roughyear

driving downtown to a meeting when all of a sudden as i approach a red light the car starts to want to hesitate and idles very rough. the CEL starts to blink. i put the car in neutral and rev up the rpms... wow, the car was shaking/vibrating very rough, i swear i thought it would stall, but didn't.

i get to the parking lot about 5mins later pop open the hood (like i know what to look for, and i'm wearing a suit) don't really notice anything obvious (plus the lighting sucked anyway)... but no fuel smell, no smoke, nothing out of the ordinary.

i come out the meeting about an hour later, the car starts fine, but sounds very rough and shaking, and the CEL is blinking again, i rev it up for about 15secs and the CEL stays solid, i put it in drive and it's rough and a little hesistant, but drives.

i get onto the highway, as i accelerate it is rough, but coasting is fine, had difficult time trying to pass people/cars with the roughness on acceration, but able to maintain 65mph without issues.... so i'm thinking do i go home (15miles away) and put it on the vag-com or do i take it to the dealer, which is also 15miles away but in the opposite direction of my house.

i decided to take it to the dealership and have them look at it in the morning, fearing i wouldn't be able to get it there safely there in AM rush hour tomorrow or knowing my luck the car probably wouldn't start in the morning.

like i said drives fine, just very rough/shaking if i accelerate.. fuel economy was running normal 20-24mph. i did not hear any misfires.

what could this be??? the car has been behaving fine with no prior warnings.

JBowers

...the loose particles are blocking the exhaust from one side.

It's only a guess, but I've seen the exact symptoms before from a broken up cat on one side.

Best of luck,

Justin

01 //S8
90 V8q

roughyear

damm it... i think and i bet that's the darn problem!!!!

shooot!!! i left the car at the $tealer and now i'm awaken knowing that's the problem. and i have an extra damm ignition coil right here from the last time i had a misfire!!!!!! arrrgg!!!

i have to try and get to the $tealership tomorrow AM b4 they take it in and charge me $100 for a simple diagnostic!!! I forgot there was an advance auto right up the street and could have borrowed their OBD tool.... shoot!!!!

ok.. where's that simple Ignition Coil how-to diagram??

svxit

It's actually in Audipages, but once you're under the hood and remove the engine covers, it's fairly straightforward.<ul><li><a href="http://www.audipages.com/Tech_Articles/enginemechanical/sparkplug.html">Here I Am!</a></li></ul>

roughyear

you know.. i looked right at that last nite!!! i was sooo damm tired i didn't see it

roughyear

i was gonna take the vag-com with me this morning, but wouldn't you know it, it's freckn' raining and try to get to the dealer would take forever this morning to do the reading and then trying to make it back to work on time.

or do i just go ahead and eat the $100 diagnotic fee so he can tell me it's the coil pack and possibly something else as well

skiracer

as your car, and it was one of the two power output stages (located under the plastic cover passenger side firewall behind the washer fluid filler.)

KYNZ

i would FIRST run the codes...you WILL certainly have a bunch. Your car will be fine if you can lug it home. Dont waste the $$$ on a "diagnostic fee" or if you want it diagnosed, drive down the street to PepBoys/Autozone/AdvancedAuto and have them run your codes FOR FREE. Post those codes and we can most certainly trouble shoot for ya. Trust me, i have over 12 threads on this exact issue (and more). Things to check:

spark plugs - pull them and make sure they arent black or bright white (too rich or too lean)

Coilpacks - start the car and then 1 by 1 remove each coil pack (put the previous one back before removing the next one). Your RPM should drop every time you pull one and the car should run rough. IF you pull one and there is NO change in RPM or engine idle, there is your misfire.

Power Output Stage - see Skiracer's post above. There are 2, one for each bank.

water in the ECU compartment?

Bad Cat?

Mis-aligned Timing Belt (that was mine!)

Good luck and keep us posted.

PaulW

As others have said: coil pack, power output stage or could be stuck fuel injector

roughyear

i couldn't get my vag-com to work, so i went down to advanced auto and borrowed one of their OBD machines.

now i've used these in the past where it would read the codes and i'd take the machine back into the store and they'd give me a printout of the codes.

well.... this machine was slightly different. when i plugged it into the port it said 3 codes.. ok i said to myself these are probably the codes from the last car that used this machine, and since i didn't tell the darn thing to READ anything yet i said ERASE... and guess what it did... yep, it erased the damm codes from my car.... DAMM DAMM DAMM

the CEL is off and i can't get it to throw-up the codes again... DAMM DAMM DAMM

ok.... how long before it produces the codes again... and will this rough idle/accereration hurt the car if i drive it home from the dealer to the house (25miles)???

with the codes being erased i'm assuming the even the dealers diagnostic machine won't be able to pull up the codes.

HELP!!!!!!!!!