Hey guys.. These forums look awesome, I wish I had known about them sooner!

Basically, my car is slowly dying on me . I was washing my car one day with the radio playing and after I was done washing it, I went inside and left the radio on... Well The battery eventually died and I didnt even notice until I went to crank my car 4 days later.. So my Audi was parked on a hill (facing down the hill) for four days with a dead battery. No problems right? just jump it and off I go.... Wrong! I tried to jump it, wouldnt stay cranked... So i moved the car to a flat surface hoping that it wasnt starting because it wasnt receiving enough gas. The flat surface did not help at all. The car sounds like it is almost choking itself out and will never stay cranked... I figured that I may have clogged the fuel filter when I was trying to start it on the hill, so I replaced that. No change. When I eventually got the codes for the errors I got a MAF code, and some kind of throttle body code.

My queston is how could a dead battery be the cause of all of this? The only problem with the car was that they battery died, now I seem to have 2 problems instead of 1 completly different one. Any suggestions as to how I should fix this? Should I just clean the MAF sensor and Throttle body, or replace them both? Would these be problems that could arise from sitting on a hill with a dead battery for 4 days? The car will stay cranked if you force the throttle down but as soon as you take your foot off of the gas , it dies immediatly...

This car has 255k miles on it and I have never had any major problems with it until now.

Oh I forgot to mention the car 0_o.... its an Audi a4 quatro '99 2.8.

 

Sometimes if you let a battery go to long it will ruin it. Replace the battery and try again. I bet it will solve your problems.

Josh

 

When you connect the terminals to another battery, should this not correct the Dead battery problem?

 

No not necessarily. I had the same problem in my first A4. Dead battery. Tried to jump it it would start and then die almost instantly. Just happened to my parents motorhome as well. We put the thing on a charger for 3 days straight and it still wouldn't start. Get a new battery and try that. Or if you don't want to buy a new one, steal one from your parents or someone elses car. COMPLETELY unhook your current battery, and put the other one in and try it again. Make sure it's a GOOD BATTERY though.

Josh

 

OMG dude 255K props for that... ok this exact same thing happened to me... except my bettery died because it was bad.. ok first i need you to tell me if your battery keeps it's charge.. in other words, are you having to jump it to start it everytime?.... if the battery is bad get a new one first! ok that wont solve your problems! whats happening here is that your throttle body is very freeking dirty with oil and other crap from trying to jump it so many times! so what you need to do is take the throttle out to clean out...

i couldn't figure out myself so i took it to VW and they figured out what was wrong with it... they charged me $100 to clean the throttle body out... n-ways they didn't do a very thorough job, mainly because they didn't take it out to clean it! sothen my car had somewhat of a rough iddle, so i took it out myself and really cleaned it.

do that and see how it goes..

Ohhh, and a couple other things, dont try to keep the car on by keeping the gas down... you'll just fff' it up more! and i have the same exact car: 99 A4 2.8 Quattro, just i only have 99k

 

Just something to remember, the alternator is designed to recover the lost charge from starting and maintain the current state of charge. If your battery dies or is beat, the alternator will not recharge the battery. It must be replaced or hard-charged. Additionally, if system voltage is low, the car will run like doody and can cause all sorts of strange symptoms.

 

The battery is completly shot, I am replacing it today. If that isnt the problem, is there somewhere I can find information on how to go about cleaning my throttle body?

 

Try this: http://www.audiworld.com/tech/eng13.shtml

It relates more to modifying the TB on the 2.8 12v, but it should at least walk you through the removal process.

Here's a DIY site for the B5:http://www.audidiy.com/b5a4.html

255k on the clock for a '99? Man,that's a lot.

 

Once you interrupt power to the ECU, the throttle body loses its settings.
It'll run, but will fluctuate like mad, as the ECU fails to recognise the throttle position.

The ECU has to be reset, with VAG-COM, or similar.
Failing that, the ECU has to "learn" the basic setting.
You can do this manually, by loading up the engine a fair few times.
This involves driving the car very slowly, in as high a gear as the engine will cope with.

I have also done this by applying theparking brakefirmly, and in first gear, try to, (but don't overcome) the resistance of the brake.
You need to balance this, between trying to overcome resistance, and smoking your clutch.
It shouldn't be done prolonged, but in short (10-second) bursts.
You could need up to 6 goes.

 

Couldn't you also do, in lieu of above, the throttle body adaptation trick? Where you hold down the gas pedal with the car turned on (but not started) for 10 seconds, then let go of the gas, and turn off the car. It should at least help and he would probably notice an improvement

I do this on my car every once in a while, and when i do it, i notice a difference.....like the ecu is learning all over again