Stevey Y

Hi realistically I know Audi have a sense of humour with these thing but that sounds way out of town, I would definitely get a second opinion and a code, at least you can find out exactly which sensor it is and as they have a propensity for using the same sensors on a lot of VAG cars you will probably find the one sensor cheaper for for another model, I would hazard a wild guess its the Nox sensor. Steve.

Hi welcome to my world, its driving me nuts trying to log in on my Mac 90% of the time it just won't have it so I keep trying random ways and occasionally it logs in like now, something has definitely gone wrong with the server as I don't have this problem with any other site or forum I use its really annoying. Admin sent me an email so I could change my password it won't let me do that I even tried re registering and it won't have any of that either. Steve.

Hi, correct its just like someone gripping your wallet in a steam press while you still have hold of it, making progress though the thieving gits must be getting desperate to sell one of these kits as I have been offered a £300 rebate from a German company as long as I send the old parts back, looks like they are going down the refurbished route in preparation for the tidal wave of new Milk Floats they are going to sell, you know, the cars you have to remortgage the house to buy. Steve.

Hi by the sound of the fault I would hazard a guess at it being the throttle valve but like all manufacturers they are fending off potential warranty claims as they hope to have nothing but golf carts for sale in the not to distant future. Steve.

Hi have you considered the possibility that the front pads may have not been far behind the rears wear wise. Steve

Hi sorry for the late reply but I have not been able to sign in for two days, strange, anyway from your description I would say if the pads have done a lot of town work over the last couple of years if there is still plenty of wear left in them it may just be as simple as taking the pads out and giving the stainless runners a good clean and regrease as it sounds like the pads are not quite releasing properly. Steve.

Hi, recently fitted drilled discs to the front of my Audi and they definitely make a difference in heavy rain I do about seven hundred miles a week [cab] a lot of it around town and the difference is that the standard braking used to take subtly longer in heavy rain to stop which normally manifested itself as slowing with a sudden grab at the end of the process, the drilled discs have eliminated this as the braking is controlled and progressive right up to the stop with less pedal pressure. I have used grooved discs before and to be honest the pad wear and noise are not really acceptable, if you look at a lot of the Mercedes and BMW sportier models including Porsche they use drilled only discs which with their testing regimes sort of gives you a clue as to what is the most effective option. Steve.

Hi the Autoglym is about the best I have found over three cabs and over 600k my two Fords were both alcantara and the Audi is full leather [alledgedly] a couple of times I had to have the drivers seat bolster repaired on the Fords and waited for one to be done at the upholsterers, the guy was only to pleased to point out what was leather and what was basically Faux, if you look at old Jag seats they will have cracks front and back and on the head rests because it is all real hide and are probably over forty years old. The Autoglym cleaner is a mild detergent product and the balm is ph neutral [No acids or Alkalines] so is all they do is clean and protect and if Rolls Royce recommend them it must be ok, the real hide is tanned and the cheaper stuff we get is painted and sealed. Steve.

Hi if you go on google and put in Audi A4 wheel off sets there are a couple of sites that will tell you which wheel and tyre combinations you can use with the correct offsets. Steve

Hi try a company called ECU Testing they do repairs on dash pods and will probably know what the problem is. Steve.

Hi I think your strategy of changing the oils and fluids is an excellent idea as I very much doubt they would have changed the gearbox oil or the diff oil unless asked and at least you start again from zero, Opie is a good shout as most of the gear oil etc they sell is good quality I bought my gear oil from them as they do quite a nice range of Fuchs titan oil which is oe on a lot of German gear boxes, engine oil is normally Quantum and the filters Bosch, Hengst, Mann all varying prices on eBay, try a site called Carparts in motion. Steve.

Hi , here goes, the only cars built with all leather seats are Bentleys, Rolls Royce and some top end Mercedes and BMWs, the rest of us lower end users have to exist with leather fascias on the face of the back rest and the bolsters, the sides and back of the seat is Faux of varying qualities depending on the manufacturer and I don't think any Vegan would consider consuming this however attractive. All the wear areas that you sit on are a painted colouring which is sealed with a clear plasticised coating to prevent cracking don't believe anyone who tells you that hide food sinks in it does not unless you have any of the above high end vehicles, the best products to clean the surfaces leather/faux is Autoglym cleaner after which use Autoglym leather balm which reseals the surface and prevents further dirt build up in the grain off the leather surfaces. Steve.

Hi its Ok I have come across this idea before and recently on youtube with some lunatic hosing down the inlet pipe, it made me cringe as I was present when one of my fellow cabbies had driven his Toyota through a puddle at his speed which had caused compression lock when the mechanic took the head off the cylinder that had the snapped con rod had only about an egg cup of water in it, just enough to lock it up snap the rod in half and then the remainder of the con rod had bashed a hole through the block, game over. The brake fluid idea was used on old engines and did work as brake fluid melts carbon and can be burnt off when the plugs are reinstalled and the engine is started, my mechanic had a customer who was head of the local church he owned an old seventies Dolomite Sprint he used to do a lot of the work himself but didn't fancy a decoke himself so he tried my mechanic who was not keen as removing the cylinder head was nigh on impossible due to bi metal corrosion, all alloy engine, he suggested the cheap fix with brake fluid but forgot to tell him the engine should not be running when he did this just turned over with the plugs removed, the guys nickname was born again Bob and after he tried it with the engine running, when it flamed back through the carb and set light to his hair he was then renamed Burn again Bob which even he found funny. Steve.

Hi I wish you luck, I have come across dodgy hall sensors before on one of my Fords despite the fact it was a Nippon Denso it turned out the length of the pick up meant that it was to close to the reluctor which gave me all sorts of problems I eventually changed it back to Delphi which had the same pick up length as the Ford original. Steve.

Hi try eBay or a general google, I have never replaced one of these but if you find a replacement unit the studs on it will give you a good idea of where to undo the nuts on the rear of the unit once you have removed the rear interior trim in the boot. Steve.

Hi the Audi perspective is that the boxes are Filled for life the Sealed for life boxes they produced did not sell cars so they abandoned that one but they are not about to tell you the oil needs changing along with the filters etc as that won't help with the sales of exchange boxes, my mechanic recommends every 35k or two years, as he services several taxis in my area that have DSG gearboxes and none of them despite starship milage have suffered gearbox failure I would be led to believe he may well be right. Steve.

Hi this method of decarbonising was used years ago on commercial Diesel engines, Gardener etc just the same as pouring brake fluid into carburettors on petrol engines [NOT WHILE RUNNING] and leaving overnight, carbon build up on the backs of valves is a common problem with direct injection systems, back in the days of inlet manifold mounted injection the mixture of fuel would keep the backs of the valves reasonably clear. Unless you want to scrap your engine observe the following, if you inadvertently spray in to much water you will cause whats known as compression lock as water is not a compressible medium this will have the effect of best case bending a con rod, worse case cause the con rod to snap, if you are super lucky the large chunks of carbon shaken loose will be inducted and go into super heat, then its the turn of the DPF to deal with these superheated fire balls which are so hot and hard that they just stick to the surface of the core eventually causing catastrophic failure of the core. Using a proprietary fuel additive will have the same effect by dissolving the carbon down to a more manageable size for the DPF to pass. Steve.

If you factor in to the equation that all dealers are franchised and different, from experience I have found out that the two dealers nearest me are like chalk and cheese, one is very helpful with advice on parts etc, the other is very trite and will not offer a shred of advice, prime example being an exhaust bracket I had to order recently one wanted £23.00 next day and the other wanted £32.00 and a three day wait, I guess its luck of the draw, no one on here as far as I am aware has ever claimed that indie garages are perfect just the same as a lot of dealerships are not perfect. In the final analysis if you have found a dealership you are happy with and your perception of price is reasonable good skills, with regard to the service history looking better, unless you are thinking of selling in the next two years the residual prices second hand are dropping dramatically as everyone will be pushed towards Hybrid or Full Electric so the service history will be thrown in with the pot of vehicles that no one really wants. I wholeheartedly agree with Steve and his philosophy on his Audi as most of the new generation of technicians won't have heard of his model, let alone worked on one. Steve.

Hi the sensor you changed is whats known as a Hall trigger sensor assuming it was working ok after you fitted it and taking in to consideration that it is only a collector of information supplied by the reluctor ring that would lead me to believe that something in the reluctor had broken down, therefore the only way to eliminate the sensor on that wheel would be to try another sensor, my guess is that some of the trigger sensors in the reluctor have broken down or corroded to the extent they have formed a chain rather than a circle of triggers with gaps between them, looking at the age of the vehicle if its the original reluctor and the replacement sensor is doing the same thing it all points back at the ring I am afraid. Steve.

Hi it is not the ABS sensor thats at fault its the reluctor ring in the hub that the sensor picks its info up from, possibly corrosion if its the tooth type on the C.V. Joint or alternatively if the ring is fitted to the face of the bearing its probably just knackered. Steve.

Hi no you are not being dim, and indeed you may well be looking at the wrong part, believe me I have tried on both sites GSF/Euros and is all they could offer was an email alert if they ever get anywhere near it, loads of second hand units in breakers in Europe, it seems that the lower HP models have available clutches mostly for the DSG gearbox but not the manual, I even managed to get a printout from my local spares shops Audi parts system which is more up to date I have picture of it but no part numbers for the kit.

Try youtube they often have fix it videos for that sort of thing even if the model shown is a couple of years older it normally puts you in the right ball park. Steve.

Hi Gareth, the clutches are definitely made by LUK I managed to get pictures of a second hand clutch on a German breakers site and it was the same model as mine except it was L/H drive and red, the clutch had LUK stamped on it, I know its the patent release issue as I had the same problem with Ford until a year after the car was six years old they released to aftermarket and the clutch fell down price wise to half price. With regard to type approval Europe ditched that back in the eighties as they suddenly realised how much the oe suppliers were making in the UK selling to the aftermarket outlets under their own name, will try Sachs its worth a go, thanks for the heads up. Steve.

Hi Gents, the A6 is just coming up to 100k so I thought I had better start enquiring about the price of a new clutch, its a six speed manual gearbox, nothing fancy, it would appear that none of the usual aftermarket suppliers of LUK clutches can get them so I thought I would try the local dealers, what a conversation that was they offered a deal on supply and fit £2,800 with the VAT, after my missus had given me a blast on the Defib unit I politely declined and tried TPS they were marginally better at £1,500 for the parts, I phoned LUK direct and they claim they don't make the clutches but the bit of info I gleaned from an American forum reckons they are made by LUK in Eastern Europe, what is the matter with these clowns, I think that Audi have not yet released LUK from the patent agreement yet but on a five year old vehicle, really, I am thinking I might just see how far the original clutch will go before taking a large bite of the guano sandwich, with that sort of attitude to after sales parts I definitely can't see anyone rushing out to bankrupt themselves on a new all electric model, god knows what mortgage sized prices the spare parts will command. Steve.

Hi from the excellent photo supplied it may be that the matrix is partially blocked as it looks as though only a small portion of it is being used hence the bypass effect. Looking at the writing on the side its made by the French which would explain a lot, never done one myself but it looks good for access if you are handy with a socket set. Steve.