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Hi all, have been absent for a little while.
Still rocking the D3 4.2 a8 though.
An excellent start to the day today, was driving too work going up a slight incline and the trans dropped from 6th into 5th.
Very unusual, as it's not steep and i wasn't trying to hero up the hill.
Used the paddles to get back into 6th, and saw the temp needle, visually climbing - at an alarming rate.
Pulled over and arranged a tow to my mechanic whose first words where "i hope you have lots of money"
Car is currently at 178,ooo km on the clock.
I looked at the overflow bottle and that now appears empty.
Because it's such an unusual car especially here, I'm afraid they will just chuck parts at it and hope for the best. Which is all well and good, but audi parts are not cheap - plus we don't have an audi dealer here....
If temp started climbing and you got it shut off quick enough, you may be okay. I'd check the oil to make sure there was clean. If oil looks good, check coolant hoses for leaks remove belly pan and refill coolant and start looking for leaks around all hoses, heater valve, alternator, etc... That coolant had to escape somewhere.
Well, there are a lot of questions to be asked. First off, which engine do you have, exactly, and what year is the car? Next up, did the car run low on coolant and overheat, or did it run low on coolant after it overflowed and dumped out? Have you smelled coolant when you've left or approached the car before now?
The needle never got to the red, I had it over on the side of the road before it got that far, where i waited for the tow truck.
No coolant burning smell from the car inside either. When she went up on the tilt tray she left a puddle of water / coolant right at the top.
Dripping quite madly - the engine had been off for about 30-45 minutes by this point too.
The radiator overflow was checked on the weekend, a little top up but when i undid the cap it was all under pressure / vacume as you could hear the air being sucked into it.
Mechanic hasnt given me an update as yet - hasnt even looked at the car, hopefully I'll hear from them tomorrow...
The needle never got to the red, I had it over on the side of the road before it got that far, where i waited for the tow truck.
No coolant burning smell from the car inside either. When she went up on the tilt tray she left a puddle of water / coolant right at the top.
Dripping quite madly - the engine had been off for about 30-45 minutes by this point too.
The radiator overflow was checked on the weekend, a little top up but when i undid the cap it was all under pressure / vacume as you could hear the air being sucked into it.
Mechanic hasnt given me an update as yet - hasnt even looked at the car, hopefully I'll hear from them tomorrow...
I hope that it isn't the oil cooler leak, that can be very pricey for a shop to fix. If you have a good shop, it can be done on a lift with about 5 hours labor. I did a write up on how to do it, without removing the motor as suggested by the manuals. It can also be a cracked coolant reservoir, your usual old hoses. Toward the back of the motor is the heater core and hoses, which are annoying to do.
So the car went to the mechanics Tuesday morning, didn't get looked at until Friday morning.
They called me, yeah we had a look and without pulling covers off we don't know where it's coming from but you are definitely losing coolant.
It's going to need special tools that we don't have so we'l won't be able to do it.
4 days to pop the bonnet and not remove even a clip on cover.....
They have worked on the car before, cam and crank angle sensor replacement, wheel alignments, code reading and clearing, so it's not like the car is unknown in any way to them.
If they couldn't do it that's fine, but why 4 days to only open the bonnet then decide to let me know they couldn't....
Would have saved everyone the trouble at the start, hey sorry we probably wont be able to do it, then i could have moved it out of that yard.
Found another mechanic, who appears to know that it's going to need a bit of thought yeah sure tow it in Monday, and we will start it Tuesday.
Every work place that offers services of any kind have bookings already in the system (i work at a panel beater - we are booked out 6weeks ahead currently!)
/rant
They can have it as long as they want, I'm using the work ute (massive downgrade V the A8 but at least this one keeps its coolant inside the engine...)
I can't think of anything that can be losing coolant that requires special tools, they just don't want to do it.
Jack88, I have a slow leak out of the oil cooler area in my 05 D3...can you include a link to your procedure? Many shops won’t touch that repair without quoting a price that includes the cost of pulling the motor. Thanks
Jack88, I have a slow leak out of the oil cooler area in my 05 D3...can you include a link to your procedure? Many shops won’t touch that repair without quoting a price that includes the cost of pulling the motor. Thanks
Sure! An experienced shop with all the right tools could probably do it in 4 hours, maybe quicker. You still need to account for all the parts and taking it to a dealer for an alignment after, regular shops can't seem to handle the alignment with the engine cradle being part of it.
04-08-2019, 02:52 PM
Overheating
