hi guys. im having a problem with my a6 4.2 abt.


yesterday. while idling, some smoke came from the vent between the hood and windshield ..and then i could smell burning plastic or something through the vents.

after this, my car is now hard to start and revs weird. (itll rev from 900-1000 in half second bursts at idle) and the car shakes under throttle .

anyone have any clue what this could be?

 

the plastic smell is sumtimes the heat shield around the manifolds that burn by touching the exhaust ... but the idle and starting hard i have no idea.. you have any check engine light on?

 

no check engine light. the car is chipped so i dont know if that has to do with no cel. i checked as much as i could see as to what burned but there is no visible trace of anything that got hot.

this happened in -14C weather by the way . i believe its electrically linked. any ideas what i should check? would a melted coil or something cause this symptom?

 

really hard to tell what the problem is i dont have enough info .. hehe look for other clues

 

yea theres not much info but it could be as simples as an exhaust leak , or could be as serious as a blown head gasket. i see that your car is a 2000 which mean you probably have a good amount of milage on your car so a blown head gasket is def a possibility. as far as the rpm bouncing it is not unusual during a cold start when your car is warming up but once your car is warmed up there shouldnt be any rpm bounce during idle. if there is then theres a problem.

 

it definatly isnt a coolant leak and the cold start rpm bouncing is not what i mean .


its a consistant power loss throughout the rpm range

i dropped my pants and brought it to the dealer to diag ...lets see how bad this is :P

 

oh yeah...whats the cost of doing a head gasket on these 4.2l v8s?

 

figured it out...number 2 coil died.

 

how much did the dealer want for the diagnosis?

 

200