2005 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro
71K miles
Automatic w/ TIP

First timer here. My 2005 Audi A4 1.8T (automatic) started exhibiting strange problems last night. When I was sitting at a stand stilll, the RPM's seemed to drop just a tick and then go back to normal. It would do this every few seconds. Then today, the car started stuttering when I was accelerating. Finally, today while getting on the freeway, the car struggled to get up to speed, stuttered and then started vibrating. The check engine light or MAF was blinking when I started getting on the freeway, but then went solid.

Additionally, when I finally got to work, I could hear what sounded like a belt from the engine compartment making noises. My Audi has about 71K miles on it. I'm not even sure if I should be driving this thing right now.

I'm not a car whiz so I don't have very much knowledge about cars, but I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me so the Audi dealer doesn't rape me financially. Any help you guys can offer would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

I would get your turbo looked at, have you been running synthetic oil, or conventional? (factory recomends synthetic to keep sludge from building up in the turbos)

 

I'm going to guess synthetic. I have all of my service done here at my local Audi dealership.

 

Oh and maybe I should mention, the dealer just replaced my fuel pump two weeks ago. Since my warranty ended, this thing has become a money pit. I think I have had it into the dealer twice between every service interval.

 

Well I took it to a local mechanic, rather than have Audi rape me anymore then they already have. According to the codes, cylinder 3 was misfiring. Once he got in the engine compartment he determined that I need to replace my coil and a plug. We're just going to replace all 4 since we are already in there.

Looking at the service intervals for Audi, my 75K is right around the corner. They were scheduled to replace the plugs at that time. Almost made it. Hope this information helps anyone looking around like I was.

 

Audi's are renowned for having bad cylinder coils. When these coils go bad, the cylinder will misfire and your car will stutter and jump when given gas. You will need to replace these coils and I think they cost around 30 bucks a piece. Take the car to a shop and have them run a diagnostic test. They will then determine what cylinders are misfiring and will be able to replace the coils. I recently replaced 3 coils this past week. You might want to check if there is a recall on them first because there was a recall for mine a couple years ago.

Don't worry about driving the car, the cylinders should correct themselves after running for a little bit. If this is the first time that it has happened, you have plenty of time to go and get them fixed. Your check engine light should stay on and when it blinks, you will notice the stutter and the cylinders will misfire. Eventually they will go completely bad but you have plenty of time to get them replaced.

 

Crappy Update: The mechanic I went to replaced the ignition coil for cylinder 3 and replaced all 4 spark plugs. Car was running great for a about a day. Then this morning, it started all over again. It's not as bad as before, but too similar. I'm going to have the remaining 3 injector coils replaced tomorrow. I hope this is the end of it.

 

I had this same problem happen on two of my audis. It was do the fact that i needed new spark plugs and clean out the throttle body. takes like 20 min total. also make sure you are putting premium in the gas tank and synthetic oil.

 

when your car stutters and the check engine light flashes DONT DRIVE THE CAR!!! if its an ignition misfire then you are pretty much dumping raw fuel into your exhaust.. the reason the light flashes is because its a catalyst damaging misfire.. the raw fuel will damage your converter..your cat will be inefficient if you continue to drive it that way and may even clog up. you could also have an ignition control module bad.. its a little module located on the air box.. it has two plugs going to it...one should have 4 wires and the other 5.. or something like that.. easy to change and relatively inexpensive..

 

Well I did drive pretty far on it. I switched out another injector coil yesterday. So that brought my total replaced parts to 4 plugs and 2 injector coils. I decideed to just replace all 4 injector coils and I am glad I did. When I pulled the other two off, the rubber lining was cracking and they were apparently going to start misfiring as well...according to my friend who is a mechanic.

I'll have to look into that ignition control module. I'm new to all this and finding my way around the engine is like speaking greek.