Car Specs:
1999 AUDI A4 QUATTRO
~135,000 Miles

Lately the car has been giving a few problems. A couple days ago white smoke came out of the exhaust for a while (5-10 minutes). The car itself drains a lot of oil and leaks a little, I brought it to a mechanic and he said it might be the head gasket or just simple the car may be burning oil. Yesterday I left a light on in the car by accident and the battery died. I charged it today and the car gave a engine check light. When I tried driving it, the car would go up a few rpm and would suddenly drop no matter how hard or long I held down the pedal, meaning it wouldn't get above 5-10mph. It would just rise and let go, rise and let go...

What could be the problem? Maybe an electrical malfunction, maybe the battery needs replacing? Or maybe something wrong with a cylinder?

Please help me as soon as possible, thank you.

 

Well the white smoke shows you're burning oil. And yes the head gasket could be a problem especially with the mileage of the car, try replacing the valve cover gasket and seafoaming the engine to see if that helps at all. And there is no reason your car should "just burn oil". As for the rest of it... I have no idea! Could be your carb? Try sprayin that bitch down with like have a bottle of carb cleaner to see if it helps, and get an obd scan run on it and throw up what the code says.

 

these cars dont have carburetors so its probably not that. you need to do a throttle body alignment (search for it on the forums) after you remove the battery. you need vag-com or a dealer to do it. its nothing broken, just a software thing.

have a compression and leakdown test done at any mechanic to check your head gasket. post the numbers from each cylinder here. and let us know what engine, transmission, and drivetrain you have.

 

Are you loosing coolant? That is, do you notice that the coolant level is much lower than before? Have you pulled the oil dipstick? If you have a head gasket problem that is really bad, you will have coolant mixed in with the oil and the oil will look milky and frothy after you have run the engine for a couple minutes. The oil should be an amber color.

 

also: white smoke is typically burning coolant. If the smoke was a bluish color I would be concerned you were burning oil. If your oil looks like the description above I would avoid driving that car very much. Coolant mixed with oil thins the oil down and engine lubrication will suffer.

 

i'm gonna have the tests done tomorrow. nope, coolant levels are normal and the oil is fine... could it be fuel injection or something.. what can cause the car to do that..to have the rpm go up and drop....

 

does he still have to do an alignment even thought its a 99 and ndbw?

 

oh sorry, i forgot to add.. its a 1.8T

 

the sensor in the TB needs to be calibrated regardless of which type it is.

i told you what it is, if i wasnt broke i would be willing to put money on it. the throttle body isnt the cause of the leak/smoke problem, but it is 99.5% the reason you are having that idle problem.

 

Where are some spots that coolant can leak into your engine oil at? Im pretty sure i've had this problem for awhile, I just chalked the white smoke up to the cold weather though, but now that it is warming up I have no excuse LOL.