Bald Eagle

Very smooth! I bet that shifts, with 2.4 litres!

Don't know much about high mileage S3's but hello and welcome to the site anyway!

speedysi is right - I have test driven a 1.8 T and it's pretty good. You get about 160 bhp, 7.7 sec 0-60 and 38 mpg, against the 1.6 giving 100 bhp, 11.5 sec 0-60 and 39 mpg

Hi Matt and welcome to the site! Your A4 sounds ace, why not get some photos up when it arrives? Some of the 1.8 engines provide 180 bhp as standard, and Bluefin reckon they can get over 200 out of it - so you should have plenty of potential there. Just watch out for other components that might not take the extra oomph. The Evo sounds pretty cool too, maybe sneak in a few pics of it as well? Had my first Audi for 2 months now and best car ever.

My daughter had the same trouble with her Ford Ka. I fixed it with a little powdered graphite from a small squeezy bottle with the unlikely name of "Just a Puff". I kid you not!

I have changed the head gaskets on two cars, a Mini and an Escort. It's a full afternoon's job, but it's a doddle compared with a full engine change. You can do a decoke and get some of the lost performance back as well. If you go for a bigger engine, I would stick with one from an A3, because if Audi can fit it in, you should be able to as well. Putting an engine from brand A into a car from brand B will involve having special parts fabricated: engine mounting brackets, drveshafts that fit a Honda diff at one end and Audi CV joints at the other, a gearshift that enters the cabin in the right place... And what about insurance? Fitting a turbo to a non-turbo engine is a challenge. Turbo engines have lower compression ratios to allow for the increased pressure from the turbo. Your ECU will have to control the boost pressure from the turbo. Can your existing ECU do that? It sounds like I am trying to put you off upgrading the car - I just want to help you make an informed decision. I think the best decision is to get the current engine working, then decide about power increases.

Hello and welcome to the site. Before I bought my Audi, I considered Mercedes but I was put off by stories about the quality going off over the last few years. Also a colleague told me that their rear wheel drive was awful in snow and ice. I'm glad you are enjoying the A8. It must be nice to have a light grey interior rather than the usual black. Mine is totally black inside and it took a bit of getting used to after my last car, with black leather & carpets but an off-white headlining.

HI Jodie and welcome to the site. Your A3 looks great - I really like those alloys. Sorry I don't know about the aux input on the 55 plate model. Mine is a 59 and the aux connection is under a flap in the centre console, by the handbrake. It might be worth looking at the back of the glovebox. Some manufacturers put an aux socket there.

Is anything wrong with your engine? Swapping it like for like would be a big enough job, but surely changing it for a bigger one would need the clutch, gearbox & brakes to match. Not to mention the correct map in the ECU and coding the injectors and whatever else needs coding to work together. I had the engine out of my first car, a Mini, in the 1970's and that was hard enough without all the ECU codes and electronics to match up. I'm probably just getting old, but my advice is to either be happy with your motor (if it ain't broke, don't fix it) or, if you really want more bhp, change it. Or you could remap it to increase the output of the current motor - but don't be surprised if something like the clutch gives up prematurely. The 1.4 TFSi engine is more powerful and more economical than the 1.6. The 1.8 T is probably the best balance of power and economy. The 2.0 T is a gem, but a bit thirsty. You asked about vtec - are you considering putting a Honda engine into an Audi? That would take some massive cutting and shutting.

Hi and welcome to the site! How about posting some photos of the motor?

I bought a 3 year old A3 S Line a few months ago and asked for mudflaps, but the Audi dealer told me that the S Line body kit prevents mudflaps from being fitted.

I'd get one with quattro to make all the power useable. That will be my next move.

the revised map could be over-fuelling it

Did you buy it privately or from a dealer? If from a dealer, I'd get it straight back for them to fix at their expense, seeing as you've only had it a few weeks. You could buy a used car warranty, I don't know if they would inspect the car before starting the cover? Have a look at:- http://www.google.co.uk/webhp?source=search_app#hl=en&gs_rn=11&gs_ri=psy-ab&cp=11&gs_id=17&xhr=t&q=used+car+warranty&es_nrs=true&pf=p&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=used+car+wa&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.45645796,d.d2k&fp=97d0a445dd354c24&biw=1920&bih=955

Ah, you didn't mention the buckled alloys in your original post. If the wheels are not round, this will contribute to unbalanced forces at high speeds. I'd get those replaced ASAP, especially as the Q7 is such a heavy car, putting high loads on the wheels. You risk sudden deflation of the tyre if the metal fails in the buckled area.

Is this any help? http://www.wheelfitment.eu/car/Audi/

I'd say the wandering was due to either the camber of the road or your tracking is off. It would be worth checking the tread depth across the entire width of the tread of each tyre. If it's the same all across, the tracking is OK. If it's wearing unevenly, it could be tracking or wrong inflation pressure. The wheel wobble is usually due to imbalance. I'd get it checked again at the same place and get the boss of the tyre depot to come for a test drive, so you can demonstrate the shake. If they cannot fix it, get a refund and go somewhere else, because clearly either their equipment or their technique isn't working properly.

Hi Tim and welcome to the site! My brother has an A4 and he loves it. He's just ordered another A4, the 2.0 TDI in Misano Red. He was telling me it had 170 bhp. I recently bought an A3 2.0T and I think it's great. My brother was a bit put out when I told him it has 200 bhp! Still, he can get a lot more mpg than I can. I'm sure you will love your new Audi just as much as the current one.

Hi Keane and welcome to the site! If you have cruise control, there will be an extra stalk sticking out of the left of the steering wheel cowling, behind and below the indicator stalk. Also, if you set the lights to "Auto" and leave them there when you get out of the car, the fog lights will come on and stay on for a while. Also when you unlock it. You can control how long they stay on from the menu in the Driver Info System. No idea if the DRLs will do this as well. Why not get some pics of the car up on this site?

Hi Sian, Welcome to the forum! As an ex-Ford guy, I know where you are coming from. I loved my Mondy Titanium X, but the dealership could never fix the damp getting in, or the rattling from the sunroof. The new Mondeo is just too big and the new Focus is just too ugly! And the depreciation is breathtaking. So Audi beckoned and the rest is history... Sorry I can't help with the steering issue, but I expect someone a lot more knowledgeable will be along in a bit. All I have done is look in the A3 manual. Of course, it says take it in to an Audi dealer. If the light is yellow, you have partial assistance. If it's red, you have no power assistance. But I expect you can tell that just by turning the steering wheel?

Hi Cal, Welcome to the forum! Your A3 looks great in red. Looks like an S Line - very smart! I had a Superchips Bluefin remap on my last car, a Mondeo 2.2 TDCi and it transformed the car, although pricey at £400 or so. But it comes in a handset, so you can remove and re-install it whenever you want. The handset also doubles as an ECU fault code reader. Of course, I had to inform my insurer about the remap, which increased the premium. At my age the increase was moderate, but it might be scary numbers the way that insurers charge younger people. I found that the dual mass flywheel / clutch assembly wasn't really able to handle the extra torque, slipping a bit on full throttle uphill with four in the car. The brakes were up to the job, because they were the same as on the ST220. So my advice is: don't bother with a remap because it will cost in insurance as well as the life of the car. I'd stick with the 170 bhp until you can afford an S3, which is built to take the extra oomph.

Hi Cruze, No problem! I forgot to say, use carburettor cleaner for the MAF, EGR and manifold. And wear rubber gloves for cleaning the EGR and manifold! But remember, there's no need to clean the EGR and manifold if your car was built before exhaust gas recirculation was added. Good luck!

You could replace the catalytic converter with a decat pipe to improve the throttle response. Petrol cars won't pass the MOT without a cat, but the word on the street is that diesels will. Also, cleaning the MAF sensor (carefully), EGR valve and inlet manifold will return a lot of the car's original performance that has been sapped by a build-up of oily soot in the induction system.

I found that a can of BG244 helped with the diesel motor in my last car. It ran a lot smoother after the treatment, so it must have shifted some carbon like it says on the tin. I didn't really look at the economy, but it must have improved if the injectors were less sooted up. My current motor is part-way through treatment with the petrol equivalent (BG44K) and seems to respond to the throttle better already. Another few things I did to improve my old diesel were to:- Clean the MAF (Mass Air Flow) sensor (very carefully or you break the sensor wires and pay for a new sensor) Clean the EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) valve (very dirty job but well worth it) Clean the inlet manifold (another very dirty job, but again well worth the results) I should have also cleaned the inlet ports, but I was too afraid of dropping dislodged muck into the cylinders. With the age of your car, you might not have exhaust gas recirculation, so EGR and manifold cleaning would not be required. But if it is... Recirculating the exhaust gas is fair enough for petrol engines, where it is mostly gas, but for diesels it is bad news. Exhaust carries some unburned diesel fuel and some soot particles, which make an ideal mixture to gum up the entire inlet side of the engine. So some people find the air channel in the EGR, manifold and ports has been reduced to a mere fraction of its original size. This gives poor performance and awful economy and gets worse as the miles build up. Fuel treatment doesn't have a chance of shifting the quantities involved (hence it being a manual job), but does work on the bits you cannot reach, like the injectors & combustion chambers. There is something called Terraclean, where you can take your car to have the engine decoked. It might be worth a go?

That's a shame. My heater seems to suddenly increase the fan speed, but I think that is when the engine has just warmed up and it can then deliver warm air to satisfy the selected cabin temperature. That is the kind of thing my last car, a top-spec Ford, also did. It also blew cooler air after the cabin had reached the set temperature. It is how thermostatic heaters work if you don't set the fan speed to auto. I have heard that you have to negotiate the cost of services and repairs with Audi dealerships. That might be worth a try. Fuel economy is overstated in the official figures for all cars. Which tdi engine does yours have?