After a couple weeks after my awesome timing belt change where I stripped out the 6mm bolts on the underdrive pulley (which I ended up taking in to have it professionally done as I didn't have the proper tools to extract the bolts), I suddenly am in the position where my OBD-II scanner is telling me I have: P0300 (Cylinder misfire - random cylinders), P0302 (Cylinder misfire - Cylinder 2) and P0304 (Cylinder misfire - Cylinder 4). When it rains, it pours...

I was diving on the highway after work when all of a sudden it felt like my car was stuttering. I pressed on the gas and it felt like it was fighting me. I was like 5 miles from my destination so I limped it to there where I busted out my OBD-II bluetooth device, and scanned it with my TORQUE app (awesome btw). Told me I had P0302 - Cylinder 2 misfire. I limped it home as gently as possible and scanned it again, now I have all three that I mentioned before. It seems like this popped up on me out of the blue. ~4 hours prior I went to lunch and nothing was out of the ordinary. Car seems to rev fine, but once I am under load and giving it ANY gas it just stutters to go. I hear almost nothing, just a stutter, no backfires or anything...

I'm at a loss. Quick search suggests a dozen things. Vacuum leak, injector fault, high or low fuel pressure, ignition system fault... could it even be bad fuel?

Any thoughts? I pretty much have to take it into a dealer tomorrow, I need it for work this weekend. I've got a set of new spark plugs and some fuel injector cleaner if that is a good idea to check.

-Jago

 

Things like this are the reason I say I have a love/hate relationship with my car.

Did you ever have the coil packs replaced under recall? Other than that I'd say yeah start by checking the plugs.

 

Definitely a Love/Hate relationship.

I actually don't know if the packs are after the recall... I'll have to check on that. Any easy way to tell? Some kind of "Revision" letter or something.

Pulling the plugs and checking vacuum line right now. Probably ordering a fuel filter tonight.

Jago

(2005 2.0T)

 

I believe the latest revision is 'F.' Don't know if that's stamped anywhere though. I had a minor misfire, my dealer ran my VIN and saw the recall was never done. Found the plugs were pretty fouled up too so replaced them at the same time. Misfire went away after the packs and plugs were replaced.

Fuel filter probably a good idea, if anything just for preventative maintenance. I would just recommend depressurizing the fuel system first.

 

New plugs in: no improvement.

I threw some fuel injector cleaner in my gas just cause. I probably had about 15~20 miles on a fresh tank of gas and this hit me like a ton of bricks. Unless something cracked or got clogged instantly, I have a feeling I got a bad tank of gas. IDK, we'll see how it goes.

NAPA or Autozone have fuel filters for Audi's? Autozone's website bombs out whenever I search for them. I'd love to just go to the store and try to fix this Saturday, otherwise I'll just order from ECS Tuning.

I'm still spit balling here so if anyone has an epiphany, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

Jago



Reason #7821 I need more than one vehicle.

 

Ugh this is time consuming to diagnose. Swapping around coil packs right now to see if I can move the the P0302/P0304 codes around...

 

Coils are not usually a problem with the 2.0.... injectors are.

But usually injectors don't fail in groups and usually just cause sporadic misfires and rich misture faults.

I would have it VAG-COM or dealer scanned. I bet there are more faults in the system that your scanner isn't picking up.

 

It seems inevitable that I'll have to take it in. I'm just doing whatever I can to rule out different systems. *le sigh* seems like every week is another problem I have to fix. I just don't have the shop nor the tools to work on this beast like I want to.

 

I'm probably completely wrong, but would a busted cam follower cause this? Like it finally got to the point where it wore so far that it's now messing with the cam timing and rotation? I dunno, reaching at straws. But I feel your frustration.

 

In my sleuthing I numbered the coil packs and reset the codes. I drove around a while and got it to give me the cylinder 2 misfire code. I stopped moved the numbered coil packs 1 cylinder over (1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4 and 4 to 1), reset the codes and drove around again. Now, I got a cylinder 3 misfire code. Huzzah. So I replaced the coil pack that I believe is bad and now lets see how it goes. Story at 11.

At least this is making logical sense.

Wish me luck.