A4 Avant low engine temperature

[Peter Geisler]

Brand new A4 Avant, notice during first outing the engine temperature was slow rising and never reached 90 deg.C that previous A4 had done.  Returned to dealer under warrantee,  Car returned washed and reported that all four tires worn 36%  (230 mile on the clock), but no fault with Engine or cooling system.  Should I worry?

  

[Magnet]

Hello Peter,

Thanks for joining the forum.

When you say the car is brand new, when did you take delivery (did you collect it from the dealer?) and what was the mileage when you took delivery? 
In my book, the car should reach its optimum operating temperature of 90 degrees within no more than 5 miles - as your previous experience shows. 
What temperature does it actually get to? 
Tyres:- To have evenly worn the tyres by a third in 230 miles is totally unacceptable with a new car - and just does not make any logical sense. 
My suspicion ( and obviously it can only be that) is that these (wheels) and tyres have seen service on another vehicle before they were fitted to your car. 
Irrespective of whether my suspicions are correct or not, the actual situation would be totally unacceptable to me, and would lead me to have little confidence in the car/dealership. 
Perhaps you could let us know how you feel about it Peter, and what your proposed action plan will be.

Kind regards,

Gareth. 

[Stagn8]

You don’t need to worry as all is under warranty but you are right to think there is something very odd and requires some explanation. A petrol engine should be up to temp. pretty quickly, mine is up to 90 degrees within a three or four miles (45 TFSI). If this isn’t happening you do need to know why, as running under temp. can lead to excessive wear as the engine is designed around a specific running temp. I would of thought not reaching the correct temperature within a specified time would throw a code as it is an important parameter.   
Assuming this is an Audi dealership then ask them for a copy of the diagnostic print out and post here. 
The tyre thing is very odd as that suggests you will be needing a new set before a thousand miles, at your mileage they will only just be about scrubbed in and working at a 100%. Again, the dealership need to explain to you how the tyres have become that worn in so few miles, or alternatively how have they come to that conclusion, do they know the dread depth of a new tyre of that manufacturer or are they generalising?

I think a revisit to the dealership with a request for a proper explanation of both situations, emphasising that you don’t believe either of these things are normal. If no sensible answers are forthcoming let them know you are going to escalate to Audi direct.
 

[Peter Geisler]

Thanks fellers,  Purchased new from an Audi dealer in Leicester, only a few miles on the clock.  I can see that the 'tire wear' problem is probably due to the engineer not reading what he has imputed in to the service center computer.  It probably had the wrong tire data listed for my car, hence the incorrect new tire tread depth.  36% wear on 200 mile should have rang alarm bells!  His first day back after New Year!

I will ask the dealer for a ECU read out, although I guess that an under temperature fault does not register in the ECU as a fault.  Too many short journeys  will probably sludge the engine if it never reaches temperature.  It reaches about about 60 deg.C after 5-6 miles and rises if in traffic.  On a run in this 2-3 deg.C ambient it will hit about 70 deg.C .

Nice people at the dealer and the car wash is appreciated.  I am not impressed with the diagnosis especially as the engineer I first spoke to when I booked the car in, told me that it should run at 90 deg.C

[Stagn8]

What is your heating like Peter, should be pumping out lots of heat within a few minutes, probably easiest if you to put front screen demister on and feel the temperature at the screen. The reason for asking is there should be a thermostat keeping hot water in the engine and heater system, temporarily bypassing the radiator, a slow warm up and not reaching temperature suggests that the thermostat is staying open leaving the main radiator in circuit hence the slow warm up and cold running.

If that is the case then it needs to be fixed pretty quick, as you have mentioned it will impact on all sorts of things, oil will be too thick to properly lubricate, fuel mixture will be all wrong leading to low mpg, etc,etc.

If this was a few year old or high mileage car I would definitely be suspecting the thermostat but on a new car it would be odd, perhaps it is as simple as a temperature sensor reading wrongly but whatever it needs fixing and quickly. 

I'll put my hand up to being old school but I am pretty certain that there will a time frame for min and max engine temperatures, if the engine doesn't reach, or exceed these then a code will be thrown and I would of thought an orange engine management light as a minimum, suggesting you get it to a dealer quick!

It really shouldn't happen on a new vehicle but with so much complexity something is bound to go wrong, frustrating, but on the bright side you do have the warranty. I spend all my time listening out for odds noises, dodgy gear changes etc but that is just me. Still enjoy the car though.

Hopefully another visit to the dealer will illicit some decent replies and of course you are a bit better armed this time!!

Edited January 8, 2022 by Stagn8

[Magnet]

Thanks Peter,

Well I must say ( non critically) that you have a far more gracious attitude than I, and probably most others would, towards the reliability of service you have received following payment of a significant amount of hard earned. 
Let’s take the tyre situation to start:- ‘…..probably had the wrong tyre data listed for my car….’.
36% worn = 36% of the tyre tread has worn away due to use. Since all new tyres start life as having c8mm of tread, then 36% wear applies all vehicles and would not have anything to do with ‘….wrong tyre data for MY car…’. First day back after New Year (shurbuts) or not! 

This ‘excuse’ would immediately lead me to distrust their opinion on anything else more technical, and my feeling is that they just didn’t bother to road test the car to see what operating temperature it reached. OK plugging it in to diagnostics just isn’t going to show up this sort of fault. My judgement of the fault is exactly in line with Keith’s, and this fault needs to be attended to. 
They may be nice people and the ‘free’ car wash is good, but…….! 

If this were mine:- I would be booking this in for road testing in relation to the temperature issue, but before taking it in, I would be taking a trip to my local tyre retailer and asking them to measure the tyre depth on each tyre - you should be looking for near to 8mm of remaining tread. If not? - alarm bells. 
Perhaps you could let us know how you get on Peter.

Kind regards,

Gareth.