Hey guys, I'm new to this site and Audis in general. I just wanted to get some advice on my B6 and what I should do with it. It was given to me by my godmother over a year ago, because it doesn't run...for now. It's a 2002 A4 3.0Q auto, beautiful car and I really wish it worked. It broke down on her before she gave it to me, oddly enough only a month after she got her timing belt changed. Audi wanted another 10k to do an engine swap because they said the old one was done for. I think the damage was due to a timing problem (one of the plugs was damaged, the electrodes were sheared off somehow), but they still wouldn't fix it.

I just got around to working on it a little while ago. I changed the plugs and the battery and tried to start it, just to see what would happen. It actually turned over but ran like crap, esp at idle (if it idled at all). Eventually though I heard a loud pop and a puff of smoke came from one of the plugs. Also some smoke came out of the intake, so yeah not good.

I was wondering if it would be better to try an fix it, or to get a whole new engine altogether. Which would be more efficient? How much does an engine cost? How hard would it be to repair it? Any help is much appreciated.

*edit*
I forgot to add, how much do you think I could get for it if I decided to sell. The body is in great condition, and the interior is perfect. It has the whole luxury package with the bose system and front and rear heated seats, etc. I'd love to fix it, but if it's too much hassle I'd rather sell. I did see a really nice B5 for sale by me hehe

 

Sounds like a timing problem to me too. Its possible the belt let go before it was changed and caused some damage. Not sure how to recommend you diagnose it further, but others who are more knowledgable than I will likely chime in.

I don't think a timing problem of any sort would damage the plugs, but I may be wrong about that...but if you've got a chunk of spark plug wandering around inside the motor you can pretty much guarantee its shot. A compression test is probably a good idea to see if you can locate the cylinders that are shot.

I've seen a few threads in the B6 section of audizine of people swapping motors in their B6's...some of them are removing working 3.0 motors so you might get lucky and be able to locate a known working motor if you dig enough.

You may want to have to towed to an independant shop in your area that you can trust and get their take on the problem. There may or may not be a ligitimate claima gainst the dealer that installed the timing belt. If tyhe car was working when it was taken in and she had the work done as scheduled or preventative maintenence then the dealer may have been negligent when they installed the timing belt...if it was taken in becuase the timing belt had already broken and wiped out the valvetrain then they should never have checnged the belt in the first place since there isn't any point in doing so.

I think you need to do some more research into the service records and talk to your godmother and see if you can piece together what transpired in the her last few months of ownership.

You should also dig through her maintenence records and see if the coilpacks were ever changed at her expense...at the very least you mgiht be able to recover some of that expense since they've just issued a service bulletin about that.

 

A friend had a bad bearing in his timing gear of his Subaru fry his engine. It was cheaper for him to just swap the engine out with one from a junk yard.

 

Thanks for the help guys. tdoyle, I'm pretty sure my Godmother's service records were up to date and she got all the maintenance done on time before it died on her. It literally just stopped working about a month and a half from the big 60,000 mile service she had done. It seemed fishy to me for the car to just stop working, so we talked to the dealer and they said it was just a "freak accident" basically. We put in a complaint and even wrote Audi, but nothing ever happened. They still wanted around 10,000 to fix it

esandes, the more I think about it, the more a complete engine swap seems like a good idea. Even if it's not that much cheaper, I think it'd be a whole lot less of a hassle than diagnosing all the problems in the old one.

Anyone have any ideas how much a 3.0 engine goes for? and about how much would it cost for an engine swap.

 

Check classified on here, audiworld and audizine for motors. You mgiht get lucky.

 

If you decide on an engine swap, you can call these guys. They have tons of used audi parts including complete engines.

http://www.shokan.com/used-audi-parts.php

 

subaru engines really are easier and cheaper to swap than repair when something like that goes bad in them. but all good ideas so far....def get that compression checked and see if one of the cylinders has some damage.