I have never bought a scan tool becuase my cougar has an way to access basic codes through the on board computer and the exploder only has 55k miles and has never had a code.
And when issue with the cougar come up I can typically diagnose them without a scan, I have had the thing for 100k miles and know it pretty well. This audi is just a little different to deal with and I am not used to it at all yet.

 

yea definatley.. although the only other cars ive been around and tinkered on were land rovers and jeeps.. i imagine the cougar and a4 are quite different beasts haha.. i love workin on this car

 

There are the differences between the cougar and A4, it is actually nice, the A4 has a little better layout and more room under the hood. But I have also owned a couple diesel VW's and a gas VW that were always easy to work on with minimal problems.

I did notice something else today when I came back from picking up my lunch. On the intake side of the enginebay there is a broken black plastic tube I can see hanging down. I can't tell if it is a second air intake to the filter housing or what it is. I am hoping it is still ligth when I get home tonight to be able to look at it. Any ideas of what this is? Similiar in connector type and material to the cold air tube on going from the grill to the filter box.

 

looks like this tube should have connected to something next to the Alternator (I think it was the alt, it is dark out).

 

haha i was just gunna go outside and look to see if i could make out what youre describing and i remembered its pitch black out here too haha.. if you could take a pic or something and post to give us a better idea? its hard to figure out what a hose could be without actually seeing it..

 

I'm going to try and get a picture of this tonight if I can find my damn camera. My wife always takes it to use and I don't see it for 2 months.

Well I cleared the codes and the P0102 code is still there. Is that common to not be able to clear? Is it a bad connection to the ECU or something possibly? After driving a little while the P0138 and P0168 o2 codes both came back as well. I was hoping someone would recognize the set of cel's I have with the O2's egr and maf as a common problem that is related to one of the items. I guess I will start with replacing the maf on it and go from there.

I did read somewhere that the remaining CEL for the MAF could be a sign of a bad ECU. Is that a common issue with these things?

Hopefully it is light out tonight when I get home and I can tinker around a little more or at least warm enough this weekend that I can go out and check things out.

 

Well ordered a used maf that has a DOA warranty on it wo hopefully changing that helps some.

I did also get to look at that broken tube I was talking about a little closer. Looks like it goes to the back of teh alternator for cooling. Is that a common or typical thing to have a cooling feature on the alternator in these cars?

 

Bought a used MAF and it removed that code hasn't come back yet and it seems to idle a little better with a little crisper acceleration.

I did still get the 141 and 161 o2 sensor codes coming back as well as a 1101 code which is a low voltage o2 code. I need to figure out what to do if these o2s are really bad I will likely not replace them unless I can find a good deal. Autozone here wants like $200 each and form the sounds of it I should have 4 but hopefully only 2.

I also haven't seen the temp code come back and the gauge seems to get to the middle now regularly. I think maybe when it was just so damn cold for awhile it couldn't get to temp. I also have to check but I think my electronic fan is on all the time. Seems a little odd and would contribute to the problem getting to temperature.

 

Did you end up buying the whole maf or just the sensor? Mine is acting up again with the exact jumping of idle and then stalling. Cleaned the maf with no luck. Only does this on idle though and no codes this time. First time was the engine misfire.

 

I bought the whole MAF used from some guy on EBay. I did only swap the sensor because 1. I have the special torx for it and 2 I didn't want to unbolt the airbox and remove everything else to get the whole MAF out. 1 minutes of work v. 10 minutes, I picked 1.

after a few days of driving it is still running much better. idle is still a little rough and the cel is still on for the o2 codes and I will check it again this weekend see if anything else has come up. I might just run seaform 1/2 in vac, 1/2 in oil and ful bottle in gas then pull all the o2's and clean them, let them dry, change the plugs and see where that gets me for smoothing out the idle and maybe helping with those codes.