First time Audi owner and I am very excited to have my 2002 A4 1.8t quattro but recently after driving it for nearly a week I had an unexpected power gain, or so I thought. My assumption is I have been lacking power from the get go.


Basically when driving sometimes the turbo works the car is nice and powerful but then it has gaps in the power surge so it is a bit jittery power, no power, power.


Other times when I get in the car its like I barely have 100hp before 2,750 - 3,000 RPM cause it is that slow and acclerating from 2th to 3th to 4th gears is very very slow with the same power band and it appears the turbo is not working

 

Any check engine light? Have you downloaded codes with a VAGCOM reader?

You problem could be any number of things from a misfire to boost control.

 

no check engine light.

also I am completly new to everything Audi related. getting the codes as you say is it easy? how much does the reader cost on average or do i have to take it somewhere to get a reading? Is it like getting a OBDII reading?

thanks for taking the time to reply

 

edit: google is your friend of course. I found out what it is gonna get the OBDII reader asap or find a friend and post my findings.

 

Would recommend a VAGCOM reader, not a generic OBDII reader. It has full VW / Audi specific codes...

 

ok will do. thanks for the info. soon as I have the codes I will post them.

 

So I have been tight with time and haven't had the chance to get the VAGCOM reader so no codes to post just yet however, last week sunday I jumped in my car to go to work for DOUBLE TIME PAY! woo hoo! Or maybe not since when I turned the key the engine started and then immeadietly DIED... well I guess no overtime with double time pay for me. So I did what anyone I think would have done. I FREAKED! LOL. Right away I thought I had been had with a lemon of a car since I only bought it 2 weeks ago.

It was time to go into Google detective mode. Dash said bad oil sensor. Ok googled the part and related issues. Came across a thread here about a poor guy who had a oil sensor issue and spent quite a bit of change only to find out it was a fuse. CHECK THE FUSE! (I think to my self) I go back to the car pop the fuse panel and notice some foreign wires smashed behind 2 fuses. 24 and 31 to be exact. I pulled the 2 fuses and removed them from the alien wires which were connected to a small black box. Excited I checked the black box thinking it might be some sort of aftermatket performance thing. well it wasn't. In fact it was a GPS tracking system of some sort. After spending about an hour on google I found that it was a new model from the company who makes it so it was installed recently no later then May of this year. This lead me to believe the dealer installed this GPS tracker and did not tell me about it. Also it was messing with my cars entire system makeing ghost codes. For example: oil sensor, rear tail light failure, even made the guage cluster remain on after the key was removed saying to push in the clutch to start with the alarm set and doors locked. It also caused the alarm to go off for no reason what so ever.

GGGGRRRR I hate small dealers but it was too good a deal to pass.... There is good news! Now that the GPS tracker has been removed, burned, smashed into specks and burned again the car runs just fine. no warnings from the cluster or staying on after being turned off, alarm stays quiet and I seem to have my missing power back for the most part. 2002 and only 100k miles is not bad.

 

Good find and good news for you.
As lyleswk said, you need to get a scanner, these cars were quite advanced but as they get older little things go wrong and without a scanner you are guessing or just pure luck.

The VCDS appears to be the premium for the home DIY (I have one) and you can do a lot with it. If you are just looking for error codes and not wanting to do home fixes then there are some quite cheap scanners. Make sure you get a VAG (Volkswagen Audi Group) capable scanner not just OBDII. It plugs into the same port but gives you all the errors from all the modules. Lots of discussion on brands if you search these forums.

 

Thanks for the insite but I am completly new to Audi's and not sure what a VCDS is. Now that I google'd it, wow... so it's a complete windows based diagnosis program is what it seems to be. what all can you do with this program? does it need to be plugged directly into the car or does it give you wireless updates and real time info? this is something I would be interested in for sure but might be over my head. I have always worked on my own cars but this one has scary electronics I have never seen or touched for that matter. 2001 honda S2000 is about as techy as I have gone.

 

Check out the VCDS website at Ross-Tech: Home. There's a manual you can download to get a better understanding of what VCDS is capable of doing.