My husband has a 2001 A4 Quattro 2.8. We had a problem with our valve cover gasket or something like that.. we brought the car to a "mechanic" in March. He told us he would fix the car and have it back to us by the weekend. 2 weeks go by and we hadn't heard from him, so I called him and he said he had bad news and good news. The bad news was he put a piston through our engine and would have to replace the engine, but the "good" news was that he would do the labor for free. I of course became furious with him telling him we were NOT paying for a new engine or labor since this was HIS mistake. Fast forward to August, we finally get our car back. The "mechanic" told us he changed our engine. The engine is still the same engine. We are currently having 2 problems-unfortunately we don't know of any mechanics in the area who work on Audi's. Everytime we tell them we have an Audi they said "those are a pain to work on" and jack up their prices.
Before I get flamed for "not using the search feature", I DID search. I have been searching for 2 days.. I think I have the one problem solved.
First-Our CEL flashes (Cylinder 1 Misfire) BUT only in the rain-According to what i've read, it seems like the coil pack needs to be replaced?
Second-When starting the car up on cold days, there is a squeaking sound. I see a lot of other people have this issue, but there's seems to stop after 30 seconds. Our car will continue to squeak for about 30 minutes.
Please help as we would like to get these problems fixed before winter! Thank you!

 

To check the coil pack, clear the CEL, swap the pack to cylinder 2 and wait for the CEL to trip again. If the code follows to cylinder 2 then you know it's the coil pack. If it stays on cylinder 1, then it could be the wiring harness itself, or something as simple as the spark plug is fouled. Something about it only having the misfire in the rain seems suspicious to me.

As for the squealing, that sounds like a worn belt slipping.

Sorry about your misfortune with your old mechanic. I agree, if he blew the engine, he should have rebuilt or replaced for free, and in a timely manner, not when he could get to it... I hope this little bit of limited knowledge helps you out. Where are you and the car located. If you're really lucky, you might be near another knowledgable B5 owner who might be able to help you out with some repairs for a lot cheaper than a "Audi's are a pain" mechanic.

 

Sorry, I realized after posting that you have a 2.8, not 1.8T. ImTheDevil would be able to help you diagnose coil packs on the 2.8 much better than I could. Hopefully he catches this thread an graces us with his infinite wisdom...

 

Thank you for your reply! I think it's weird that it only misfires in the rain too. It's weird because it'll happen when it downpours, then after about 30 minutes of it misfiring it seems like it's back to normal and drives fine. I'm not sure what the stupid "mechanic" did to our car. It's like he sabotaged it and it's slowly falling apart.

Which belt would be worn slipping? Timing or Serpentine? (Those are the 2 that my husband told me to look up online)

I live in NY in the Hudson Valley. Hopefully there is a knowledgeable B5 owner in my area.

Again, thanks for your reply.

 

The Timing Belt wouldn't slip without your engine exploding (not seriously, but you get the point). It would be the serpentine that runs all the other stuff, like the alternator and stuff.

Again, you may be in luck. ImTheDevil and quite a few of his knowledgable friends live in NY, but not sure how far from Hudson Valley. And he loves working on these cars. I see him offer his help to people all the time. Good luck!

 

Thanks again! I told my husband and he said it could be the serpentine belt because if the "mechanic" changed it, it's probably an old crappy one.

Hopefully ImTheDevil reads this thread! My husband is willing to drive a couple of hours if he would be able to look at it/fix it!

 

Well I wouldn't worry about your belt problem right now. I would worry about setting up something with small claims court and getting a lawyer involved.
To be honest I would not get any repairs done to the engine regardless of what could be wrong until you get your original problem fixed from the shady mechanic. If it ends up in court he could just blame future repairs could have caused your current issues and it wasn't his fault. Just saying it "could" happen.
Misfires are a little pain with our cars. I have the 12v V6---96-97 years and you have the 30v 98-01. Normal tune up items first...Plugs, wires, coil pack. Mine turned out to be a dirty throttle body and idle control valve along with gummed up pcv system (hoses). Just cleaned them up. No more stalling and misfire codes.

 

We thought about taking him to small claims court, but we aren't sure how far it would get us. He is/was a friend of my cousins. He works at an Audi shop as a mechanic, but he was working on our car as a side job. He had done work on our car in the past and we never had a problem with him. Except for this last time. So we have no paperwork showing he was working on our car, no estimate, nothing. It's just our word against his. After talking to other people who have brought their cars there, it turns out he does the same thing to them. They bring their car there for one problem, it gets fixed only for something else to break a couple of days later.

 

Sorry to hear about this misfortune. I hate when people lack a respect for other people's cars, that's why I, and the majority of people on this forum try to do everything ourselves, the peace of mind of knowing it was done properly is priceless with these picky cars. You may be in luck for getting help from TheDevil, he's in Binghamton. Like Brad, I'm not sure exactly where that is in relation to Hudson Valley, but I can't imagine it'd be more than 2-3 hours so you may be in good luck. Hopefully he chimes in here soon, or hiwords even, hiwords has a pretty extensive knowledge as well and does work with TheDevil a lot.

 

If enough of you complain about this guy working on the side to his employer, they might do something about it. Might not help you know, but at least prevent others in the future from making the same mistake...

Devil, if you jump on this thread, isn't nice to see so many poeple hold you in such high regards, and offering your services to others...? lol