Stevey Y

Hi Thomas these all sound like can communication errors and as a rule of thumb you shouldn't replace parts purely on U codes as these just mean one sensor has lost communication at some point with the other with the exception of the humidity sensor these are located under the cowling behind the mirror, thats the one that controls the demisting and are universally known to fail, I finally got round to changing mine at the beginning of the lock down as it was causing all sorts of erroneous codes relating to the aircon not working because the other components couldn't talk to the humidity sensor, changed it cleared the codes and bingo. With regard to the other lights I strongly suspect the battery one of my customers has a 2017 S-Line this started to throw up random lights for steering etc so he booked it in with the dealer, before he could get it there the dash was lit up like Trafalgar Square at Christmas and the car won't start turns out its the battery, even though the car has only covered 40k because he never went far in it the battery had been terminated, if your battery is new the next port of call would be getting the alternator charge rate checked as all the above codes can be generated by fluctuations in voltage, can communication relies on a steady consistent voltage. I don't claim to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination but the one thing you can be sure of is any thing can operated is bad news, at least with the Ford I had most can based sensors become crammed with redundant information so is all I did was a value relearn on the as factory option on Forscan and this cured 95% of the silly codes, not found out how to do this with VCDS yet.

Hi Thomas, did you get the part number, spent a good part of yesterday day watching my friend download a copy of the latest ETKA which recognises the British sold VIN numbers, that gave up all the parts I already had the numbers for they all matched, happy days. Steve.

Hi Thomas my sieve like brain forgot to mention that the filters of which there are many are a bit of a sand trap, I originally got the part number for mine off of the ETKA parts program that my mate downloaded, it turned out to be the wrong one as it appears all the bodies are the same size BUT the connectors magically change sizes the infeed pipes are the same fitment but the exit pipe from the filter can vary by up to three different sizes, I even tried asking my local Audi dealer for the part number that came up with my VIN they said that they could not part with that info unless I bought one, I am afraid that the only way to make a positive ID was to get under the car take the filter cover and mounting bracket off pull the foam protector back and read the part number off the unit, once I had that on my phone that was the end of that, I later found out if you have a mate with a garage business they can make a parts enquires to TPS the oe parts supplier and they will give them the correct number as they only deal with the trade.

Hi Thomas, well done it will seem daunting at first but once performed successfully as I am sure yours will be it engenders a certain confidence in the car as it won't be as frightening anymore, with regard to the youtube stuff its great and puts you in the right ball park to the point where you can make your own subtle changes to the process to make life easier and with a fairly comprehensive tool kit any thing is doable. On a completely different subject when I did the first post of my headlight problem I had also asked the question to a local Audi specialist whom I was assured was expensive but honest and knowledgable, he told me they would have to plug it in to find the cause, I did explain that I had already used my VCDS and come up empty code wise, he then went on to explain that they had the latest dealer level software and VCDS and Vagcom were not very good and not approved, they he announced used a software called IDOS which when I researched it was a financial accounts software, if you know nothing about software or cars you are a sitting duck for these thieving gits and at £68 an hour plus vat I don't think you will honestly see where the extra money went, try watching Frank Massy on Autoinform on youtube the top chap on diagnostics.

Hi Thomas, go for it, the extraction unit is a first class idea I bought one years ago and never looked back, when I first bought one it was a vacuum extractor they work quite well but eventually I bought an electric pump which connects to the battery this was much better than the vacuum unit from the perspective that you can do other things like change the filter while the oil is being hoovered out and you don't have to keep pumping the extractor to keep the pressure up, if you drain the waste oil into an old oil container you can see exactly how much you have extracted via the level sight on the side of the container. The torque wrench is not a major must but if you have a low level wrench I think the prescribed tension is about 25-27 NM or in lbs ft not a lot. I once as an experiment took the sump plug out after I had used the extractor unit just to find out if it left much in there bit of an exercise in futility really, belly pan off undo sump plug for about less than a teaspoon full to drip out, but at least I knew it worked. If you do the service yourself at least you can do all the little touches like sticking the hoover in the air box to collect all the small debris inside, wipe the thread on the oil filter housing with a rag with a drop of silicone spray this helps with removal next time as the unit is made of thermoplastic and can get a bit grippy with the female alloy thread, the only inescapable bit of laying down is the fuel filter I think its the same on most late A6s and is under the floor on the drivers side the cover is easy enough to remove but the hose clips on the filter are a bit of a bar steward if you are trying to remove with pliers, I bought the proper removal pliers VAG ones for about twelve quid and believe me they make the clip job a dream, found it best policy to move clips back then drop the support bracket this gives enough clearance to twist the pipes off, when reassembling leave the out cover on the filter and pour fuel into the filter the other end you can angle the filter down enough to connect it to the infeed pipe raise the filter up to level remove cap and connect outfeed pipe you will experience a little loss of fuel from the filter, finally before starting run the ignition cycle without cranking for about five seconds four or five times this helps it prime the infeed and filter this avoids excessive cranking when starting, once started run for five mins check for leaks and replace weather cover. Last but not least you will have saved a tidy sum in labour and the deep satisfaction of knowing its been done properly.

Hi Thomas I wasn't trying to infer that what you had bought was fake, just trying to point out that sometimes you have to keep an eye on what ECP are selling, I have had experience of this with them before, example being when we were all running MK4 Mondeos as cabs the 2.0L version had a habit of eating EGR valves which at the time were nearly four hundred quid from Ford or slightly less on eBay, anyway ECP were advertising the Hella version [good brand] for about one sixty one of my fellow cabbies wanted to go get one so I gave him a lift to the local store, when we got there the guy brings the part out in a plain box, ok so we took the part out and inspected it and is all it had was an area where the information was ground off the guy behind the counter said the logo had to be removed as part of the agreement for selling them, fair go I had seen this when someone had blagged some genuine ford oxygen sensors he had been obliged by the supplier to grind off the Ford logo but leave the Bosch logo and part no. on, the counter guy then explained that a plain box and no part no. was what made them so cheap. To cut a long story short the first valve refused any protocol value re learn so we took it off and went back the next day and got another this one re learns but kept showing up an EML telling me the duty cycle voltage was higher than expected [valve sticking], by now both he and I were both suicidal as the EGR is mounted on the back of the engine so we went back exchanged it again that one worked for two weeks then failed, at this point my mate gave up got a valve down the scrappers from a low mile write off this worked for another two years until he sold the car. The last valve I ended up giving to a Ford Dunton engineer that lives near me he was most interested in pulling the part to pieces it transpires it was fake and the electronics were substandard to the point where they were incapable of obeying commands from the PCM, meanwhile back at ECP they were so fed up with fielding abuse from lots of customers over this part they just gave them the money back and explained the only replacements they had were twice the price. I am not a fan on a personal level of ECP as I know of a few people who have had problems with their parts, like my local garage returns for duff parts were all over his office to the point where he stopped using them and now uses Motex and Bennets and ECP keep banging on his door for him to come back to them, I think he said the second word was OFF. Steve.

Hi chaps Pagid started as a braking manufacturer back in the fifties and rapidly went viral among motor manufacturers Ford VAG and BMW as there business platform was bulk supplies of quality braking equipment, BMW bought ATE and got out of the loop so therefore Pagid and people like Brembo had to supply aftermarket to maintain their share of the global market, Pagid is more fussy about who they supply as they only supply volume parts purchasers like ECP who unfortunately have been prosecuted a few times in the uk for selling badge engineered Chinese parts, to be honest if you have a non urgent time scale on purchasing parts try Buycarparts they are very cheap and everything I have ever bought has the little check square logos on the boxes that when scanned with the app on your phone will tell you if the part is real or fake. Steve.

Thomas the ex rally mechanic sounds like a safe bet as if anyone has been a witness to monumental part failure I would say he has probably seen it all, as for the Tuscan thats my type of car, proper seat of the pants drivers car that one.

Hi from experience I have observed that aftermarket remaps can lead down a dark and dangerous path if you consider the fact that as you quite rightly put it both engines are the same and the only difference is in the mapping, consider this Audi as a producer employ the world supply of software writers during development these guys are tasked to write mapping software that employs subtle changes within torque curves to eliminate extra thermal stress on the engine and protect the integrity of the built in reliability factor, this process costs millions and believe me the motor manufacturer would not be leaving power gains on the table that could be bought for a few hundred pounds, indeed not if they thought they could develop their own reliable remaps they would be selling them. If you work into the equation the extra insurance and the fact at some point you may develop a problem caused by the mapping it then beggars the question is it worth it, these remap engineers have little or no knowledge of the platforms used by Audi software writers to achieve the results required. It all comes down to the old saying, if you want fast buy fast.

I fully appreciate where your coming from Thomas my passion was the old Alfasuds and I would agree that those along with the Landys were a vocation rather than a hobby, I always remember taking the engine cover off of my first modern Mondeo and standing there looking down at all the pipes, wires and sensors almost dumb with shock, thank the lord for youtube because as soon as you get your head round the fact that sensors rather than cables and sprung actuators now control the functions you are half way there. I did the first service on the back of a video on youtube that I kept watching until I had memorised it, if as you obviously do you understand the dynamics of servicing the modern cars are actually more simple to service than the older ones, you are not messing about with feeler gauges with tappets which are now hydraulic and everything else is operated by canbus communications , I actually amazed myself and got into various diagnostic platforms I now have VCDS and have replaced a couple of sensors on the Audi and re learned their values, As my sarcastic daughter put it after I put out the EML on her Alfa Mito, at last dad has been dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, she who knows everything about phones snapchat Facebook etc but bugger all about cars, life is strange but don't be terrorised by what you own if you have worked on cars before I would asses that you are more than capable you just don't know it yet.

Hi I looked at a lot of these before I bought my 190 ultra and having driven both types the 150/190 and can honestly say the 150 is under powered if you want to go play on occasions, not saying that they are a bad car but if you like a brisk drive they don't quite cut it I had a Mondeo titanium x sport before and with 200 hp and 420nm of torque it was a real beast when pressed but not as well built or reliable as the Audi hence the change. With regard to the two vehicles described I would definitely walk away from the first one with all thats wrong cosmetically and no service history you could be buying a burial plot for your bank account.

Hi I am new to this forum and type of vehicle but with all my previous cabs I have used the following rule of thumb, change the brake fluid every 30k or three years which ever occurs first, with regard to the rest of the service items I would change the oil air and pollen filter at whatever service interval you are pegged at, in my case 9k I was on 15k but changed that as I honestly believe leaving the oil and filters does the car a disservice, the fluids and filters I removed from my car when I serviced it at the 15k interval were well and truly shot, we did a fluids discipline at college and were taken to a company that blended additives for all the major motor oil Manufacturers and the result of some of the tests could be regarded as frightening, most of the regular long life oils when analysed at their change interval were showing signs of rapid molecular deconstruction at this point that is where accelerated mechanical wear occurs, so the conclusion was that changing oil earlier won't cure a problem but may well prevent that problem from occurring. I am fortunate enough to be able to do my own servicing but when it falls due in the depths of winter I am at that age now where freezing my cods off on the drive is not an attractive proposition, therefore I buy all my own parts and oil from either eBay or the local motor factors and launch the whole bundle at my local garage who are quite happy to do the job for the labour price only, buying your own parts saves you a fortune and is all I ever buy are branded parts Bosch, Blueprint,Wix as all these companies supply the manufacturers anyway, I guarantee if you buy dealer parts that they will come in a nice box printed with the Audi/Vag logo on it but what is inside will have Mahle or Bosch stamped on it.

Hi fellow isolators, I am new to this site and this brand of car, I bought the Audi last July and have been using it as a taxi on a circuit in my local town having had Ford Mondeos as my last three cabs and I have racked up best part of 820,000 miles between them, the Audi has been a bit of a revelation, its far more reliable than the Fords ever were I now come to my first problem, last week when coming home from a friends house I noticed that the nearside beam was illuminating the floor about ten feet in front of me whilst the other offside beam was normal, when I got home I parked at a suitable distance from the garage door and noticed that only the offside lamp was going through the levelling routine the other light remained stuck in the downward position this is where it all gets confusing. Having done extensive trawling on the net only made it worse, some say its. the light range control module under the dash glove box so pulled the Dash apart that side only to find just the airbag canister and nothing more, tried the other side as well and there was nothing remotely like a light range control module with a blue plug, then onward to the levelling sensors on the back and front, I found the rear sensor ok all attached and correct, then off to the front which did not seem to have a sensor on either side, had the splash guard off to see if the previous owner had disconnected it and slung the connector under the engine again nothing. In the end after multiple scans with VCDS, Snap on, Delphi and Maxiscan, still no codes!, I finally got round it [Bodge] by using the VCDS headlight position relearn and adjusting the unit manually then doing new values function but again its only the offside unit that does the self alignment sweep but at least the beams are level, when I first bought the car I enquired which main beam bulbs were fitted to my car and was told D5S these bulbs have the ballast built in which negates the need for a separate ballast control, on inspecting the offending light there is a ballast control unit bolted to the side of it, again research has two conflicting theories some say it must be a D3S set up others say its there for the DRL, oh well just have to skip the back cover off and read the bulb rating off the back. so does anyone out there know what propels the levelling absent a front sensor, does it all work off of the rear sensor?, I have another theory that it may be the stepper motor in the unit playing up, deep joy if its that as either way the front bumper comes off and I can't seem to find a part number for the motor and the bumper removal looks a daunting task, any advice greatfully received