pt=Motors_Automotive_Tools&hash=item51ab578252&vxp=mtr

The Ross is pretty expensive for $299-399, don't feel like throwing that money around if it's not an issue.

 

Cable you listed should work okay.

 

...so why would you buy the Ross at $399 verses the $9.99 from Ebay, what does the Ross do that the Ebay one won't do?

if it happens again, I will try pulling the coils to see what coil is misfiring.

As I mentioned earlier, I only have about 5k miles on a new set of coils,plugs and pack...do coils go that fast, do they not last long?. To add I have 117k miles on the car

 

I have not had the CEL go on again, is it possible that bad gas can cause the CEL go off?, the reason I'm asking is because our local gas station apparently had issues with people complaining about getting bad gas.

also will the gas cap cause the CEL to go off?

 

Sometimes a faulty or loose gas cap can give you a CEL. I haven't had one in the B5 yet but I know of others who have had that problem in other vehicles.

 

The CEL is back, I had it checked at Autozone and it came up with 4 codes, misfire code for the 1 and 6 cylinder. A camshaft position senor code P1338 and and EVAP code P1426.

I changed all the coils last night and it seems to idle and run ok. The questions is now I noticed a sulfur smell coming from the exhaust, is it just left over gas from the misfire?

Also should i be concerned about the camshaft position sensor, should that be changed now or could I wait. Will it do any harm to engine.

Finally, the EVAP purge , does that have to be done now?

One last question, when I changed the wires, I hope i didn't mix the order on the coil pack. If you pop the hood and look down you see the coil pack, it's basically two rows of three to plug the iginition wires into.

Does anyone know the order of wires on coil pack, I have 2000 A4 2.8 Quattro, from what i know the first row towards the front of car the order from left to right is 3,2,1 and the back row towards rear of car left to right is 5,4,6. Can someone confirm this please just want to make sure I didn't mix them up.