Farmjazz,

I am off to sleep, and off to work in 6 hours, so I will leave this now.

If it was the "Stop Engine Oil Pressure" warning, then most likely the rod bearing was spun at that moment, and the noise was already audible, which at the beginning of spinning a rod bearing, it sounds like birds chirping, then would progress into a knock, and if kept running, it would seize and most likely bend and blow through the block.

But the fact that it turned over and did not fire, leads me to timing.

On your question about a code for timing belt, the answer is no.

The reason I would pull all eight plugs and use the camera is to have a definitive answer as to any damage to any cylinder, not just the one that showed misfire.

The fact that it was making noise, blowing smoke, looks and sounds to me like the spun rod bearing, and a bent valve or valves, I COULD be 100% wrong, BUT something here is fishy, remember the first guy said loose timing belt, "diagnosed as timing belt slip due to tensioner failing"....

Seems to me that this dealer took the VW's diagnoses with a grain of salt, and kept running an engine to try and locate a sound which now was clearly a spun rod bearing, not to bright on their part.... but that's just my feeling when it comes to basically any brand of new car dealer service department.

I am 53 years old and have been around the car business since I can remember, and the new car dealers we dealt with when we were in the business, always had a story, or denied any knowledge of any given problem that I knew 100% they were full of you know what, one of the top ones is when the Cadillac dealer claimed that they never had any problem with the HT4100, I said really, then explain why you have crankshafts, rods, and pistons for about 18 HT4100's heaped in a junk pile by your dumpster, he was speechless.....

Johnny J J

FWIW...
 

Again, unfortunate, and more difficult with the distances.

I went back and skimmed the earlier post when it was at the possible timing belt stage. As Johnny has already sketched out, sounds like the belt drive headed south and the motor was physically getting more and more damaged--bent valves, jammed pistons, rod bearings damaged and eventually spun, etc.

But, I suspect the end result of a damaged motor could already have been underway even with the early signs here. It could well have been back to when your wife was on the interstate. In context she did the reasonable things-real time try to figure out what is up while driving down the road like a thousand other days, get to safe place, try to restart if not obviously broken, etc. Many/most of us would have done about the same absent yet more dire signs overcoming human nature to try to make it to destination.

If you remember back on the earlier post when you said someone diagnosed bad coil packs, a couple of us asked about the spark plugs and whether they were looked at or examined. In retrospect this strikes me as a "miss" if they weren't. 99 times out 100 or more, no real news there--at least beyond maybe a fouled or well worn plug. And if not damaged/worn/fouled, back to coil pack fix. But simply replacing a coil pack without looking at a plug on a well used car really doesn't hang together for me, yet more so if your car had the recall coil packs already. Regardless, this might arguably the 1 in 100 other one. Again, my instinct is the motor could well have already been screwed up even then and would have needed at least head work but also lower block, so this is more the post mortem for a bleeding mortal wound than something that could easily have been caught and avoided. Thus, a rebuildable assembly basically got totaled, but it was arguably headed for a thorough rebuild anyway (with similar dubious economics unless you use a running junkyard motor perhaps instead).

So, in the small world...I was in this same basic scenario almost 30 years ago with my then less than one year old Audi 5000. It took a big mid speed hit at the extreme front corner of the passenger fender at a 90 degree angle. That was weeks of body work redoing the whole front clip, but no "real" motor work. Like $7,000 of body work later (w/ insurance), I picked it up. Drove it away and felt a misfire and came back within 30 minutes. No coil packs back then so the adjoining Audi dealer to the body shop pulled the plugs. Found a bad plug and pronounced it "cured." Fortunately realizing it didn't compute as a random thing out of the blue conveniently at the same time as the accident, I asked for the plug. They came up with it after about an hour even with some time having passed, bent electrode and all. From there it came together that part of the fuel injection pot metal was found broken off and they replaced it in the bodywork phase, but never found the piece. I asked carefully and they checked back to the guys who did the car work since it was there a long time and I had stopped by a lot. Well, that was because the night of the accident it must have broken off at impact. Then when I restarted it to see if I could drive it off or get it to the side, the motor must have eaten it the last/first time I hit the gas and it went past the throttle plate. Thus, the damage was already done before the later plug diagnostic, and the dealer missed it until I connected the dots and they found the plug still on some guy's work tray. On the tail end, they scoped the cylinder and found indications one piston had scored a cylinder. They then got insurance approval (painfully) and pulled the head, concluding the block was damaged and head had cosmetic issues. $4 or 5K worth of motor work and a new
Audi short block later it was finally back on the road for another dozen years and 200K miles to go. But, the insurance co. got into a situation where over two serial repairs spent more than the car was worth to total, even only being just a year old then. And, it wasted a total of like two months getting me out of what was eventually their shop Rabbit non turbo diesel pick up freebie loaner. Some story, but in context a key diagnostic of looking at the actual plug in the bigger context/fact pattern was missed, especially when they saw a fuel injection intake piece was broken but they couldn't find it. (It was right where the rubber boot clamped to it, so it wasn't really logical it would have fallen to the street if someone wonders that). Your parallel analogy is an observed loose belt.

On yours, even being on site and driving it at the time can leave one unsure until with 20/20 hindsight you can put the pieces of the puzzle together in context. Thus speculating, belt likely was off enough to start damaging motor internals. Some number of plugs likely could have been knocked up along the way (which continued post coil pack change--the "rough running" and maybe smoking), particularly if any broke or got bent over a fair amount. Plug pull might have caught it--a 20/20 hindsight diagnostic opportunity and miss that would have led to scoping earlier. But, damage was likely already there which would lead to the motor rebuild scenario; basically where you are now except with no rebuildable core. It could be the valve to piston collisions happened only later and the earlier rough running was a jumped tooth belt scenario not yet enough for valve to piston interference. But the misfire diagnostic real time suggests the damaged plug scenario was prertty plausible to me by then so motor was heading south.

Sorry to get into post mortem, but maybe it helps with any spousal what-really- happened type questions (BTDT myself with various, "really that's it?..." questionable scenarios). Maybe also minimizes some of the could-a, should-a second guessing. Besides a few lingering questions on the misfire diagnostic w/ 20/20 hindsight now (or Johnny's separate thoughts), the only remaining suggestion I have in the context of the car is whether any use of a wrecking yard motor still in good shape makes sense. Depends on availability and finding an indy shop to do the swap that makes some sense w/ distances, costs and confidence in mechanic. It wouldn't surprise me if someone does it down the line if not you, if rest of car was still in decent shape.

Warning light was not as severe as "stop engine", will post again when get reply from wife on specific warning. First talk with Audi shop, fellow said car was "misfiring severely". Plugs were fuel soaked, described noise as "rattling,rubbing" around the backside of engine/transmission. Oxygen sensor in bank 1 was mentioned, don't remember particulars on that. Wife didn't hear or feel any problems, we're farmers and she's pretty good at recognizing when something isn't right, didn't notice anything was wrong except for warning light.

If the source was timing belt failure, I would have significant recourse. Belt and all appropriate parts (tensioners,idlers,water pump) were replaced 5 months and 9,000 miles ago. That's why we were at first expecting Audi to get car back running on their dime, since their repair warranty covered the recent preventative maintenance plus any damage resulted by failed preventative maintenance.

They claim timing was never an issue. After replacing coils, said engine ran "smooth as silk", in addition to smoking and rattling/rubbing noise. If there had been timing problem, after replacing coils, wouldn't the car have fallen short of running "smooth as silk"?

Thanks again for taking time to help. At this point, please be obvious about how I might talk to shop. Now, shop manager will sure need persuasion to push him towards considering his shop missed something, or fell short of reasonable performance. Will follow with specific warning when I hear back from wife.

Flashing yellow motor warning light
 

Heard back on warning light, flashing yellow motor warning. Nothing else observed. No noise, no notice of gauges out of norm.

Flashing yellow=Stop immediately and do not run
I never liked the dual mode of the engine light, I always have felt a seperate STOP NOW was needed since most people don't know what flashing yellow means. As previously stated, your wife did the normal thing 9.9/10 would do. The early diagnoses of timing is what I'd push to confirm, get you a new motor. If I recall your earlier posts, the car is around 80,000 miles? That's worth putting a new motor in as opposed to scrapping it, judging by your adherence to maintenance schedules, I'm assuming the rest of the car is tip top.

To the rest of the Audi guys, much smarter than me about the mechanics of them, if a new motor is required anyway, what's the cost difference between putting in the original motor and swapping it for an FSI? Sorry if that's a dumb question, I'm still used to Chevy's, where it's as simple swapping it out and maybe the ECU.

Farmjazz,

I for one would without a doubt would request and or demand the bore scope of all eight cylinders, this way you will know either yes or no that the timing went out, and caused upper damage if there is any, and the timing may still be out, I do not recall you ever stating that it ran "smooth as silk" after the coil or coils being changed, in fact it came across to me that it was still running rough and smoking, hence that's why you were going to take it out and blow it's nose, NOW how many plugs were soaked in fuel, how many coils were replaced, if more than one or two are we to believe that they all just went at once in the time frame the warning came, if more than one or two plugs were soaked in fuel that even leads more towards the timing being out, and that explains improper mixing and burning of the fuel, just so you know, all eight cylinders do not have to be out of time, like with engines with one cam, yours has 4 cams, two on each bank, so it could be one bank out or both, telling us what plugs were fuel soaked will give some answers.

There are a few things to think of, the timing could have been out since the timing job 9000 miles ago, BUT you should have felt a reduction in the power right from then, the belt could have slipped and caused the problem as your wife was driving, OR if it was only the cylinder that ended up blowing a rod, it could be that that coil only randomly fired which in turn would have a very rich fuel soaked cylinder and the violent igniting would hammer the rod bearing, again the latter would have been seen by the check engine light being on for some time caused by the misfire threshold being above it's limit, and I don't mean just on this road trip.

I just now see you warning light reply, just so you know, when the yellow check engine light is flashing, it means stop the engine immediately, not to drive it any distance, I have had the yellow flashing and at that moment the engine lost about 80% power, I threw it in neutral, killed the engine, and coasted the side of the road, I sat for a moment then restarted her, all was fine, codes later showed multiple misfire and bank 2 as lean, just a note, I have 12 cylinders, so 4 banks.

Best of luck to you and your wife.

Johnny J J

Ugh. So sorry to hear this mess. Years ago had a rebuilt VW 16V engine done for me, oversize pistons and all that happy stuff. Long story short, the front bolt on the crankshaft was supposed to be replaced (stretch bolt). They reused the original bolt and eventually the timing belt cog loosened and caused incorrect crank/camshaft timing. I'm not sure of the degree of change in timing, but it was enough to cause valve/piston interference and severe internal damage after limited driving.

[QUOTE=JohnnyJ A6Q;24680722]Farmjazz,
I do not recall you ever stating that it ran "smooth as silk" after the coil or coils being changed, in fact it came across to me that it was still running rough and smoking, hence that's why you were going to take it out and blow it's nose, NOW how many plugs were soaked in fuel,....

I probably didn't state previously that is ran "smooth as silk", this morning I went through my notes from previous conversations with shop, and found that specific note (smooth....). I don't recall ever saying it ran rough, only that it was exhausting smoke. Way I recall, was running smoothly, but smoking. Will call shop and ask to walk me through things again.

Have them put that in writing. Also ask the first (VW) shop to give you their opinion in writing (although it is kinda thin with "diving under" to check the belt. It can only be checked by removing top part of the cover and it is always loose). Contact Audi USA and ask them to figure out their dealer incompetence and replace your engine. I wouldn't take the car or any money before a court order me to do so.

It is reasonable that your wife and people on AW can't recognize that rattling sound remotely, but most definitely not for a highly qualified Audi specialist. Peaking trough the hole and removing starter (at your account) shows ultimate lack of knowledge. Why did they drive it around before removing transmission? In my opinion they had stupid idea to blow its nose but ended with blown rod. They have to pay for that. Offering you $3000 for the car they ultimately damaged is outrageous.

I might not have been clear, the blowing its nose was my phrase. They said they didn't have the courage to take it out on the road, noise was too severe to risk that.

I will follow your suggestion and talk to Audi USA, thanks for the reminder. I don't have much confidence something better will come of this, but I'll sure forge ahead "as if" a better solution can be found.

Just talked to service manager again. He is adamant timing was spot on. Said it was confirmed visually and with device plugged in under dash. (I have one of those for older vehicles of mine, just can't think of name of device right now) One thing he said that contradicts said here: He says there is a specific code for timing being out. I asked about the first processes they did to try to figure things out, he spoke off the cuff without his notes available. When I asked whether all plugs were pulled, he says he could safely assume they were, all inspected, valve covers removed and components visually inspected. Said after coils were replaced and engine ran, diagnostic tool would have immediately shown if timing were off. Also doesn't agree that noise was from engine all along. Claims dominant noise was from TC area, was perhaps lesser noise in engine that wasn't observed because TC noise dominated. Of course, perhaps he's getting away with something talking over my head, because I have limited understanding of internal components and how things work. He was a bit surprised when talking about timing and results of timing being off, that I said I had set timings in older engines with rotating distributor. He claims timing being off would be significant enough to notice, at least his story to me is that engine would run noticeably roughly.

To get $3000, would have to trade towards one of their vehicles. To walk away with check, would be in neighborhood of $2000.