Help! A4 2.0T won't start!
10-21-2015, 05:42 PM
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Help! A4 2.0T won't start!
Hello,
New to the forums. The dreaded day is here I've never had to join to ask a question till now. Usually i just browse the forums as a guest to see whats going on from time to time. so a little bit about why i'm here. I never thought i'd see this day but I'm completely stumped and can't figure out why my 2008 A4 2.0T won't start. I've been working on cars for 15 years now 6 of those in a dealer and the rest as a hobby. I've always managed to fix any car i've ever worked on but i'm at a point where I don't know what to check and to be honest this FSI motor is a first for me so I'm learning a lot working on it over the past year. anyways This is my 4th Audi i'm a huge fan even have a tattoo BUT I purchased this A4 a year ago and have had nothing but problems so I honestly feel pretty crappy about the new audis with these FSI motors I feel like i've been screwed. My 98 a4, 2001 a6 and 2003 a6 are great cars and never had these types of problems and I go for a newer one and i'm paying dearly for it. Ok so I know it can be hard to fix a car over the internet without having been here working on it but I'm very detailed and I do know what i'm doing for the most part. I'm no rookie but I also won't say I know everything. I do all my own repairs big or small and take pride in my quality of work. Like I said i've never been stumped But I gotta ask for your guys help here. So here we go from the beginning so that you know what I know.
I bought the car and it ran great for one week. but then It started to misfire on start up and idle so I did the natural thing and replaced coils and spark plugs. now the idle was smoother but it still from time to time would misfire on start up. I bought a vag com so I could start to monitor it and figure out why. well it is completely random misfires so i've never been able to pin point it to a specific item being faulty. Mean while i'm replacing coolant housings and temp sensors because these items have gone bad on me in the first few months now owning it. so time goes on and I start to get really frustrated as to why this thing starts and idles so crappy. Now i'm also noticing it's using oil between oil changes! Well then I discovered the pcv was clogged and had been forcing oil down the vent tube that runs from the valve cover to the turbo. So now I've had to take apart the turbo pipes and intercooler pipes because they were coated in oil and cleaned them. not to mention there was about 3/4 quart of oil in the turbo pipes it splashed everywhere when i opened them up. I was shocked. So Then Obviously I replaced the vent tube with a new one cause theres a valve in there and I replaced the PCV with ECS tunings catch can kit and PCV delete which is an amazing product by the way and the guys at ECS have been awesome to deal with! So now here I am thinking all this oil in the intake was getting into the motor and causing the spark plugs to misfire which i'm sure it wasn't helping but now here I am about 2 months later still with misfires on start up and idle and just running rough. BUT the oil being forced into the turbo has been fixed!!!! thanks to the catch can kit and new vent tube it's breathing normal and not forcing oil out anymore. STILL have misfires though and now getting worse as time goes on. Now I start reading about these FSI motors and how the get carbon build up on the intake valves because the injectors are not port injected but direct injected so this makes sense to me and now knowing that and on top of all that oil in my intakes pipes I figure theres a good chance that This carbon build up is my misfire issue. Well now we are up to speed and this last weekend I finally decided to bite the bullet and take the intake manifold off and clean the valves. plus I started to see cylinder 4 misfire more often than the others so i wanted to address the possibility of an injector being clogged too. And I have been wanting to replace the cam follower for the high pressure fuel pump as well as these wear out!
So here we go now to my main problem that I need help with! so the car is running this whole last year of owning it and never had an issue with it not starting ever runs like crap but always ran. So i make a call to ECS to get some parts I decided to get in there and fix this misfire thing for good! So I bought spark plugs just to have a fresh set in, I bought a cam follower, I bought a fuel injector and the fuel injector remover and installer, i'm a fan of doing things right, then I headed to harbor freight and bought a blaster with walnut shell media for blasting the carbon out of the intake valves. I've seen some people scrap it out with picks and stuff but i wasn't going to do that. I read that many people use the walnut shell media to fix this problem. even BMW does it at the dealers. SO here we go I pull the car into my garage and I change the spark plugs no big deal easy and done! I go to remove the intake manifold to clean the intake side of the head and replace the injector. Really it's not that hard to take off and install. So I go to take the intake manifold off and the high pressure fuel pump was kinda in the way from being able to sneak the manifold off the engine and I was going to replace the cam follower anyways so I removed the fuel pump at this time and set it aside and taped off the hole. then I got the intake manifold off and all 4 injectors stayed in the engine they did not pull out with the intake. WOW WOW then I looked in the intake valves and honestly it was horrifying to see that much carbon everywhere. SO no wonder it was misfiring! So now i'm pumped i'm excited to fix this car for good! so i tape every hole off so when I blast no media shells get into the engine. So i get the blaster ready and I get a wrench on the crankshaft pulley bolt to turn the engine so i can closed the valves when I blast that cylinder so nothing gets in the engine! I blast all four cylinders and what a difference. Night and day! the intake was clean! I mean clean! so once again i'm very excited. I remove the injectors, all four because I bought the kit to replace the o rings and teflon seals. So i do that out and back in with the installer tool and hook the wires back up. Now for the install of the manifold. I replaced the Throttle body gasket and the intake manifold gasket with new ones. everything goes back together smooth as silk now for the cam follower and install of the high pressure fuel pump. Done! everything back in it's place and looking good! I go to start it and...and...and... it just cranks but won't fire up and run! I can tell it wants to run but wont. I don't get it and am lost with what to check or do. At first I thought ok I had to of missed something so I double check everything and it all looks good everything where it should be. I hooked it up the the scanner NO codes! So I figure ok I screwed something up. SO I decided to take everything back apart and check everything out and make sure it was right and it was. SO I put it all back together and guess what still doesn't start, does the same thing, wants to start but wont. no codes!
So here I am very confused and pissed off. Here is what I have tried to check and can tell you.
I have spark, i checked all four plugs by grounding them out cranking and seeing spark.
Then I though oh no maybe some crap got on the valve seats and I lost compression or something, checked that and its 185psi on all cylinders! good to go there!
Then i'm thinking ok maybe i'm not getting fuel. I can take the spark plugs out and see the each cylinder is spraying fuel the pistons are instantly wet after cranking.
But i'm curious about this high pressure pump? maybe this guy is my problem but I know I have fuel going through it, it's spraying out of the injectors but maybe it's not working right? So I check to make sure the tank pump is pumping and it is. I push the Schroeder valve and fuel bursts out. question should I see low pressure readings at the valve or high because When i test the valve I get 87 psi which Is what I have read to be correct for the low pressure side so i'm assuming thats correct pressure for the Schroeder valve? How can I check the high pressure side? I feel the vagcom will only tell me the pressure if it's running not during cranking. Maybe I don't have enough pressure I read that these run between 750-1400 psi? How can I confirm the pump is providing this pressure? plus also if the high pressure sensor wasn't seeing high pressure wouldn't that throw a code and I would see that when scanning? Again it would be weird for the pump to be my problem because it worked fine before i took it off but i'm trying to prove things out right now cause i don't want to waste money throwing parts at it. So if someone could tell me how to know of the high pressure side if good please let me know.
Next I wonder if I have a vacuum leak somewhere now? but would that really stop it from starting? plus I took it apart and cleaned everything again and put back together torque of 7 ft lbs for the manifold. So i doubt I have a vacuum leak plus i can see I connected all the hoses.
Then i'm wondering well did a wire break while moving the harnesses around? but I feel like if a wire to a main sensor broke and wasn't allowing a start up that it would throw a code and i would see that when scanning? maybe i'm wrong? does kinda crank like the cam shaft sensor is bad but idk how it could be i never touched it besides taking the connector off and once again i think i'd see a code. I've confirmed the correct wires are going to the correct injector as well.
One other thing I thought was ok I removed the high pressure fuel pump and the rotated the engine by turning the crank to clean the intake valves then reinstalled the fuel pump, i doubt it but does the fuel pump have to be installed at a certain camshaft position? i can't see that being the case it seems to just ride on a single lobe so I would think whenever you install a high pressure pump on here that it would not matter at all where the cam was positioned?
I even read some guys saying to touch the battery cables together to reset things after replacing a cam follower while this makes no sense I was willing to try anything well anything that is safe to try but no luck starting still.
Anyways guys i'm all ears please help me figure out whats wrong! Like i said i know my way around a car so i don't think i missed anything obvious but maybe I did so i'm open to hear what you guys want me to check and confirm is good to go. I think I covered everything i did to it, but if you need more details just ask. Thank you for taking your time to read and please help out a die hard audi fan. i even bought a car lift to maintain my audis. I feel so let down with this car and I was finally happy to know I was going to fix the root cause and now I created a bigger issue! Not that anything is screwed here but for the moment it is a boat anchor and I need to get this back on the road so I can feel how this car should run with clean intake valves and hopefully restore my faith in audis. At least now I know more about the problems with these motors so I can address them right away. But I couldn't imagine owning one of these and not being able to work on it, you would be broke from dealer visits. and still I feel cheated nothing but problems and now here's my biggest one!
Thanks
Andy
New to the forums. The dreaded day is here I've never had to join to ask a question till now. Usually i just browse the forums as a guest to see whats going on from time to time. so a little bit about why i'm here. I never thought i'd see this day but I'm completely stumped and can't figure out why my 2008 A4 2.0T won't start. I've been working on cars for 15 years now 6 of those in a dealer and the rest as a hobby. I've always managed to fix any car i've ever worked on but i'm at a point where I don't know what to check and to be honest this FSI motor is a first for me so I'm learning a lot working on it over the past year. anyways This is my 4th Audi i'm a huge fan even have a tattoo BUT I purchased this A4 a year ago and have had nothing but problems so I honestly feel pretty crappy about the new audis with these FSI motors I feel like i've been screwed. My 98 a4, 2001 a6 and 2003 a6 are great cars and never had these types of problems and I go for a newer one and i'm paying dearly for it. Ok so I know it can be hard to fix a car over the internet without having been here working on it but I'm very detailed and I do know what i'm doing for the most part. I'm no rookie but I also won't say I know everything. I do all my own repairs big or small and take pride in my quality of work. Like I said i've never been stumped But I gotta ask for your guys help here. So here we go from the beginning so that you know what I know.
I bought the car and it ran great for one week. but then It started to misfire on start up and idle so I did the natural thing and replaced coils and spark plugs. now the idle was smoother but it still from time to time would misfire on start up. I bought a vag com so I could start to monitor it and figure out why. well it is completely random misfires so i've never been able to pin point it to a specific item being faulty. Mean while i'm replacing coolant housings and temp sensors because these items have gone bad on me in the first few months now owning it. so time goes on and I start to get really frustrated as to why this thing starts and idles so crappy. Now i'm also noticing it's using oil between oil changes! Well then I discovered the pcv was clogged and had been forcing oil down the vent tube that runs from the valve cover to the turbo. So now I've had to take apart the turbo pipes and intercooler pipes because they were coated in oil and cleaned them. not to mention there was about 3/4 quart of oil in the turbo pipes it splashed everywhere when i opened them up. I was shocked. So Then Obviously I replaced the vent tube with a new one cause theres a valve in there and I replaced the PCV with ECS tunings catch can kit and PCV delete which is an amazing product by the way and the guys at ECS have been awesome to deal with! So now here I am thinking all this oil in the intake was getting into the motor and causing the spark plugs to misfire which i'm sure it wasn't helping but now here I am about 2 months later still with misfires on start up and idle and just running rough. BUT the oil being forced into the turbo has been fixed!!!! thanks to the catch can kit and new vent tube it's breathing normal and not forcing oil out anymore. STILL have misfires though and now getting worse as time goes on. Now I start reading about these FSI motors and how the get carbon build up on the intake valves because the injectors are not port injected but direct injected so this makes sense to me and now knowing that and on top of all that oil in my intakes pipes I figure theres a good chance that This carbon build up is my misfire issue. Well now we are up to speed and this last weekend I finally decided to bite the bullet and take the intake manifold off and clean the valves. plus I started to see cylinder 4 misfire more often than the others so i wanted to address the possibility of an injector being clogged too. And I have been wanting to replace the cam follower for the high pressure fuel pump as well as these wear out!
So here we go now to my main problem that I need help with! so the car is running this whole last year of owning it and never had an issue with it not starting ever runs like crap but always ran. So i make a call to ECS to get some parts I decided to get in there and fix this misfire thing for good! So I bought spark plugs just to have a fresh set in, I bought a cam follower, I bought a fuel injector and the fuel injector remover and installer, i'm a fan of doing things right, then I headed to harbor freight and bought a blaster with walnut shell media for blasting the carbon out of the intake valves. I've seen some people scrap it out with picks and stuff but i wasn't going to do that. I read that many people use the walnut shell media to fix this problem. even BMW does it at the dealers. SO here we go I pull the car into my garage and I change the spark plugs no big deal easy and done! I go to remove the intake manifold to clean the intake side of the head and replace the injector. Really it's not that hard to take off and install. So I go to take the intake manifold off and the high pressure fuel pump was kinda in the way from being able to sneak the manifold off the engine and I was going to replace the cam follower anyways so I removed the fuel pump at this time and set it aside and taped off the hole. then I got the intake manifold off and all 4 injectors stayed in the engine they did not pull out with the intake. WOW WOW then I looked in the intake valves and honestly it was horrifying to see that much carbon everywhere. SO no wonder it was misfiring! So now i'm pumped i'm excited to fix this car for good! so i tape every hole off so when I blast no media shells get into the engine. So i get the blaster ready and I get a wrench on the crankshaft pulley bolt to turn the engine so i can closed the valves when I blast that cylinder so nothing gets in the engine! I blast all four cylinders and what a difference. Night and day! the intake was clean! I mean clean! so once again i'm very excited. I remove the injectors, all four because I bought the kit to replace the o rings and teflon seals. So i do that out and back in with the installer tool and hook the wires back up. Now for the install of the manifold. I replaced the Throttle body gasket and the intake manifold gasket with new ones. everything goes back together smooth as silk now for the cam follower and install of the high pressure fuel pump. Done! everything back in it's place and looking good! I go to start it and...and...and... it just cranks but won't fire up and run! I can tell it wants to run but wont. I don't get it and am lost with what to check or do. At first I thought ok I had to of missed something so I double check everything and it all looks good everything where it should be. I hooked it up the the scanner NO codes! So I figure ok I screwed something up. SO I decided to take everything back apart and check everything out and make sure it was right and it was. SO I put it all back together and guess what still doesn't start, does the same thing, wants to start but wont. no codes!
So here I am very confused and pissed off. Here is what I have tried to check and can tell you.
I have spark, i checked all four plugs by grounding them out cranking and seeing spark.
Then I though oh no maybe some crap got on the valve seats and I lost compression or something, checked that and its 185psi on all cylinders! good to go there!
Then i'm thinking ok maybe i'm not getting fuel. I can take the spark plugs out and see the each cylinder is spraying fuel the pistons are instantly wet after cranking.
But i'm curious about this high pressure pump? maybe this guy is my problem but I know I have fuel going through it, it's spraying out of the injectors but maybe it's not working right? So I check to make sure the tank pump is pumping and it is. I push the Schroeder valve and fuel bursts out. question should I see low pressure readings at the valve or high because When i test the valve I get 87 psi which Is what I have read to be correct for the low pressure side so i'm assuming thats correct pressure for the Schroeder valve? How can I check the high pressure side? I feel the vagcom will only tell me the pressure if it's running not during cranking. Maybe I don't have enough pressure I read that these run between 750-1400 psi? How can I confirm the pump is providing this pressure? plus also if the high pressure sensor wasn't seeing high pressure wouldn't that throw a code and I would see that when scanning? Again it would be weird for the pump to be my problem because it worked fine before i took it off but i'm trying to prove things out right now cause i don't want to waste money throwing parts at it. So if someone could tell me how to know of the high pressure side if good please let me know.
Next I wonder if I have a vacuum leak somewhere now? but would that really stop it from starting? plus I took it apart and cleaned everything again and put back together torque of 7 ft lbs for the manifold. So i doubt I have a vacuum leak plus i can see I connected all the hoses.
Then i'm wondering well did a wire break while moving the harnesses around? but I feel like if a wire to a main sensor broke and wasn't allowing a start up that it would throw a code and i would see that when scanning? maybe i'm wrong? does kinda crank like the cam shaft sensor is bad but idk how it could be i never touched it besides taking the connector off and once again i think i'd see a code. I've confirmed the correct wires are going to the correct injector as well.
One other thing I thought was ok I removed the high pressure fuel pump and the rotated the engine by turning the crank to clean the intake valves then reinstalled the fuel pump, i doubt it but does the fuel pump have to be installed at a certain camshaft position? i can't see that being the case it seems to just ride on a single lobe so I would think whenever you install a high pressure pump on here that it would not matter at all where the cam was positioned?
I even read some guys saying to touch the battery cables together to reset things after replacing a cam follower while this makes no sense I was willing to try anything well anything that is safe to try but no luck starting still.
Anyways guys i'm all ears please help me figure out whats wrong! Like i said i know my way around a car so i don't think i missed anything obvious but maybe I did so i'm open to hear what you guys want me to check and confirm is good to go. I think I covered everything i did to it, but if you need more details just ask. Thank you for taking your time to read and please help out a die hard audi fan. i even bought a car lift to maintain my audis. I feel so let down with this car and I was finally happy to know I was going to fix the root cause and now I created a bigger issue! Not that anything is screwed here but for the moment it is a boat anchor and I need to get this back on the road so I can feel how this car should run with clean intake valves and hopefully restore my faith in audis. At least now I know more about the problems with these motors so I can address them right away. But I couldn't imagine owning one of these and not being able to work on it, you would be broke from dealer visits. and still I feel cheated nothing but problems and now here's my biggest one!
Thanks
Andy
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