Last night as I was driving, my 15 month old A4 just shut itself off. This was a very serious and dangerous situation, and my car hit the curb at low speed. I think I have damaged the suspension trailing arm or something else, as it makes this funny noise the faster I drive. Has anyone else experienced this? Is this a known problem? What could have possibly caused this? The car has not had any problem previously, except that the ABS comes on sometimes even when I didn't brake hard. My car is obviously still under warranty, but I don't know how I can convince the dealer of what happened. I say this because my friend's Audi had a lot of problems like power cutting off (but not engine turning off!!!), but the dealer cannot find any problem and has not done anything about it. Somebody out there must know something. Please help. Any feedback at all is appreciated.

Don't know why your car just stopped running, but I'm trying desperately to understand how this caused you to hit the curb at low speed.

The ABS issue is probably a bad sensor at the wheel. Easy fix and easily tested by the dealer.

You'll have to say what the noise is like or nobody will be able to help. Is it a click? Screach? Whine? Metal to metal sound? Intermittent or continuous? Need more info please!

Sorry to ask, but is this even a real post? No good explanations, talk about other A4 with power loss (and someone you know, conveniently!), and no E-Mail address. I ask you, in all seriousness, to give us more information so that we can better help you! :-)

Charles

Hey Chuck,

What the?!? You've got an quattroman e-mail address too? =Þ

If Way's car did shut off, that means loss of power assisted steering as well as power assisted braking. Without either, it would be extremely difficult to get a car as heavy as the A4 to get over to the side of the curb and stopped.

Sorry Way, can't really tell you much other than to get the dealer to check it out. It may be possible that the engine shut-off left an error code on the ECM as to what caused the shut-down. Service may be able to find it with the VAG tool.


James Wu
<a href="http://vancouver.a4.org" target="_top">Vancouver A4 Club</a>
1998 Black/Onyx 1.8tqa

...understood it. I changed it to quattroman about a year ago after being quattroman1 for awhile in interim. You'd think I liked quattro or something! :-)

I thought about the power steering, and the power brakes, but even though the car would be more difficult to steer and brake, it wouldn't be impossible, and I would think a curb would be avoidable. I ran out of gas once (one of my stupid things!), and was able to steer and brake just fine, and I was turning a 90 degree corner in third gear. Granted this was with my 90Q, but it is very front heavy and has wide tires on it. We don't know exactly what happened though, so I probably should not have questioned.

Need to know how fast Way was traveling, what kind of road (bumpy?), if the car just stopped, or if it sputtered first, etc.

Anyway, history has proven that posts with little information, no E-Mail, and are a name that I've never seen are usually flame bait. Not saying that's the case with this one, but Way needs to understand that more information is needed. There is a wealth of information here, but I don't think anyone is psychic!

I didn't mean to sound like an ass. Tends to happen every now and then though! :-)

Charles
Willing to help, but in need of more info!

this happened to me on the Autobahn in Germany in my Audi 80 the immobiliser cut the engine when i was doing 120MPH the steering went heavy and the brake pedal goes solid i managed not to hit anything though

Take it to your dealer before it happens again

Thanks all for replying so quickly.
Charles, this is a REAL post. I was driving on a narrow laned road, a right hand bend when this happened (I am in Australia BTW, which means we drive on the left side of the road). I was probably doing about 60kmh (40 mph?) when the car just shut off. The power steering shut off and the brake padel went hard. I managed to slow down but as it caught me by complete surprise I still hit the curb. Maybe I am just not as good a driver as you :). In all seriousness, I probably hit it at 25-30 kmh, which I guess could be described as low speed. My rims are badly sratched and just an hour ago I realised that the left front wheel (the one that got hit) is no longer alligned with the right front wheel. My steering is also off centre now (as expected). I don't know how to describe the sound that the car makes, but it is intermittent. I guess it could be the fact that one of the wheel is not actually pointing straight. I forgot to mention that there are no vibration whatsoever, and the left suspension felt fine. ABS still works as well (I tested it). I hope this is enough information for you Charles.
Oh, one more thing, I never said my friend's car was an A4, it is in fact an A3.

Wayne Leng (some people call me Way)
wleng@kpmg.com.au
waynel@majestic.net.au
wayneleng@hotmail.com

If the car is a standard, the power steering etc. will still work because the engine is still turning until the car nearly stops. Power brakes will work once or twice after engine power has been cut because they are vacuum operated and there is enough vacuum left in the accumulator to allow for periods when the engine has no vacuum (like under hard accelleration). With an automatic the engine will stop at low speeds not sure of the actual numbers but at high speeds it would be just like a standard. I've heard about the immobilizer but being in the US don't have any first hand knoledge of it. I'm sorry I can't afford the service manuals for the A4 or I'd find out for sure but I know that some cars will cut the ignition or power to the fuel pump as a safety measure when no oil pressure is detected. A defective oil sensor could be the problem if this is so on the A4. In any case there are many things that could have caused Way's car to die. If its a 1.8T I'd check into the oil pressure thing. That engine can't survive without oil pressure and could easily have such a safety measure. Need to know if its a standard or auto and it must have restarted after the event?? This is a clue but I'm not sure of what.

Sorry about the damage to your car Way. If you can see that your wheels are not pointing in the same direction take this thing to the shop today and get it aligned. There could be more serious damage to tie rod ends and ball joints (which seem to be a weak point on the A4 anyway). Secondly tires will make all kinds of bad noises when the wheels are severely out of line, that may be the noise your hearing.
P

If the car is a standard, the power steering etc. will still work because the engine is still turning until the car nearly stops. Power brakes will work once or twice after engine power has been cut because they are vacuum operated and there is enough vacuum left in the accumulator to allow for periods when the engine has no vacuum (like under hard acceleration). With an automatic the engine will stop at low speeds not sure of the actual numbers but at high speeds it would be just like a standard. I've heard about the immobilizer but being in the US don't have any first hand knoledge of it. I'm sorry I can't afford the service manuals for the A4 or I'd find out for sure but I know that some cars will cut the ignition or power to the fuel pump as a safety measure when no oil pressure is detected. A defective oil sensor could be the problem if this is so on the A4. In any case there are many things that could have caused Way's car to die. If its a 1.8T I'd check into the oil pressure thing. That engine can't survive without oil pressure and could easily have such a safety device. Need to know if its a standard or auto and it must have restarted after the event?? This is a clue but I'm not sure of what.

Sorry about the damage to your car Way. If you can see that your wheels are not pointing in the same direction take this thing to the shop today and get it aligned. There could be more serious damage to tie rod ends and ball joints (which seem to be a weak point on the A4 anyway). Secondly tires will make all kinds of bad noises when the wheels are severely out of line, that may be the noise your hearing.
P

Way,

I appologize! My intention was not to attack you or question your driving skills, but to find out more. Sometimes that is difficult to express in print, without things getting kind of confused, and I'm a master at that! :-) I'm nice most of the time, if you can believe that! Regardless, I now have a better understanding of what happened.

At the speed you were traveling, it is unlikely that you broke any major components, but you certainly atleast knocked the alignment off, and may have bent the tie rod or something. If your wheel isn't bent, and only scratched, I doubt any of the suspension was actually damaged. Probably just knocked out of alignment. I'm still going to have a difficult time with the noise, but did you check things like the undertray and the plastic pieces that go up and around the wheel well? When you hit the curb, one of these pieces could have been hit and knocked loose, causing it to rub on the tire, especially when turning. Also, something could have been pushed up against the left halfshaft. If it is a rubbing sound much like that you would hear from corduroy pants rubbing, then that would be my first place to check. As far as both wheels not pointing straight ahead, that is normal to an extent, as the alignment is set up for toe in. If one side is straight and the other points very slightly in, you're probably not too far off, but must be a little if your steering wheel is off center now. If you look at the rear wheels, you will see that they are aimed somewhat together also.

As to what caused your car to just shut off (no sputtering or anything, right?), I really don't know. Someone mentioned that your immobilizer may have kicked in, and that would be a valid possibility. It could also be a loose wire connection somewhere, and a small bump or something knocked it into the loose position just long enough to stall the car. Perhaps it is a problem with the ignition switch. If there is a bad connection in the switch, maybe the ignition just switched off momentarily. Hopefully, it was something that the computer stored and can be read by the scan tool at the dealer.

As for getting everything fixed, I hope that Audi will take care of the curb damage. I would think they would, if it is caused by the malfunction of the car. If they try to get out of it, get mean!

I also hope your friend gets his A3 fixed properly. Sorry I assumed it was an A4, BTW! Unfortunatly, we don't get those in the US! Sounds like there might be some incompetency at the dealership. Do you have different dealerships that you can work with?

Good luck!

Charles
Best driver in the world! Yeah, right! :-)