I have an Audi A4 1998 2.8L Front Wheel Drive late model I drove it and cracked the Oil pan, lower and upper. I'm in the middle of fixing it but i found broken pieces of what looks like plastic in the oil pan when I removed it. I'm not sure if they're there for a reason or even what the part could be that they should be from. Does anyone know? The car smokes over on the back side of the engine but I don't know whats wrong or where the smokes coming from. I have several codes that came up as well;
P0432-MAIN CATALYST BELOW THRESHOLD (BANK 2)
P0422-MAIN CATALYST BELOW THRESHOLD (BANK 1)
P1250-FUEL LEVEL LOW
P0300-MULTIPLE MISFIRE
P0304-MISFIRE CYLINDER 4
P0305-MISFIRE CYLINDER 5
P0305-MISFIRE CYLINDER 6
Can some one give me some advice what to do???

 

I once had a similar findings in my oil pan, although the frags were metalic. My 2005 3.2 A6 broke its internal timing chain. 2005 was the first year Audi had metal chains. Previous to my mechanic finding the problem, the error codes showed misfires, the engine had a loss of compression and it ran very rough. Of course, the subsequent draining of my wallet hurt more. It was a simple, but very costly repair. Since then, the engine has been running top notch.

It may be a similar, internal issue with your vehicle. Good luck, and I hope this helps.

 

I'm sorry to hear that but it wasn't metal it was a dark brown plastic. I've replaced the upper oil pan couple day ago, which was a pain in the @ss to do but the only thing i can think of is that some of the oil pump chains had a cover and it might be what broke apart.

 

I'm sorry to hear that but it wasn't metal it was a dark brown plastic. I've replaced the upper oil pan couple day ago, which was a pain in the @ss to do but the only thing i can think of is that some of the oil pump chains had a cover and it might be what broke apart.

 

Once I got the pan off I found some pieces of things in there. One was what looks like a brown plastic ring gear about 4" in diameter and about a 1/4 inch wide. the second were a couple bent piece of thin metal about 1/2" square. Does anyone have an idea where these could come from? The plastic ring was broken into pieces the largest about an inch long. the gear part has teeth that are semi circles.

I was looking through my shop manual to find what could have made its way down to the pan. Most stuff I thought would be crushed by the time is makes it down to the pan.

 

Those sound like the oil control rings look up the part and see if looks similar.

 

After I get an oil change, I add Lucas Oil Stabilizer. It helps the engine run better and I dont have to have oil changes as often.

 

well its been 800 miles and it was the cam tension-er pad on the 456 cylinder. It drives much better but now i need to replace the control arms the shocks and it has been miss firing in the 456 cylinder but i need to first replace the shot spark plugs. and cables

 

As soon as I read your description i knew what it was because I just went through the same ****. Quite scary seeing that stuff in your pan, make sure to change your filter and oil a couple times at short intervals after replacing the tensioner just to make sure you get all the pieces out.

 

Thanks for posting your update! I pulled my oil pan (2000 A4, 2.8L) off this last week because it had a crack in it and discovered the pile of broken brown pieces laying at the bottom of the pan. Confused, I searched google to find this blog.

Not sure if you experienced this problem also but my oil sump (which was directly above the pile of pieces) was FULL of those brown broken pieces! I spent some time carefully removing each piece freeing up the oil sump intake. Whew! I can't believe that was under there likely the entire time I've owned my car. I had the timing belt replaced 2 years ago and at that time they mentioned the tension-er pad was broken...now I know where it went.

Again, thanks for posting!