talonf55@gmail.com

Hi guys I'm new and this is my first post. To give you a little background to the car, I just purchased it from an auction. Didn't know if it ran or not but for $225 with a clean body and interior cant beat that. So I get it home tried to start it and it cranked very slowly then stopped. So I suspect the battey so I replace it. Cranks a little better then I see a little smoke coming from he front between the pulleys and radiator. Had a metallic smell. I checked the plugs all good, sprayed some starter fluid, put he plugs back and it cranked a lot better but that's all it did. Checked for fuel getting to the motor and that's good. Not sure what else to check. I had my guy run a diagnostic on it and I have a bunch of codes which I have pics. If you want me to upload them I will. Appreciate the help fellas

rocket1420

In general, you need 3 things to start an engine.

1) Spark - you need to verify this. I generally pull a plug and lay it on the valve cover. Crank the engine. You should see spark jump to the valve cover. If not, start there.

2) Fuel - you seem to have verified this?

3) Compression - If you have spark and fuel, and still no start, time to run a compression test. You can usually rent a compression start at your local auto parts store for free (pay the deposit, get it back when you return the tool.)

These days, though, you also need timing sensors, which is why those codes you have will be important to diagnosing. Do you have VAG-COM? You should at least buy the blue eBay cable and get the free version of VCDS-Lite. This should give you most of the info we need to get that car started. You only paid $225 for the car, $10 + a laptop to get it diagnosed is cheap .

It could just as easily be a bad cam or crank sensor. Codes should tell us that.