Im new to Audi world ..Daughters 98 A4 2.8 died on hiway the other day, after towing it home I pulled plug wires and all six were full of oil, when trying to start the car it sounds like an electric motor. almost like no combustion. Timeing belt on but missing some notches and brittle. Also looks like engine got real hot. Any ideas

 

I'd be very concerned about the t-belt having lost teeth - it's possible that the timing jumped because of that. Oil on the plugs usually means valve cover gaskets are shot (easy to DIY and mind-blowingly expensive to have done at a dealer), but if the engine was very hot, it could be a ruptured head gasket due to an overheat that caused oil to leak. It looks like you're in for a teardown to determine the extent of the damage. Go to www.audidiy.com and check the timing belt procedures to see how to proceed - it's surprisingly easy for such a "deep" job on the engine.

 

if engine jumps time would this cause a signifacant amount of oil in plug wells, I dont think it came from the valve cover gaskets because there would be a lot of oil all over the valve covers which there is not.

 

I agree that it's likely not the valve cover gaskets. I think that from what you said in your original post, you may have had an overheat and it's possible that the head gaskets ruptured or bled through as a result. The timing jumping won't do that by itself. You may not have jumped timing at all though - depends on how big a continuous section of missing teeth you have. In any event, if the t-belt looks that way, then it DEFINITELY needs to be replaced before you run the car again.

 

Yeah head gasket is what im thinking, timeing belt not missing enough consecutive teeth. Cant realy tell about timeing jumped as the car will not start, Oh well thanks for the help