I just bought a used 2002 Audi A4 1.8T with a manual transmission. It has 95,000 miles on it and the timing belt and the water pump were replaced before I bought it. Yesterday I got a reading on the dash that said my oil was low, I indeed checked it and it was 1/2 a quart low. I filled it back up and after about an hour of driving it went away. Today the check engine light came on (not the low oil indicator) then went off an hour later and I checked the oil and it seems to be burning about 1/4 of a quart a day. Now, on the car diagram that shows you that you have a door open, the hood is flashing. I'm guessing the oil issue is part of the recall for that year but I haven't had a chance to bring it to Audi for them to check it out. The hood problem, I'm completely lost. The car feels like it is running fine, not overheating, and shifts smoothly. Any help would be appreciated.

 

So I called the closest Audi dealership about the oil issue. After he found out the vin, when I bought it, and how many miles were on it, he told me he would need to see every service record for it, then repeated the word every...wonderful. So my guess is he knows I can't provide every record therefor he won't honor the tsb. So my next step is to bring it to the dealership where I bought it.

 

That's BS from the dealer. Anytime a tsb is serviced the VIN is recorded and any dealer can find the records for it.

Haven't heard about a recall for that year consuming oil, but guessing anything that consumes oil is going to be a costly repair and a hassle for the dealer. Could just be the valve cover gaskets too but with that amount of leaking you should notice the burning oil...

Good luck!

 

So I got my car back today, the dealer had to replace the cat, I saw the old one, it was packed. But my question is how would the cat being bad cause me to consume oil? The other problem is after driving for about an hour, I stopped at a gas station for a drink, when I came out and started to drive away, quite a bit of whiteish smoke came from the exhaust. I stopped again and let it idle for a minute and more smoke came out when I stepped on the gas. Is this normal after a cat has been replaced, or do I have a much more serious problem then I had anticipated?

 

I would take it right back to the dealer. I'm no expert but... If you've got white smoke out your pipes it normaly means valve and or head problems. I can't see any reason the cats would cause you to consume more oil .However a burnt valve or even worse and blown head gasket/cracked head WOULD cause you to go through more oil than normal. When you checked your oil did you notice any white dots on your dipstick? If so, its probably the head. Either way it sounds serious and I wouldn't drive it much or any until you've had someone qualified to look at it.

 

I'm thinking its the cylinder head and gasket. When I bought it, the dealer told me that the reason why they replaced the timing belt and water pump, was because on his way back from Boston with the car it overheated, they later found that the plastic fan in the water pump shredded to bits. He said he pulled over imedietly and towed it from there but from what I've read, it terrible to overheat these cars and can cause warped/cracked cylinder heads and gaskets to go bad. I'm taking it back to the dealer tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure they have to fix it for free, if not I do have a 3,000 mile warranty that should cover it with a $100 deductible. I really love this car and I hope that it can be fixed. Also, the check engine light is back on. Every fluid looks normal color and level except for losing oil.

 

That would be my guess too. I am thinking when you shut the car off the coolant made its way into the cylinder since the cooling system is under pressure. Then you started the car and it burned that off but cleared up pretty fast. Pretty soon that passage from the cooling system to cylinder will get larger and you'll get white smoke all the time. I wonder if the plugged cat was able to mask that symptom though? If it was that plugged up did you notice a slight power gain now that you have a new cat on there?

 

For the brief time that the car wasn't smoking, yes, there was a jump in power. However, it seemed to lose that jump in power when it started smoking. I dropped the car off at the dealer again and I talked to him really quickly. I showed him what was going on and he plugged a scanner into the obdII port, then told me that he believes the turbo is smoked. They won't be able to get to my car until Monday or Tuesday so I won't know until then. They told me if it is the Turbo, then I'll have to pay a $100 deductible for my warranty, but I'm ok with it if that fixes my problems. Does it sound logical that it could be the turbo? It seems to fit, oil loss, smoke, and no change to the coolant sounds resonable to me, but I'm no mechanic.

 

White smoke is usually water or antifreeze in the combustion chamber getting burned up, oil smoke is usually greyish blue in color and a bad seal in the turbo can make it burn oil out the tailpipe. I'm no expert, but if the seal on the intake side was allowing oil past it you'd burn oil through the intake and that would be noticed more on deceleration as high vacuum would draw it in. Possibly then be burned on acceleration but would clear up again. Depends on how bad the seals are though. If burning on the exhaust impeller side of the turbo I'm not sure how that would look in terms of smoke out the tailpipe. I would think turbo's use bushings on the exhaust side due to the heat involved.

It looks like from the parts diagrams that your turbo is coolant fed also, to help cool it down. If you aren't losing coolant, and inside the coolant tank it doesn't look like chocolate milk (coolant and oil mixed looks like a chocolate shake) then that's one less thing you have to worry about.

Warranty, nice!

 

The warranty is only good for 3 months or 3k miles, but at least it's going to be good enough to cover the problems at the moment. Good to know that coolant also runs through the turbo. I wonder if the oil and coolant are mixing but only in the turbo (if the turbo is the problem), so that's why the smoke is lighter rather than oil burning dark, though the smoke was a little darker today when I got it to the dealership. I'll let you guys know on Monday or Tuesday what the dealership says.