AudiBoston34

Thanks RED. Completely agree, I always subscribe to a pilot checklist mentality when on my boat, in my office or working on houses/cars etc... because it is easy to get complacent with tasks that appear basic (like oil changes - because of having done them hundreds of times), but can have catastrophic outcomes if focus is lost or ADD takes over. I KNOW this to be true - which is why I am so disappointed in myself. Still hoping for the best, but mentally preparing for the worst.

Forcefed4door

Did you at least try to blame the wife for this? Lol

spdemon91

I was thinking of posting something similar but then decided it's way too soon for any comedy. We are all human and we all make mistakes. About 15 years ago, my wife and I got into a big heated argument over the phone while I was at work. I think she may have even hung up on me. I then immediately go out to my car to go home for lunch to continue the conversation. I was so upset and wanted to get home asap. There is one car in front of me at the stop sign making a right turn. Oncoming traffic doesn't have a stop sign. I am looking up the road and there is a car far off in the distance but plenty of time for both the car in front of me to go and for me to go. The car in front of me starts turning onto the road. I quickly glance up the road to confirm there is enough time for me to go as well and there was plenty of time. I start accelerating and BOOM. The idiot in front of me stops halfway in the middle of their turn onto the road. Big insurance claim and the lady also claimed she had whiplash and everything. There was an eyewitness who talked to me afterwards and indicated she thought it was odd that the lady just stopped abruptly in the middle of the road. Who knows, she could have saw me in her rearview being all edgy and in a hurry and that may have made her nervous, or she could have purposefully stopped. I have no idea. Either way, my fault completely. Of course later on I joked that it was clearly my wife's fault for making me all upset.

I pray everything turns out well for you and your car. Please keep us posted.

AudiBoston34

AudiBoston34

mtnboydl

That's so tough. Your best bet is to maybe find a local Indy shop and just come before them as a broken man....ask for some honest guidance on what to do now, and what potential options if they say the engine is no-bueno.

I subscribed to watch the evolution. I went through my share of severe engine complications growing up and working on cars. I feel the gut punch and hope you get past it soon!

audisession

mtnboydl

Insurance doesn't cover this sort of thing, at least general liability/collision policies.

MP4.2+6.0

In my opinion and experience, you are simply not at FUBAR stage yet, or have enough diagnostics to know either way. FWIW, on some 70's and 80s Audis I did deal with serious internal motor and jam issues so went through the drills. A few times it was just bent valves (C1), once it was a dropped valve that took out the head and piston (another C1), and once (C3) it was a broken intake where cylinder ate a piece of metal and piston scraped block (plus bent spark electrode as it ejected metal). Haven't dealt with hydrolocked motor that happened real time running, but actually had a few head gasket leaks on one or two piece o crap C1 motors that were so bad they filled up a lot of the cylinder. I caught those with manual crank turns and avoided catastrophic scenarios.

Yes, still try to turn engine manually. Last few Audis I have had (C5 4.2, D3 W12) had what seemed like a proprietary or oddball splined end to crankshaft at center pulley. But you simply had to find the correct size metric 12 point socket to slip over it. You do need the larger ½" metric socket sizes. If all you have ends by 19mm found in a DIY type std. set, that probably won't be big enough. You also need the typical 18-24" type ½" breaker bar or very long socket drive and probably a stubby sized ½" drive extension. At this point it's your single best diagnostic--simply to know if engine is locked (which could be a decent quantity of liquid oil got into at least one cylinder under compression in one or more strokes) or if it is some other overlapping more fixable scenario with battery or something else. A scan would help in that regard.

You also don't report on plugs at all. Were they badly oiled up? Some? Many? Those are your first suspect (upper) cylinders for any mechanical issue. Turning motor with plugs out would be the secondary test to see if it turns freely with plugs out, but not when they were in. And if it turns pretty freely once/if plugs are out but it didn't first with plugs in, as your last Hail Mary I would then go into the motor E.R. room mode, maybe pull the intakes, dismantle the PCV oil vapor system, etc, and get the extra oil out of there before attempting a start. Given it is a hot V motor with intakes on sides instead of in traditional center, pulling intakes is probably no fun. Also, with plugs out, you still have to fight valve spring pressure so there is some resistance and it varies a bit as the cams and valve springs do their thing. But definitely if you feel anything like a quasi hard stop or hear any odd noises, stop. You can also reverse as long as cams are all connected up internally. But if you can feel or hear anything that is atypical, then it would be quasi full motor disassembly--heads off, piston crowns examined for any signs of valve hits, valves checked for bending if any marks on piston crowns, pistons pulled and con rods checked, etc. The only remaining pre disassembly step that might be done if it gets this bad is to do an internal optical scope though the plug holes to look at any suspect cylinders. If you find any obviously scraped cylinder walls (with given piston in down (BDC) position), that cylinder piston probably locked and then scraped the wall as it jammed under sideways torque and rings gouged the wall. At that point the block is toast. Old school would be often be a rebore, but these days it seems like that kind of engine work is sort of a lost art. By contrast, if the diagnostics say the motor did lock and anything is odd feel or sound wise as you hand turn it, but you don't see cylinder wall damage, then engine is likely salvageable with a tear down to find the specific messed up parts.

But before doing something drastic and invasive even like a full intake dismantling, but if you found oil clearly on plugs, I would focus on PCV/oil vapor system as likely point of oil entry to intake. It doesn't just flow uphill and miraculously flood out the intake passages on way to valves and pistons. And if the plugs are not swimming in oil, the whole theory the issue has anything to do with oil in intake or that got into cylinders in quantity is very suspect. Instead, if not battery.starter related, something TBD in lower block area. I don't have any idea either if by chance motor has some weird protective electrionic systems (haven't heard of it). If so, those should be in a VCDS type quality scan; unlikely to be in the generic OBDII type codes. No sign of a starter click or instant load up is what causes me to wonder about odd areas like those, plus of course that starter/battery are actually in order.

AudiBoston34