Can anyone please advise, new to Audi, really bad starting and running problems

**ukchris287** · 15-12-2007,04:50 PM

Can anyone advise me please. I have just bought an Audi 80 Estate, 1992 on a K plate with a 2.0 litre petrol ABK engine. When I purchased the car it started first time and seemed to run OK (the person who owned it before told me they had just put the battery back on fully charged because it had gone flat while standing for several weeks). After driving for about half an hour, I stopped and the car refused to start again, I phoned the previous owner and was informed that there had been a similar problem about 2 years ago but it had been fixed since then (at the time of that problem an AA mechanic had come out and removed fuse 32, the car then started, the fuse was replaced and the car driven to a garage and no further problems of this nature occured after the garage had carried out work). Eventually the car started and I travelled about 100 miles folowed by a journey of about 160 miles a couple of days later, in the main during these journeys, the car purred along at around 60mph like a dream but once stopped was a pig to get running again, sometimes when it did start it ran really badly like it was 'missing' but then eventuall cleared, it would often not tick over properly when at lights and halt signs etc. (I also noticed that the dashboard temperature gauge was not working). I have experienced continual problems of this nature since and have been advised that the throttle body needs cleaning, the ECU needs resetting, sensors need replacing etc. etc. An audi garage told me the car was not new enough to be of the sort you can plug into a diagnostic machine, not that I can afford garage bills anyway. I have replaced a plastic manifold type unit on the side of the engine block (there was a leak from it) that houses two sensor type plugs, this was secondhand from a running engine and seemed for a while to have cured some of the starting and running problems for a while, I bought the unit complete with sensors and now my temperature gauge is working. I was also advised to change the idle control valve and I bought a complete unit from the same vehcle as before, this however made things worse so I went back to the original unit. The car ran OK for a couple of days with just one bout of stalling at traffic light and less problems starting, although it was not 100%. The other morning I went to start the vehicle and it would have none of it, I have run the battery flat trying and now have it off the vehicle on charge, has anyone got any ideas please. I have not been under the bonnet of a car for 30 years and although I built Ford cortinas and other vehicles of that era from scrap in those times I am completely stumped with all of this electrical sensor nonsense and am also not that familiar with fuel injection. The car has covered 150,000 miles and has a full Audi service history up to 121,000.

**Crasher** · 15-12-2007,08:29 PM

The most likely cause of your troubles is the blue temperature sender in that plastic water housing and your car does have (albeit primitive with 12 codes possible) diagnostics and with some live data output possible as well, so either the Audi person you were talking to was a numpty or far more likely a snob and was trying to get rid of you as your car is more than eight weeks old and "obviously you won't be in the market for a new one, sir!"

**ukchris287** · 16-12-2007,01:15 AM

Thanks Crasher, you might be right about the divey at the Audi dealership. I have changed the blue sender unit, albeit with a seconhand one but as my dash temperature gauge has started working since I was under the impression that it is OK. I keep finding a lot of info about problems after the battery has been disconnected, do I just reconnect the battery now it is charged and try again?