karltanner

Hello!
It's been quite a few years since I've been on this website, so I thought I'd give something back....

Last year I bought an 2007 plate Audi A5 3.0Tdi 360BHP Quattro. A beautiful car, but has had it's problems in past which the previous owner spent ££££ on fixing, hence the modifications that have boosted the BHP output to 360

On delivery of the car, it had an EML light on. Luckily I had also invested in a Ross-Tech dongle so I could talk to the cars ECU and see why it's upset...

5308 - Throttle Body Actuator Bank 1 (J338)
P0638 00 [175] - Implausible Signal
MIL ON - Confirmed - Tested Since Memory Clear
Freeze Frame:
Fault Status: 00000001
Fault Priority: 2
Mileage: 207829 km
Date: 2015.04.06
Time: 18:10:46

SO, after saving all the faults (and there were surprisingly a few) I cleared the DTC's... Immediately the aforementioned fault came back.

The throttle Body Actuator is (Audi call it Air Control Flap, aka throttle bottle etc) a well known failure, and Audi will do nothing about it although charge you £500 for a new one.
After opening the actuator, you can see the plastic gears are all chewed up. I went about trying to source some new ones... To no avail.

BUT... A few months later I discovered this youtube video:
After a few emails, he now sells these on ebay: 161953579169

I have no idea how to post pictures on here, but they are brass and fit nicely. I've done it and now I have no MIL light So if you like a bit of DIY, it took me 2hrs, struggled with the damn spring most of the time...

To note, my actuator is the 4 pin type, and you don't need to retune... It just closes off when you switch the engine off to stop engine judder (as I understand it)

Hope that's helpful,

Regards,

Karl