It sounds very similar to a spark being blown out, i know its not forced induction but it wouldn't hurt to check the gap on the spark plugs and and check what plugs were put in?

 

cant remember what brand the plugs were, but theyre OE plugs from the stealership. and i checked the gap pre-installation. not saying its impossible that the gap is off or changed somehow after installation, just not sold on the idea yet.

IMBLAZEN, what exactly was your car doing? ive heard a lot about faulty coil packs. do you remember where you found the information on that recall? and so far, its still only showing its face in 1st and 2nd gear, but i drive it every day to work so we'll see what happens i suppose..

 

A friend had them done in his volkswagon and told me to call the dealer near me. I called, they looked up my VIN and it tells them any recalls. I had pack issues for a while and realized that some gears would be fine but then shift, give gas, stumble, check engine light flashes. I would try coil packs if you did plugs and wires bro, no cost to you, all is free from audi. I even made them wash my car ha ha ha.

 

haha yea i looking up recalls as we speak. I'm gonna call the dealership tomorrow and have them run the VIN.

 

Just sounds like its misfiring to me.

A quick scan with VAGCOM should enlighten you to the problem.

 

So i did a little digging into the coilpack, to see if that is truly my problem before i go spend 100 bones on a new one. everyone tells me "its the coilpacks, trust me mine did the same thing" but theyre usually talking about the 1.8t. There was in fact a recall for the 1.8 for this very reason, but i called around to some audi dealers and theyre techs all told me that this problem was never prevalent in the 2.8's.

but anywho, i checked the resistance in the secondary circuit and all 3 readings were ~11k ohms give or take. the spec i found online said anywhere from 8k-14k is acceptable. this was on a cold engine, and i didnt try taking readings at normal op temp. (mainly because this hesitation happens whether the car is bone cold, or fully warmed up). the plug wires all ohm'd out to almost 6k exactly. (they're brand new). not sure what else to check. i could check the signal going into the coilpack, but the car runs beautifully if i drive it really easy. Its only under heavy load that it starts bucking.

also, everyone sais theyre CEL flashes when it happened to them. (indicating severe misfire). mine doesnt flash when it happens. the CEL was on before this started happening though, but for an EVAP code. will the CEL not flash if its already on?

 

If you're misfiring, the CEL will flash even when it's already on. Agreed that the 2.8 coilpacks almost never fail. I'm assuming that at idle or steady cruise the engine is smooth, which would mean the wires didn't get mixed up. Did you look over the vacuum lines? There aren't many and most are connected at the solenoid bank on top of the engine. Anything look damaged/bad/broken there?

 

Righto It runs perfect at idle, cruising, light acceleration. Only under heavy load in 1st and 2nd is when it acts up. I'll have to check the vac lines again. They're all connected, but I still have the nasty cloth lines all over that clusterfuck behind the engine. I'll swap them all over to new vac lines. Could a vacuum leak really cause a heavy misfire? I know these cars thrive off of vacuum but it seems a little extreme.

Thanks for the input by the way. Mucho grasias

 

wow.. reading this made me very angry.. i just bought all four coil packs for my 1.8t because of this exact problem (bucking and powerloss) that issue has been happening since i bought the car a year ago and i couldnt figure out wtf it was till one of them packs completely died... now i bought the new packs a week ago lol and now i find out i could of went to Audi and got them replaced for free.. ugh.. FML lol..

but to answer your question Livinglegend yes vac leaks can cause a long and endless list of issues i run in this state of mind with trouble shooting.. (When all check's out fine, check a vac line) words i live by lol.

 

ya man. its free for you.. lol did it fix the problem? i replaced all the vac lines last night, a few of them were cracked/falling apart so il take it for a spin today and see if theres any improvement. not getting my hopes up..