wifes 1.8t A4 started sputtering at idle earlier this week, like it was going to stall out, but drove fairly fine otherwise. no noticable power loss or anything. I check the codes and it's giving camshaft/timing errors. So we take it in and the dealership checks it and can't find the problem. Takes them 3 days, 2 calls to germany and they finally decide that the rings in pistons 2 and 3 have collapsed, because the compression in those two cylinders was low.

Does that just not sound right to anyone else? Wouldn't the car smoke and have a serious lack of power if the rings had collapsed?

Oh, they don't do internal work like that so their solution was an engine replacement, 9k or so. Shouldn't a shop that knows how just be able to replace the rings?

thanks

unfortunately they didn't actually give me the numbers or tell me. They just said it was low both on the phone and on the paperwork. Going by the way the car drives and their difficulty in finding the problem, I don't think the compression was terribly low. You can turn the A/C on and the car almost feels normal. There's just a slight flutter in the idle note. A burble...for lack of a better word..

The wife mistakenly put mid-grade gas in the car and that's what I thought it was at first. Because other than a fluttery idle, it seemed to run fine. So I hooked it up and scanned the codes and it was getting camshaft timing errors. After looking them up, it wasn't anything I wanted to tackle so I took it in.

They checked the timing belt, it was fine, hadn't slipped or anything. They took the valve covers off, everything fine in there. Then they checked the compression and #2 and #3 were low. My paperwork doesn't say, but I assume they checked everything they should check after that and had to call germany for advice on where to go next. After the 2nd call they decided on collapsed rings on #2 and #3.

If you have any insight into this, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for the reply.

Ironically the Audi tech at this shop used to work that the dealership I took it too last week. Turns out the cam position sensor was broken. Oddly enough based on the codes I pulled initially, that was the first thing that the dealership should have tested and they claim they did....

Owell, I plan on getting my money back from them for the wasted time and I'll never be going back there again.

It was obvious that the first place doesn't know what they are doing.

I'm glad it worked out.

I checked the codes, I looked them up, first thing I found was "check camshaft position sensor". You'd think they'd do the same thing I did, only better and more in-depth.

Owell, I'm going to get my money back from them for their diagnosis problem that should have taken one hour, yet took eight.