My s3 is dead

Driver or mechanical error?

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Stephenhirst

Stephenhirst

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I posted back in October about my s3 8v that over revved, many people assumed that it was put in the wrong gear (its a manual) Audi stripped the head and found cylinder valves are not seated, the followers had completely snapped off and were floating around the head, the car apparently over revved at 51mph in second gear... at 8133 rpm, that doesn't make sense. 5 months later and no closer to getting it fixed :(
 
You can get a brand new engine with warranty for just over 2k. Just an option if you need it in the future. Hope it is not needed and audi fixes it for you of course.
 
The reported gear will be the last gear the car knew it was in, as 1st will likely never have been fully engaged during the shift, the last known fully engaged gear was 2nd.

Driver error.
 
There's no way the engine could overev on its own without external influence. Being the gearbox and the gearbox wouldn't cause the engine to overev unless it was forced into the wrong gear. Driver error. It's as simple as that
 
Down shift at to much of a high speed will cause this and the ECU registers this.

Have you had the car from new? Or second hand?

Find out if the ECU stores the time/date - if so this will help regarding if it was you or some one else.

It's quite easy to over Rev on a down change, and their is simply no protection against this from happening in a manual. Automatics won't allow it to happen.
 
So your brother (who was using the car at the time in the previous thread) hasn't admitted to putting it in the wrong gear yet then!?...
 
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I remember reading the other thread. No matter what gear it was in, at 8133rpm in 2nd it sounds like the driver went from 3rd to 4th but missed and got 2nd? I don't know the rev differences in gears on the S3 but if you go with this assumption, imagine the guy who is driving it is ragging it in 3rd to around 6.5k revs? Then tries to go to 4th which would have brought the revs down to 5k revs but as he's a s**t driver, he puts it in 2nd and knackers your engine & revs go up to 8133. Adjust this to the correct rpm gear differences for the S3 and you have your answer.

Either that or Audi are lying! It is strange there is no limiter though. I thought most cars had them.

Btw, to add a poll at the top for us to vote & start a new thread, what are you hoping to achieve? Take the results to Audi and prove them wrong based on a forum vote? Cos going by the other thread nearly everyone thinks it's driver error! Guarantee they read these forums so you might be doing yourself more harm than good...
 
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Gotta be honest, sounds like driver error to me aswell having read the other thread.
 
If the clutch wasn't fully raised in 1st gear the ECU might still see it was in 2nd gear.

From what I've read it does sound like your brother selected 1st and not 3rd, if it was me driving I'd pay the bill so I'd expect him to do the same.

Just my thoughts
 
Just going on my assumption/theory above, i just re-read your other post and the problem is the speed vs rpm correlation. The 8133rpm and mph is the last recorded yes? So could it be that he tried to go from 3rd to 4th,accidentally missing 4th and got 2nd, but the revs in 2nd were so high the speed was naturally brought down so the 8133rpm occurred a little after the engagement? We all know that by downshifting we can slow the car down without braking. the engine would have had to gone though some stress and might not have been instant failure?
 
Ormesome said:
No matter what gear it was in, at 8133rpm in 2nd it sounds like the driver went from 3rd to 4th but missed and got 2nd?
Either that or Audi are lying! It is strange there is no limiter though. I thought most cars had them...
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I'd suggest slightly different (having done it myself!). Shifted down from 6th intending to get 4th but hit 2nd instead, rev's sky rocket as they would forcing the engine to mechanically exceed the electronic limiter briefly & bang, pop, clatter as expensive whirling parts have a coming together in way they clearly are not designed to.

In my instance it was an E46 M3 decelarating at speed into a roundabout, meaning to go from 6th to 4th to maintain momentum but hit 2nd... rapid deceleration, locked wheels, tacho needle went off of the gauge, engine howled in protest as you can imagine. The car survived but no one will be surprised that a fault code amongst others had logged in the instrument cluster memory of 'implausible reading on tacho' or similar rofl !. :racer::whip::wtf:
 
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MS Excel based hard sums...
IMG 5162
 
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Good job @GSB ... Not surprised it **** the bed if he dropped it into 2nd from 4th on that data.
 
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Just to clarify, he was in second gear, 51mph, about 6000rpm... he went to shift into 3rd but as he pressed the clutch and went to shift, the car started to splutter and die, he attempted 2nd again (by this point doing about 30mph) and the car had completely cut out
 
Stephenhirst said:
Just to clarify, he was in second gear, 51mph, about 6000rpm... he went to shift into 3rd but as he pressed the clutch and went to shift, the car started to splutter and die, he attempted 2nd again (by this point doing about 30mph) and the car had completely cut out
Click to expand...
For me either audi are talking crap or he shifted to 1st at 51mph and the engine wasnt fully engauged which is why it never reached a higher RPM. In my 8p the car never registered the gear until I'd fully released the clutch which is why the ecu data shows 2nd gear.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
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Afraid I agree with most other people on the previous thread - he clearly shifted into 1st instead of 3rd. Maybe didn't get the clutch all the way up before it overrevved and he put the clutch back in and shifted back to 2nd, but enough to do the damage. My gear indicator on the screen doesn't show the gear change until the clutch is all the way up - I would guess the logs are the same, and it's 1st gear rather than 2nd.

I think your brother is lying to you about what happened. Him being in 3rd gear makes no sense at all.
 
OliS3 said:
It doesn't mean 1st gear was fully engaged which is the only way I can see it happening, clearly wasn't done in 2nd gear at 51mph
Click to expand...

My DIS won't display which gear I'm in until the clutch is fully engaged. Until then it's blank. The ECU on the OPs car says 8311 rpm in 2nd.

To achieve that speed, in that gear, you need to be going 15mph faster than the redline in second gear. My guess at the most likely way to cause the damage seen is a misshift from 5700-5800 rpm in third, missing fourth gear, and going into second instead.

HOWEVER.

The ECU also says 51mph, which is nowhere fast enough to fit the 3rd to 2nd misshift above. In fact, it's not even high enough for a fully engaged first gear, which at 8311 rpm would only be doing 46mph.

We have to assume the rpms are correct, since it's doubtful that the engine would even run with that sensor in fault.

I'm scratching my head, because the data in the ECU is fundamentally impossible. There's no mechanism that would permit 8311 rpm at 51mph in 2nd gear. At least one of those data points is wrong.
 
He wasn't in 3rd, he was in second and as he pressed the clutch and went to shift, it died he'd never selected another gear after 2nd
 
Stephenhirst said:
He wasn't in 3rd, he was in second and as he pressed the clutch and went to shift, it died he'd never selected another gear after 2nd
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Have you asked audi how you can over rev a car in 2nd gear at 51mph? When the gearing clearly allows it?

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
The maths doesn't work for it being in 2nd. If that's what he's told you, it's clearly not what happened.
 
The technician working on my car doesn't even understand how it happened
 
audi upgrades
Stephenhirst said:
The technician working on my car doesn't even understand how it happened
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How can they void your warranty then? Also did you see this happen in your car? Like all of it? You seem very sure for a passenger who would normally be looking at the road

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
Stephenhirst said:
The ecu says he was in second so that confirms he is telling the truth
Click to expand...

GSB said:
I'm scratching my head, because the data in the ECU is fundamentally impossible. There's no mechanism that would permit 8311 rpm at 51mph in 2nd gear. At least one of those data points is wrong.
Click to expand...

As 3 of us have pointed out now though - it's probably the gear. It'll be logging 2nd because that was the last gear known to be selected, and as you (and myself and Oli) have pointed out - the gear change doesn't register in the DIS until the clutch is fully up, so likely the same happens with the ECU too.
 
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Sounds to me like he was in second at 51mph and attempted to engage third but accidentally selected 1st. 8133 is probably the max revs the ecu will register so likely they were closer to 9000.

The problem is two-fold. Firstly, we don't know how the Audi fault system reports it's errors. 2nd gear could be the last gear that was within limits, the last one the clutch was fully released on for x seconds, who knows. Secondly, we also don't know for sure what happened as it's third party information. I'm sorry, but I wouldn't trust my brother's word as I'm sure he would bend the truth to save me wringing his neck!
 
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Stephenhirst said:
The ecu says he was in second so that confirms he is telling the truth
Click to expand...

The ECU knows that the last fully engaged gear was second. But as has been said, the speed and RPM indications do not match any known results! Even if the car had been put into 1st gear, at 51mph the RPM would be more than 8133.

Unless the car was accidentally put into 1st and the revs reached 8133 at 51mph before the clutch was depressed again after the failed attempt, hence 1st never actually being fully engaged... You would still feel that though.
 
Ozmosis said:
The ECU knows that the last fully engaged gear was second. But as has been said, the speed and RPM indications do not match any known results! Even if the car had been put into 1st gear, at 51mph the RPM would be more than 8133.

Unless the car was accidentally put into 1st and the revs reached 8133 at 51mph before the clutch was depressed again after the failed attempt, hence 1st never actually being fully engaged... You would still feel that though.
Click to expand...
That is what I'm thinking but if the op was in the car you he would have felt and heard it like you've said

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
 
Ormesome said:
It is strange there is no limiter though. I thought most cars had them.
Click to expand...
Just to clarify this point, if the engine is accelerating the car then there is a rev limiter that stops it going higher than a certain number of revs by defeating the ignition system. However, if you drop a car into a low gear whilst going fast, the *wheels* can drive the engine into an over-rev state.
 
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OliS3 said:
That is what I'm thinking but if the op was in the car you he would have felt and heard it like you've said

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Would have felt like a crash!
 
Simply put human error. I think you need to have a wee chat with your brother and his wallet.
 
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He never took his foot off the clutch after taking the car out of second so your point about "selecting the wrong gear" is wrong, the car died as he pressed the clutch, he never had time to select a new gear as the car was munching itself to pieces
 
Stephenhirst said:
He never took his foot off the clutch after taking the car out of second so your point about "selecting the wrong gear" is wrong, the car died as he pressed the clutch, he never had time to select a new gear as the car was munching itself to pieces
Click to expand...

You don't know any of this though - you are going on what your brother told you, and no doubt he's wanting to cover for his mistake!
 
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Stephenhirst said:
He never took his foot off the clutch after taking the car out of second so your point about "selecting the wrong gear" is wrong, the car died as he pressed the clutch, he never had time to select a new gear as the car was munching itself to pieces
Click to expand...

He has said this to cover his tracks I think...
 
I don't see why my brother would lie to me, he has no reason to
 
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