1999 A4 B5 1.8 Misfire

[ShunterMonkey]

Tomorrow, I acquire my new purchase. A 1999 A4 B5 with full service history, all bills and previous MOT certs. I bought it cheap as it has a few faults that need rectifying. The first one is a misfire. I am hoping it will be the coil pack, but it is going in for a diagnostic tomorrow. If it is a coil pack, am I best buying from Audi or a motor factors? Does anyone know of an alternative place to buy from?

Other problems are a knocking coming from the suspension which has already been identified and is on the list of jobs. Slight scratch on the lower rear offside door which can go on my list of to do's when it is running properly. One more thing is the stereo. If you touch the volume, it goes from quiet to making your ears bleed. Can this be cured with a bit of WD40 (dont know what it does but it has worked in the past with static type noises on radio buttons). Are there any after market alternatives? Is it a double din? It is currently a Symphony Tape unit.

Thanks


Edit: I like the user status of "One Post Wonder". Shames you in to making more post to loose the stigma :approve:

[green A8]

Don't know about your car but my old A8 had a coil pack recall many years ago. I bought the car after it had been stored for a few years and got Audi to replace a few bits and bobs and carry out a long overdue major service. To my surprise they also renewed the coil packs FOC. Must be worth a 'phone call to Audi to see if your car had the same or any othe outstanding recalls. One word of caution though my car had a full VAGSH even though it had only done very low miles.


For suspension knocking, probably the arms. I'd suggest fitting a full set of Meyle HD arms, these come with a four year warranty. I've done a few sets of these on most of the families Audis and never had a problem with any of them. Avoid the cheap (and very nasty) chinese junk that Ebay sellers knock out for about £80.00 or so a set, unless you like renewing your cars suspension arms every year or so, and enjoy buying new tyres and failing MOT's!

The radio problem is yet another very well known issue, you can get the radio repaired by having an internal memory module reset/re-programmed. There used to be several sellers on Ebay advertising this service, I'm not sure if they're still advertising as it's been a few years since I've needed their services. Worth a look though. Hope this info helps.

[ShunterMonkey]

Thanks for the reply.

It seems that the misfire may be a broken dip stick. The seller who had the car before me replaced some sort of fan bearing and saw that the dipstick was covered in tape, so decided to remove the tape. It was as this point the the misfire developed about two weeks ago but the seller didn't link it to the dipstick tape until I mentioned what had happened today when I went for a diagnostic.

Amazing how something so simple can bugger your car.