Wolfepack88

Just had my 35k mile service last Friday. Driving to work from jersey to NYC today and car went hot all the way to red. Pulled over and crept back to dealer 60 miles away with car at one notch below red.

Turns out thermostat is shot. Long repair time from what I'm told and dealer doesn't have part. Awesome!! One concern I had switching to audi was reliability. Had 4 Benz prior and never had one problem. Already a few with this car with recalls and such. Hope this is it but wonder if I really see 100k plus with this car. First car I purchased since my first and hope I don't regret it.

HyperS4

First time Ive heard about this. Could just be a bad part, it happens once in a while. Sorry that it happened to you but I wouldnt think this is going to be a full blown situation.

Wolfepack88

Folks once is an annoyance a second time is cause for significant concern. On July 22 I had my thermostat and coolant replaced by Audi because my temperature gauge went to max while driving to work that day and they determined that was the cause.

Today, Sept 22 (ironically two months to the day after that incident) the same thing happened again 10 minutes into my 45 mile commute to NYC. 60 degrees out at 6:27am and my temperature gauge went to max with the full warning to pull over and run engine with vehicle stationary!! Totally unacceptable. Ran heater on high to help bring temperature down. Got it down and drove the rest of the way with no further incident. Cant be a coincidence, so either the replacement part is defective (what are the odds of that) or its some design defect in the thermostat or whatever regulates it (not sure if software comes into play with that or its just purely mechanical). Either way very disconcerting when you are at highway speed in NJ on I-78!! Cant have that be unreliable. Stay tuned but this is causing me serious concern the fix for this. Can't have the engine overheat on a road trip and be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

DrCondor

I realize I sound like a fanboy, but in all of the miles listed below, plus 30,000+ on my S6, I have never had anything like a catastrophic failure over four Audimobiles. I would ask the dealer to evaluate whether it really is the thermostat, or whether any other codes could point to another cause (i.e., a sensor, line leak, whatever). With turbos nestled where they are, this whole package generates massive heat, so I doubt the issue is a design defect (okay, the fuel line issue might have been a design flaw). In any case, I hope your issue achieves resolution.

txgriz

I have also had this issue. The first time, they replaced the thermostat. It happened again and they flushed the lines of something like that. The second occurrence was this last May. It has not happened again but I can tell you that your problem is not an isolated, one-off problem.

My service advisor told me to run the heater full blast if this happens again and that should prolong the time you can run the engine before it overheats. Sounds like you did that too and that allowed you to get somewhere safe.

Wolfepack88

They were able to duplicate the problem and a TSB for Engine Control software was the solution. I will post the TSB# when I get home. I'm somewhat skeptical that an engine control software update would impact this but perhaps when I post the TSB# from my invoice you guys might know what this is.

DrCondor

That would be helpful...coming up on my 35k, and thanks in advance.

Wolfepack88

TSB is 2037994/1.

They wrote found tab 2037994/1. Performed test drive, duplicated customer concern. Performed svm update. performed test drive after update.

DrCondor

Thanks muchly...will report back after my 35k depending upon findings/action.