Last Friday my A3 suddenly lost power while driving to work. A week before this it suddenly lost power and died at a stop sign (and would quickly die after being restarted).

At first I though it might be the alternator and the battery may be dying... but called AAA out and they tested alternator output and battery and both appeared fine. He started the car and drove fine for the rest of the week.

Come Friday driving to work it suddenly loses all engine power and I quickly pull to the side of the road... same symptoms.

Get the car to the dealer to find out what is going on and also mention a sort of swooshing sound I hear every once in a while when I start up.

The engine suddenly dying was diagnosed as a bad low fuel pressure sensor and the swooshing noise turned out to be the timing belt which they are replacing. This kind of worries me as I heard this faint noise for about a month but brushed it off as 'the engine just being cold'.

What kind of engine damage could a bad timing belt have done? Has anyone else ever had any timing belt issues under 20k miles?

08 A3 6MT... Hoping this isn't going to start a saga of engine problems :(

if it had, the tops of the pistons would have hit the valves. 'Nuff said...

I had the same problems, but no failure, caught it early after a battle with the one dealer, ended up at another.

Engine has been good since then.