Stevey Y

Hi probably not but had it been mine I would have treated the fuse box to a generous helping of WD40 and then left it overnight then give it another hosing down and then driven it, its most likely where the water has caused a short somewhere but the other thing to look at coincidentally would be the oil level as if the turbo seals have gone the engine will use its own oil to run on until she blows but thinking about your thread it wouldn't have let you turn it off you would have had to stall it to shut it down. Steve.

Hi, Sarah even if the steering joint is found to be at fault what price a new one compared with say injector failure on the new car you just bought, the trade sellers are all trying to unload cars as fast as possible, prime example being my daughters boyfriend who just bought a Fiesta ST with just under 50k on the clock for a very low price he has had it three weeks when I pointed out the discs and pads back and front are worn out, not covered by the warranty apparently so I managed to get him some quality replacement E11 approved discs and pads but its still cost him £160.00 for the parts, fortunately a joint assault on brakes meant he had no labour charges. Steve.

Hi, the last question, how long is a piece of string, these vehicles are capable of starship milage if looked after with regard to the CV boot I personally would look into using Stretchy boots as these are made of rubber and nylon and generally speaking more robust than the original boots which are a moulded neoprene and tend to age badly and are more brittle, [look at stretchy boot fitting on youtube]. if its the bump stops on the shocks the kits for both front and back are about £25 each for a pair front and the same for the rears as for the intermediate steering column replacement I strongly suspect that its a bit of Audi kidology, sorry to point out the obvious but you are female therefore you are most unlikely to get it up on a ramp and have a look yourself thats what they rely on. In the final analysis I would look further afield for a repairer and don't whatever you do give any hint of previous quotes before you have their honest no Cr@p opinion and price, then if its more reasonable get it fixed and keep the car, at least you know its history. Steve.

Hi unfortunately I don't have the answer to that one but the one thing I know for certain is that you have to do a lot of prep before changing any major component I.E. plugin and store the original long coding for the steering wheel, in fact take time to write it down as that way you can't loose it and have a path back if it all goes pear shaped, the other thing as Richard pointed out would be to ask advice as to its suitability if its from a later/different model, everything on these cars has a code for every occasion to prevent owners from randomly changing things and as usual I am sure someone will know how to get round it. Steve

Hi whatever they have done seems to have tuned it up somewhat I just logged in first go, well impressed, why do we have to have cookies they are just a form of information collation I am reliably informed. Steve.

Hi yes if you bring this matter to their attention there is a good chance that you are not the only person these thieving scrotes have fleeced put something up on social media to see if you can find anyone else in the same boat, another good point of reference is your local paper, ring them and see if they would be interested in running this as a story, give them as much unwanted publicity as you can, the AA guy is correct as with all these cowboy engine rebuilders they have probably used what they loosely describe as a remanufactured oil pump AKA second hand. Steve.

Hi there are definitive differences between the switch gear on each wheel, my guess is that the connectors are pinned in a different manner, the plugs may fit but the wiring on the new wheel is different. Steve.

Hi no disrespect intended but why would you know whats wrong, thats why you gave it to Ring Engineering they allegedly knew and fixed it, I am afraid your only recourse now is to go through Trading standards as long as you have the paperwork from the repairer it should be a fairly straightforward procedure. Steve.

Hi another possibility is if the lights are HID remove the inspection covers and bulb and gaffer tape a smaller piece of tubing to a vacuum cleaner hose waggle the pipe around inside the headlamp unit and suck it out. Steve.

Hi the flap opens up at higher rpm to help with the expulsion of exhaust gas, as for filleting a standard exhaust back box if you get it wrong they are very expensive to replace and even if you manage to get the baffle insulation out is all you will be left with is a nasty resonating tin box which is clearly audible in the car, you can always go waste money on an aftermarket system, they will happily produce loads of customer depositions as to how much faster the car goes with its new Carlos Fandango super size straight through pipe, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but it is just an illusion caused by the extra noise. You don't think Audi spent thousands of hours on Dynos developing the optimum exhaust flow rate for your engine including back pressure breaks just to have some wag with a unit full of stainless steel tubing and a pipe bender doubling up on performance for only £299.00, its the oldest formula in engineering, exhaust gas pulses are circular if you have a race car thats running at max revs all the time by all means have the biggest straightest pipe it will clear the gass pulses really quickly, unfortunately if you are running your mum down the shops in traffic you don't need a massive bore pipe as this will rob you of the initial torque you need to just pull away and like all those who have the big bore exhaust you will have to rev the nuts off the car to pull away. Steve.

Hi try deleting the codes but keep a note of them and publish on here so we stand a better chance of diagnosing the fault, that price though is wrooooong.

Strange thing is it seems to be selective about its victims, like I say its strange how its worked for me better part of a year and now only works intermittently

Hi its worth getting the VCDS as this gives you the code frequency and the urgency scale of repair as well as the long coding numbers should you have to buy a part and re code it, but I have found that whenever I plug my A6 in there is always some sort of code that has appeared and once deleted never appears again, these cars software has a code for every occasion its been designed to throw you into the arms of your local Audi dealer so the service manager can suck his teeth and look serious about charging you shed loads for clearing a load of redundant codes. Steve.

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.