1.8 n/a petrol hot start problem

[Cactusgreena4]

My car is a year 2000 A4, 1.8 n/a manual.

I have owned the car about 1 year and it’s been perfect. Last month I got stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway, and when I went to start the car it wouldn’t fire up. Following a very scary 5 minutes stuck in the middle lane with traffic flying past either side, some HGV lads pushed us to safety. I called the rac out and after waiting 1 hour for them to arrive, it started up perfectly. Looking back I should have took it straight to a garage but foolishly I used the car for the rest of the day, and it was fine. Later in the evening I pulled in for fuel and it wouldn’t start again and I got recovered home.

I called a mobile mechanic out and he said it’s nearly always the crank sensor that causes these issues. He fitted a new crank sensor and it’s been perfect for the last month, until last week, when my wife borrowed the car, she pulled in to collect something and it wouldn’t start again. She sat for an hour in the car and then it started up and got her home. It’s been parked up since then and I don’t dare take it out again until I know it’s fixed properly.

Has anyone experienced this with their car? I’m puzzled now trying to figure out what’s up with it. The engine light is on, but the only code coming up is for the air flow meter, the mechanic said it looks like this has been changed at some point. The car doesn’t overheat at all.

[Crasher]

I agree with your mechanic and would still suspect the G28 crank speed sender, annoyingly these hardly ever show up as a fault code and many aftermarket parts are utter crap; which code reader is he using? If it is a generic OBD II reader it is likely it is missing codes. We used to have a 97 Avant like this as a customer loan car, it was in fantastic condition and drove like new but we had scrap it because the specific one year only passengers side air bag impact sensor failed and it was impossible to find a new one anywhere.