Cylinder Misfire Issue - Intermittent

07-19-2015, 03:32 AM

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Audi_Catalyst

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Cylinder Misfire Issue - Intermittent

Hello again World!

I'm happy to say that since my last post when I noticed my sway bar bolt was missing, and decided to replace the whole sway bar with one that I pulled off a car that had compression issues and had been parked and stripped for parts. Since then I have had no troubles! I made sure to take the sway bar linkages with the sway bar, so the torque wouldn't be messed on the SB itself.

It's time to step up to the plate, and swing for whatever is coming my way. I've got no strikes thus far, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Anyways, so the car is a 2004 Audi A4 B6 3.0L Six Speed Manual Quattro

I have been experiencing an interesting problem. I have been keeping a close eye on everything, like a mother and her newborn, but in a year of driving it, I managed to buy a cheap VAG-COM interface, get my software taken care of, and do some readin.

Lots of codes came through since I got the system working (which is not as easy as one outside the Audi World might think..) but of the ones that stood out was Cylinder misfire on Cylinder 1..

I will post my Code Reads in a little bit. I've done quite a bit of research on this topic, and I'd like to share my findings, and make sure that I do not leave any work undone! I'd like to think I'm an adequate investigator. I'm not a private eye, or a detective, but when it comes to my car, I like to dig deep.

So I did some manual work first and foremost. I checked the coils on 1 and 2, and found some interesting results. I focused on cylinder 1 from the code read.

The coil from cylinder 1 had oil residue present. Hmm. interesting.

Furthermore, the spark plug was removed, and was extremely oily for a spark plug. Lets keep going.

From this point, I did some more online research. I found that Oil on a sparkplug can be indicative of overfill. It also can appear from a gasket leak. I read many many forums, and just did some basic googling for a few minutes, and them went back to read everything I had left open in various tabs of my internet browser. I tried to keep it in the family sticking to VW or something German. But also watched a few videos about hondas or something besides German.

I read to replace two spark plugs, and see if the problem follows. So I switched # 1 and # 2 spark plugs, reset VAG Codes after storing them in a word file, and then took a drive with the CEL appearing to be off.

Now lets talk about this little light. Some people in other forums know little about the process of a CEL. How the computer is working.. I have a very limited knowledge, and don't claim to be an Audi Expert, but I know a lot about computers. When your check engine light comes on, its simply a data packet traveling across the Central Area Network BUS. The code is designed by some programmer somewhere, and is usually limited to governmental standards. The CAN BUS HI and LOW ports on OBD 2 are very limited. They don't give very much information about whats going on in the engine, because they don't want all CAN BUS traffic to be able to be tampered with. Like you can to some degree with OBD 2, and even further with VAG COM. Tamper with it.

I met a copy machine repairman, who told me in his product field, the engineers put a ton of screws in areas they don't want anybody to tamper with. In a CAN BUS Network, all of your can buses will transmit different types of data, but only some of it will be present at your OBD 2 port for these reasons. You don't need to tamper with things that don't need to be tampered with.

Moving forward, so Cylinder 1 and Cylinder 2 have had their Coils removed, and their sparkplugs removed. Cylinder 1 has oil on both pieces. Cylinder 2 has no oil present anywhere. (I will upload pictures at the end, and give a PostScript type writeup of them)

I have since all of these steps, went through My Documents, and found as many VAG Readings I had since I started. A lot of the codes were ShareWare types of codes, which meant "the product needed to be activated"

I'm a 20 year old college student, working a full time job, with a rushhour commute. Welcome to America!

I did the best I could to diagnose the problem without spending much money. The CEL came on several months after I bought the vehicle. It turned off an on for a while without any real noticeable difference. Then came time to change my oil. I felt this what may have ultimately caused the difference to make the light stay on for so long. I switched to Royal Purple HMX (5q) and RP Filter, and 1q of Lucas-Oil synthetic additive. At this point, the light was off, I just felt like putting the oil and filter, I payed for months ago, in the car.

Then maybe 2000+ miles later, the CEL came on again. So I bought a cheap Chinese 409.1 VAG COM Reader. It works beautifully. It just has very limited ability. Where I'm getting at, is that after looking up all of my codes since my first read, I had cylinder misfires detected in this order since before May of 2015:

Cylinder 5 Misfire
 17819 - Secondary Air Injection System: Bank 2: Insufficient Flow
Cylinder 1 Misfire
Cylinder 4 misfire
Cylinder 3 misfire

This was the first reading I ever recorded. I cleared the codes. The date stamp from the word file is 05/11/2015.

The next record of importance was taken on 07/18/2015.

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 17819 - Secondary Air Injection System: Bank 2: Insufficient Flow
17978 - Engine Start Blocked by Immobilizer
Cylinder 1 Misfire
Cylinder 2 Misfire
Cylinder 5 Misfire

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It's important to note here, that before most of these codes there's a code that generates the random misfire code.
(16684 – Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected P0300 – 008 – Implausible Signal – Intermittent)

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The third and final code read of importance, was taken at 7:51 PM approximately 30-45 minutes after the last read. It's important to note here, that the engine was run after clearing this code read. Currently the CEL is off, and I cannot get any misfire codes. even during and after a test drive.

 16685 – Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected
P0301 – 008 Upper Limit Exceeded – Intermittent
 16686 – Cylinder 2 Misfire Detected
P0302 – 008 Upper Limit Exceeded – Intermittent

Looks like I had the vag com on with the key in the ignition, while I inspected Coils and Sparkplugs on Cylinder 1 and 2.

Wait wait wait. I can hear the dogs barking already. YOU DIDN'T DISCONNECT YOUR NEGATIVE BATTERY TERMINAL?!?!?!?!?!?! WHAT, ARE YOU CRAZY?!?!?!?!

Yes, I am. Call me crazy over the internet. I'm looking for help with my problem, not advice on my mental state.

It is however, comforting that the VAG COM reads the error in real time. Since that code read (when I reinstalled sparkplug 1 in hole 2, and sparkplug 2 in hole 1) I've had no problems, although I'm eager to see if Cylinder 1 misfires again, and shows up on the computer/CEL.

I've definitely noticed a recurring problem, but waited until I felt it was absolutely necessary to say something online. I've gotten to the end of my post. At this point, I am debriefing, and ready for my next mission.

I will share all of my codes, and pictures henceforth.

----2015/MAY-11


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16684 – Random/Multiple Cylinder Misfire Detected
P0300 – 008 – Implausible Signal – Intermittent

16689 – Shareware Version. To Decode all DTCs
P0305 – 008 Please Register/Activate – Intermittent
Cylinder 5 Misfire

17819 – Shareware Version. To Decode all DTCs
P1411 – 002 Please Register/Activate – Intermittent
17819 - Secondary Air Injection System: Bank 2: Insufficient Flow
P1411 - 002 - Lower Limit Exceeded

16685 – Cylinder 1 Misfire Detected
P0301 – 008 Implausible Signal – Intermittent
16688 – Shareware Version. To Decode all DTCs
P0304 – 008 – Please Register/Activate – Intermittent
Cylinder 4 Misfire

16687 – Shareware Version. To Decode all DTCs
P0303 – 008 – Please Register/Activate - Intermittent
Cylinder 3 Misfire

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