rimmi2002

Hi have a 2013 Audi a 6 3.0T Prestige. I bought a brand-new 5 years ago in September 2013. It has ~49,000 miles on it. I had Audicare on the car. It had received all its regular maintenance. It had not given me any problems up until now. The problem started last Saturday while driving on the Freeway, 20 mins in, the car started shaking on any attempts to accelerate it. 5 minutes later it completely stopped and would not start. The EPC light came on. No other lights came on ever. The ignition was making a sound as if it was trying to start but it would not start. (I tried multiple times)


The car was towed to a dealership. They looked at it and said that there were multiple misfires from all the cylinders especially cylinder 1 2 and 3. They said there was carbon residue around the spark plugs. They also said that their technician heard something inside the engine with a stethoscope. They need to do a complete engine tear down to diagnose the problem. Just the diagnosis cost itself is around $5000.


I am just completely surprised that the car engine was in such a bad shape with no prior events. I just wanted to get some feedback from people here to get an idea what could have caused this. I am not sure if I can completely trust the dealership also so I will probably get a second opinion as I am looking at a repair cost around $10,000.


A few things of note. #1 the car had given me no problems up until June 2018. At that point I had the fuel line changed by Audi as per their recall. After the service every once in a while the car would stutter for 1-2 seconds when starting the car up and driving. The stuttering never happened after the first 5-10 seconds of driving and only lasted 1-2 seconds. I guess now in hindsight I should have had it checked because it was abnormal. I thought it was maybe the transmission slipping a little bit. Could anything with the fuel line change have messed up the timings to cause this problem with the engine?


#2 The night before the problem occurred I went out to eat at a restaurant. When I came back the car's gas tank cover was open.Part of me was suspecting that there could be potential some foul play. May be someone put some water into the gas tank. However Audi said that is unlikely.


I guess I just came here to get any advice from the people on this forum. If anyone has experienced anything like this before? Anything else that I should look out for? Or am I at the mercy of the dealership And have no choice but to make such an expensive repair. The car is probably worth around $20,000 and part of me is wondering if it is even worth it to go through with the repair at that cost.

UCLABB

DanfZX14

PLEASE do yourself a favor and go to a qualified independent mechanic for your diagnosis and repair. Best of luck to you and your car!

badziewo

Get you car scanned for DTC first.
Post the codes and we will try to help you

nhdoc

This is VERY good advice. Your best bet is to get the car to a shop that specializes in VW/Audi and let them look at it. It could be as simple as a clogged fuel filter or fuel pump failure. The fact that it drove fine for 20 minutes prior to stopping tells me it isn't water or any other contaminant that someone put in the tank but it does sound like it could be fuel related. You don't need to have it torn down...just properly diagnosed.

rimmi2002

Thanks for the advice.I moved the car from the Audi dealership To a mechanic who has done good work for me in the past. Let's see what he says, It'll probably be a week before he can take a look at the car. I have copied and pasted Audi's assessment below.

As I mentioned before the car had no problems until it developed a small stutter that used to happen once in a while when we pulled the car out of the garage and then started driving it. The initial part of the driving slightly downhill. In The started after the fuel line repair that was done 6/2018. Apart from this one issue of the car used to drive find otherwise. I have copied and pasted the details from the recall repair below.

By the way it is not mentioned here.They said the checked the fuel for contaminants And there were none.

Thank you everyone for your help!

Acuransx

I'm no technician but this sounds a bit off to me. First, it now sounds like the car runs given that a rattling noise is heard at 2,000 rpm. Wasn't there some thread or threads about rattling noise at specific rpms being loose heat shield or some other exhaust type component? Second, carbon buildup on cylinder walls? That sounds awfully weird to me -- carbon build up on valves thanks to the lunacy of DI w/no secondary port injectors I get but how could there be carbon buildup on walls of cylinder? Third, certainly there are some diagnostics to be done before engine is torn down with a view to determination of what the problem is -- compression test, cylinder leak down test, etc. no?

Danfx is a smart guy whose advice on this board is logical and in my experience always good (no, I'm not related to him) but here I wonder if you might possibly be better served interacting with Audi of America. Not sure where you are located or if dealer car towed to is your selling dealer. Strikes me that if you had Audicare all maintenance was done at a dealer and car should be in decent shape. Why not open a case w/Audi and discuss this with one of their district representatives before going any further. Sounds very strange that dealer is saying have to tear down engine at this stage. Audi isn't exactly the most generous when it comes to goodwill type assistance but catastrophic engine failure (assuming that is the case) after so few miles on a well maintained car that has not been beat on is not the norm. I would think Audi would at least take a look at this and weigh in. I have to wonder if once you let your indy tech start working on the car that might preclude any assistance from Audi. Also sounds a bit off that from time you did the fuel rail recall there was a bit of an issue.

Just my 2 cents for what it is worth. Where exactly are you located?

Hope you get it sorted out and doesn't cost you an arm and a leg.

Best,
Jeff

nhdoc

The rattling noise they heard is probably something loose from the work they did on the fuel line since it was in the same area they are saying to noise is from. My guess is they left off some fasteners or a clamp was left loose.

Is the car actually running and driving now? If so, did they say how they got it running again? or was not running and towed out of the dealership?

rimmi2002

It seems like they got it running, Because the report mentions the rattling noise at 2000 rpm. It seems like the car was shut off due to the EPC error. They might have a way to work around that

I asked them for the complete ODB report on the car. This said their technician was not in to give me the report yesterday. I will go again Wednesday and ask the details.

rimmi2002

I am in Sacramento, CA area. I will call Audi of America to see what they say. Thanks for the advice. My main reason to take the car to an independent mechanic was to get a second opinion to find out if it was their fault When they fixed the fuel line. I didn't know They would not honor anything if someone else works on the car. I was really turned off by the dealorship, They would not explain any of my questions And basically said that they need to do a complete engine tear down before they can let me know If they're responsible in any way. My feeling with my experience with them was even if they are responsible they'll find another reason to explain it all.