My car’s performance is suffering greatly, to the point of it being unsafe. It makes no power for some reason. Travelling up a 12% grade hill, I have to pin the pedal to the floor, and can only go about 35 MPH up it, at around 4500 RPM. I know it shouldn’t have to struggle like this to keep 35 MPH up a hill. Also, 0-60 on a level road seems to be in the 15-20+ second range, depending on the day. I KNOW that can’t be right. I have no idea what is causing this. My guess would be that the turbo is making no boost, I would expect this performance from something without forced induction.
I know it isn’t a fast car stock, but I doubt these cars struggled this badly from the factory. Something’s up.
your car cannot only go 35mph tops going up a hill and you’re still driving it around wondering what is going on… right? If the turbo is blown then typically the seal would be the blown part and you would have mass amounts of oil blowing into your exhaust and intake… the exhaust will smoke like no ones business… i was making at best 2psi of boost for 1.5 seconds and my car would blow oil… so if it’s a failed turbo, i would suspect smoke and or large amounts of grinding noise.
is the car misfiring? it almost sounds like you have a bad coil, but you should notice the misfires when it’s trying to accelerate and even idle… i’ve seen coils go under load but idle ok, but only once. on my 1.8t every time a coil went it would spudder on startup.
i guess the TPS could be so out of whack that it’s not giving you full gas? do you have a vagcom or the ability to OBDii scan the car? check for % open at idle and when flooring (which the key on, but car off). is your car manual or electric TB? (does it have a throttle cable?)
the car has to be louder? did you just blow an intake gasket or intercooler piping? when it boosts does it sound like air escaping? it should be pretty obvious… were you offroading it lately or anything?
at idle spray intake cleaner around the intake manifold, vacuum lines and inter cooler piping… check for fluctuations in idle (leaks).
probably a rubber line on the bottom of the intake manifold if it’s a leak.
those cars are pretty easy to diagnose and work on… at least in my experience.
I’ll have to check when I get home next weekend. The car isn’t making any excessive or odd noises, isn’t blowing any noticeable smoke, either. No offroading, either.
Well to a B6 A4 1.8t those problems are normal, lol. It is a pig when stock.
Sonny is the man. Do you have VAG-COM?
I’ve had failed packs and had no CEL but misfire codes on VAG COM. Car ran slow and rough.
But the car also sounded like a STi when that occured.
Check for boost leaks.
Yes, plug in like OBD. I have one. There are a lot of people around here who have them, also. Check out audizine.com and go the mid-atlantic portion of the North East forum, then look for the Pittsburgh People thread. Everyone there would be glad to help.
I won’t be around until after the weekend, but I could always run down to Cali and VAG it to see the codes.
There are guys pushing the 600awhp mark in B5 1.8t’s. It can be a beast. Not beast like some of the Asian modded cars, but nonetheless, a beast with luxury and handling. Not just a 1/4 mile straight-line monster.
But stock, it’s a heavy car with an underpowered engine and small turbo.
Hook up a boost gauge if you think it’s not boosting. I may or may not have one in the plethora of b5 garbage in the garage. When mine had a problem with bad turbo gasket seal, it obviously wasn’t boosting but didn’t throw codes either. I know you recently had the motor rebuilt. It is possible there are some lose bolts or connections that could be causing the symptoms described.
Lee - I don’t have the car here at school, it’s back home just outside of Wexford. Yeah I know there are some wild 1.8t’s out there, but I would just like mine to keep up in traffic. Yeah it’s an auto, unfortunately.
berad - That’s something else I have to check for. I know it was mostly top end work, so there might be something disconnected in the clusterf**k of hoses and wires and stuff going everywhere under the hood.
Eric - I won’t be home this weekend, but I will be next weekend for sure. I will certainly give you a call next weekend if you’re going to be around.
my guess is the wastegate actuator fell off. thus you will never make boost because it is always dumping. ran into it countless times. need a new/used turbine housing w/ the swingvalve flap intack.
easy way to check it is to pull the o2 sensor and use the new snap-on camera tool. hard way is to pull the downpipe.
The circle clip holding the wastegate actuator rod came off my car after I installed the GT28RS kit. I thought I had a huge boost leak. It took a while before I got under the car and looked up and saw the friggen rod just hanging there. Had to pull the whole hotside back off to get at the damn thing. But I guess it’s easier than doing it on a transverse engine.
what im talking about is actually inside the turbine housing. the round flap–about the size of a quater-- that blocks off the dump mysteriously disapears. it is what teh rod would connect to. i have yet to find it stuck in the cat/exhaust or whereveer. it just up and goes.
if your obd port will not read, chances are good that you have an aftermarket radio or not the correct radio for the car. starting in 97/98 vw/audi ran teh k line to +12 at teh radio. if you have an aftermarket or older stock radio–it shorts to ground and obd port will not work.
if this is the case, have the radio wired in correctly and the obd port will read. it is pin 3 in the black plug off the oem wiring. remove it from the connector and **** will work.
Thanks man, that’s some good info to know, it does have an aftermarket headunit (I didn’t install it).
I’m sure that’s the case. It does have an Alpine headunit and the car is wired for subs (all the wires are just tucked under the back seat), so that is definitely it.