A strange problem
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A strange problem
Here is one for the puzzle masters out there. I drove into town to get the Sunday paper. No problem. Then I drive out about a hour later and at the end of the drive way... no power to the wheels. No loud sounds, no smoke, no noise. The engine starts and runs fine, I let out the clutch and the tach is a 1k in first gear and the speedometer says 10 mph. I shift into second and hold the revs still at 1k. The speedometer says 20 mph. Shift into third ..1k-30 mph. Shift to forth gear 1k-40 mph. The engine, clutch and gearbox output seem to work fine. No noises, grinding or anything. Just no mobility. I have the car towed to the dealer and they can't get it to duplicate the problem. No VAG codes. They haven't got a clue. Neither do I except that I wonder if the ESP decided to go bonkers. The TORSEN diffeential in totally mechanical so that would have to self distruct to fail and I doubt it would repair itself on the tow truck ride. It is a early 99 A4 sedan, not DBW. Any thoughts or past experiences would be appreciated.
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WTF?
That's one of the weirdest problems I have ever heard of. I was going to say that maybe the clutch was slipping, or the throw out bearing wasn't engaging and it was stuck dis-engaged, but with the speedo going up... that makes no sense because I beleive it runs off of the output of the tranny typcially... (Not sure about Audis) Ummm... maybe you were parked on Ice and you didn't know it and someone tied a rope to your car and the wheels were spinning and you didn't notice... :-)
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Re: A strange problem
Nope, no ice just gravel. Excellant traction. It was damp at the time but I don't think grip was an issue. As far as the "limp mode" goes, if that's the limp mode I wouldn't get too far. Lame mode was more like it.
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Clutch master or slave not allowing the clutch to engage. On the ride to the dealer the vibration
and/or time with the pedal up allowed the clutch to engage. If my WAG is correct it is likely to do it again and increasingly so until the slave and/or master are swapped out.
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Heh...
I was just kidding about the ice thing... The most curious part of your problem is the speedo... Something in the tranny must be turning to make the speedo go up. If the clutch wasn't engaged it should still read 0mph
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Re: A strange problem
My thinking at the time was if I could engage each gear by shifting with the clutch normally and getting a different speed reading on the speedometer then the clutch was ok. I could even feel that little clunk when the pressure plate engages quickly. I think it is correct that the vibration of the ride to the dealer ( 50 miles ) did something. But my feeling from the time I was in the car was that the clutch was OK.
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Re: A strange problem
The axle is not a bad idea but they have been driving it at the dealer with no problem, going for parts, getting pizza, subway who knows but it's running fine. I asked the dealer to call Audi USA but they said corporate Audi only wants solid information like VAG codes or broken pieces, they don't want to spend time brainstorming. But I guess this is better than saying " Oh yeah, they all do that sometimes".