Im new to this forum but not to cars. I recently bought my 2000 A4 with 67k and i love it. I Recently did a timing belt and waterpump on the car and now have a p1296 code. This threw a code as expected but it was not there before i did the timing belt and wp. I did a search and basically got either a temp sensor or thermostat but i dont get why it would just start doing it now.

Any help will be much appreciated.

 

It could well be the coolant temp sensor. They're notorious on the A4 for going bad and giving you all sorts of screwy issues. It would help though to know whether your car is 1.8T or 2.8, and if it's quattro or fwd, manual or tiptronic. The only part that matters for the coolant temp sensor is which engine (so you can be shown where to look for the sensor) but the other info will help later on with other diagnoses.

 

sorry i thought it was gonna show up in my sign,

Its a 2000 1.8t quattro manual.