vinnysca

So a couple weeks ago, I went on a 600 plus mile road trip to attend a family funeral. Several days that I was in Erie, PA, my A8 ran great. The day that I was supposed to leave, I decided to stop at a store before getting on the interstate. While at the stop light, the start stop function turned off the engine as it usually does. When I set off to go, the engine kicked in, and I get this warning telling me that the alternator was not charging the battery! The a/c shut off and my power steering quit working! I had a very hard time steering the car to turn right and almost got hit by opposing traffic! Fortunately, I made it to the Home Depot parking lot and turned off the car. Turning it back on, hoping that it was all a software glitch, the engine started fine but still no power to the a/c and no power steering. I decided to pop the hood open and saw what looked like a wheel pulley, laying on the floor pan of the car! The serpentine belt had been knocked loose completely! This explained my problem!

When I finally got my car towed and taken to the nearest Audi dealership in Erie, which was closed for the weekend, I had no choice but to extend my hotel stay and rent a car to use while I waited till Monday to go back to the dealership and figure out what happened to my car! So to make a long story short, the Audi tech told me that he's never seen anything like it. He said that he never saw a pulley for this car fail before. When he tried to look for that particular part, he found one ONE in the whole U.S. which was in located in California! So, another day for me to stay in PA!

Once the part was overnighted and had arrived Tuesday morning, it was installed without a hitch. BUT, now they can't find a serpentine belt for it! WTF?! I was told that they didn't stock this belt since it was very reliable and not at all a belt that would fail right away! No after market companies make them, and ordering it from Audi in Germany usually takes 7-10 days! Ughhhhhhh!!!!!

After explaining to them that I cannot stay any longer due to business commitments, they checked the old belt over and despite having some cracking and slight damage, they told me that it was still good to drive with until I get back to my dealership in New England, it definitely needs replacement.

So, the next day I went back to NH and took my car back to the dealership. A new serpentine belt was ordered and I got my loaner for 7-10 days until the belt arrives from Germany. I am just so thankful that the moment that the pulley failed happened when I was stopped! My service advisor told me I was lucky that the pulley didn't break when I was on the highway, or it would have definitely caused a lot of damage inside the engine compartment!

Now, I wonder if anyone with a 2014 A8L Tdi has experienced anything like this?

Just wanted to share...

Vinny

MP4.2+6.0

Absurd that the pulley broke. Seems like straight manufacturing defect, and one they should look at further.

Absurd they don't stock the belt. Even more so that there are other 3.0TDI implementations, and you would think one or more would cross over as far as general set up of auxiliaries for the belt path.

Unfortunate they didn't man up to it and ship the belt red tag from Germany. Means they have to air freight it as a one off instead of in the normal bulk batch, but it is done. How my Hybrid main controller unit got here within the past year in a couple of days. In that case essentially off the manufacturing line onto a plane to CA via the USA national warehouse, for a couple of days total time. Sounds like local dealer did a decent job expediting and helping you out, but someone in Audi parts distribution (and/or service) cheaped out on an air freight decision. A little short sighted too in that here besides customer relations the DHL envelope for a belt on a couple of day cycle was probably half or less the rental car bill for the extra days.

Last, notice the corrosion at each pulley point in the pictures more generally. Not exactly confidence inspiring after that incident. Normally I would just take it as every day wear, but does seem sort of sloppy at a manufacturing level when they all end up like that and failure point itself has a good dose of rust showing.

KnappAttack

Wow! That looks like straight up metal fatigue from diesel harmonics. The old GM 6.5 Turbo diesel also had pulley failure over time with the sever harmonics the diesel created.

I don't think there are too many A8 TDI's in the states.

One thing that does not seem normal there is the severe corrosion all over under the hood there. Lots of corrosion on the inside bore of that dampener and even the engine block! Seems VERY extreme for a 2014 when you look at the steel and alum parts! I've never seen that much corrosion on any of my Audis old or new. My 11 still looks new under the hood without a hint of corrosion. Have to wonder if that contributes to the failure along with the harmonics eating and nibbling away the the steel pulley.

Jack88

You aren't missing any seals or covers keeping the weather out?

vinnysca

I do live in New England (NH) where they do salt the roads a lot during Winter! But, I can't imagine why the salts would ever get high up into the engine compartment. It's not like living along the sea coast. The salty air would do more damage within the engine boot, I would think. And the tech at the Erie Audi place did check for leaking seals and said that he didn't see any.

I'm hoping the belt would get here by early next week. I am not that worried, since I do have a loaner :-)

the_duke

Salted roads are far worse than salt air by the sea. The issue is cars driving in front of you turning the saltwater on the road into a fine mist and then you drive through it. If air is supposed to flow through that area then the salt water mist will flow through as well.

Jack88

Yeah, salt gets in weird places. My parents Lincoln caught on fire after a fuel line on the engine sprung a leak. Looking at the charred area, the running theory was that salt had made it up there and caused premature corrosion of the line. Keeping it washed and underflushed didn't help, apparently. Salty roads also make suspension work a giant pain...

Garycw

IN the late 70's I was in a blizzard, caught unexpectedly while driving from Fort Wayne in. 70 mph wind, -70 below wind chill and almost total whiteout. Maybe 5-10 ft visibility. To my amazement, the car started over heating! After fighting my way outside to lift the hood, all I could see was the top wing nut of air cleaner in a 71 caprice v8. The rest was a solid block of ice from snow coming through grill and around hood. I was done for in several ways in the middle of nowhere. A empty tanker truck happen by just then and was told to jump in, road was closing up. As we pulled away, caprice was almost covered over. We barely made it to Dayton oh. Most semi's didn't. He saved my life and I learned a valuable lesson.
You don't know sometimes what used cars have been through. Blizzard, Flood etc.

ionize

That is a crazy failure ! I've seen some LS GM motor examples of this type of failure but almost all were aftermarket balancer/pulley issues...

Garycw

I wonder about how many flooded cars are dried out and sold without mention to avoid the branded title? Although floods seem to be everywhere, I'd be curious to look at carfax to see what areas of the country it's known to have been in.