audi a6 thermostat location

I cannot locate the thermostat on my sons 1996 a6 2.8......any ideas

It is buried behind the water pump which means stripping down the cam belt system to get to it and that means removing the front of the car. This is why I always fit a new water pump and thermostat when I do a cam belt on one of those engines.

It is a pain of a job to change. You basically strip the front of the engine down, to get access to the cam belt, half slide this off the pulleys to remove the thermostat that is behind it.

Changed mine the other evening, and it took 3 hours, but was worth it for the improvement in fuel economy

Hi, I have a 2001 A6 2.0 CVT petrol and my water temp and oil temp never go up to the middle hence running cool. It only goes up if I thrash it in manual mode. The previous owner changed the cambelt and water pump for me but I am now thinking that they didn't put a thermostat in and it is always running fully open hence running cold. I also smell petrol as if choke is always on and fuel consumption is very poor cerca 400 miles a tank (tank is 65-70 litres!!!).

Is my diagnoses right or could it be something else.

How hard is it to change or put in a new thermostat?

Thanks
Alain

Surely the check engine light has come on?

It did come on and had it checked by a specialist but nothing really happened and it switched off.

If it came on it would have left a code.

Just spoke to them apparently the warning was for the coild that had gone and not the thermostat. They say that the warnign light might not come on if the water temp is too cool.

It will if the coolant goes too low as the ECU may start to enrich the mixture and this swamps the lambda sensor which then shuts down.

I also noticed that the elecric radiator fans seem to switch on immediately