I have a story to share and need to ask for help. I went to sell my son's 1987 Audi 5000s 2wd non-Turbo on eBay and sucessfully found a buyer. The guy drove 3 hours tonight, looked at the car, drove it and really liked it. When testing the windows, one of the back windows stuck down so we pulled it in the garage, cleaned a contact and put the window back up. He paid me for the car and was ready to leave, exptecing to pick up the car in a few days.

We went to move the 5000 out of the garage and it wouldn't start! The motor spun fine but we had no spark. We think the fuel pump is working, but haven't confirmed that. We tried to diagnose the problem and couldn't figure anything out. So at 11:00 he headed back home - 3 hours still to drive! What could I do, I gave him his money back!

So, here's my problem. He's still interested in the car,it has to be able to run before he'll buy it. Also, I don't want to sell it to him unless I know it's fit to drive. Can you help me diagnose what's going on? Here's what I know:

1987 5000s w/ 130K, 2wd, non-turbo, automatic
no spark
11.5 volts to coil when cranking
battery is 1 year old and has new trickle charge - no problems spinning motor for extended times tonight
All fuses appear to be OK.
new rotor and cap
replace timing belt 8k back, rotor turns when cranked
no changes to state of electrical equipment except we worked on back window regulator
I think fuel pump is running but haven't confirmed it
everything else seems to be working fine.
car has been sitting for 5 months with very little drive time.
since I bought car a year and a half ago car has always started and has ran dependably

I'm thinking I should just go buy a new coil and see if that makes a difference. I'm really glad this happened in my garage. I would have hated to see this happen right after he gave it to his son to drive.

Any suggestions?

thanks!

Wicked Pete

 

check for spark .. check for fuel and check for vacum leaks

 

car is too old for my data but I have a couple of suggestions,

no spark could be coil-spark amplifier-Hall sender in the distributor which is the same thing as the newer cars which have a crank sensor ( no signal = no spark )

 

WickedPete did you ever find a solution to your problem. It seems that I have the same problem as you do, on my 1990 audi.

A.P.