Shinkansen
Registered User
Hello all,
Long time reader/lurker posting my first issue about this great car (2002 8L BAM S3). Usually we can tackle everything ourselves but this problem has stumped us. I have searched this forum for similar issues and spent hours reading for solutions, but to no avail. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
So, on the way home the other night a burning smell was noticeable in the cabin at the same time as I noticed a massive drop in power and a flashing Engine Management Light. Fortunately this was literally 2 minutes from home. The car was now noticeably lumpy in its idle and rough as houses on the road.
Ran VAG COM and lo' and behold it was detecting a misfire in cylinder 1.
Ran to my nearest TPS and grabbed a new coil pack and spark plug. Changed the spark plug and it "appeared" to fix the issue but within 2 minutes of reversing off the driveway and driving on the road, the Engine Management light was back and so was the sub-par performance. The old spark plug was covered in black crap and if anything, changing the spark plug for a new one burned off all of the remaining deposits as the neighbours may have thought I was sending smoke signals. The white smoke stopped after a minute or two.
After the spark plug change failed, we changed the coil pack for a new one. No difference at all. It transpires after checking with a multimeter that the old coil pack works fine.
Now after some reading, the next culprit could be the fuel injectors. We switched cylinder 1 and 2's injector but after another VAG COM scan, the misfire remained in cylinder 1!
We have checked the wiring and there appears to be no degradation at all.
Before I pass this over to my friendly local mechanic, is there anything else I could try, or that could be causing this problem? I have to say, driving a limp S3 that rivals my Mrs' Aygo for acceleration, is severely depressing... especially when I assumed an "easy fix" would most likely be the issue.
Thanks for your time ladies and gents!!
SHiNK
Long time reader/lurker posting my first issue about this great car (2002 8L BAM S3). Usually we can tackle everything ourselves but this problem has stumped us. I have searched this forum for similar issues and spent hours reading for solutions, but to no avail. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
So, on the way home the other night a burning smell was noticeable in the cabin at the same time as I noticed a massive drop in power and a flashing Engine Management Light. Fortunately this was literally 2 minutes from home. The car was now noticeably lumpy in its idle and rough as houses on the road.
Ran VAG COM and lo' and behold it was detecting a misfire in cylinder 1.
Ran to my nearest TPS and grabbed a new coil pack and spark plug. Changed the spark plug and it "appeared" to fix the issue but within 2 minutes of reversing off the driveway and driving on the road, the Engine Management light was back and so was the sub-par performance. The old spark plug was covered in black crap and if anything, changing the spark plug for a new one burned off all of the remaining deposits as the neighbours may have thought I was sending smoke signals. The white smoke stopped after a minute or two.
After the spark plug change failed, we changed the coil pack for a new one. No difference at all. It transpires after checking with a multimeter that the old coil pack works fine.
Now after some reading, the next culprit could be the fuel injectors. We switched cylinder 1 and 2's injector but after another VAG COM scan, the misfire remained in cylinder 1!
We have checked the wiring and there appears to be no degradation at all.
Before I pass this over to my friendly local mechanic, is there anything else I could try, or that could be causing this problem? I have to say, driving a limp S3 that rivals my Mrs' Aygo for acceleration, is severely depressing... especially when I assumed an "easy fix" would most likely be the issue.
Thanks for your time ladies and gents!!
SHiNK