Audi a4 2007 loss of power, smoking and glow plug light flashing

[Brookie09]

Hi all, I'm having a problem with my audi a4 2007 as stated in the title. The car feels like it's pulling back and kicks out a lot of smoke. It starts up fine and idles OK however when it hits 2000rpm the engine doesn't want to go any further and without dipping the clutch it really struggles to get going. The turbo seems to be kicking in late also around 3000rpm instead of the normal 2000rpm. This started as I was travelling home and I continued to drive around another 10 miles to get there, just as I pulled up that's when the glow plug light started flashing.

I have taken the car to a few different garages now and they want no part in finding the problem as the car has the egr deleted, dpf removed and has been remapped (all things I wasn't aware of). It has however thrown up some fault codes and I'm hoping that someone on here might have an idea what's best to start with.

I'm pretty clueless about the inner workings of cars, I just drive them so all help would be greatly appreciated as Ive only had this car for just over a year.

These are the codes:

P0299-006-Control Range Not Reached - Intermittent
Freeze Frame:
Fault Status: 00000001
Fault Priority: 5
Fault Frequency: 1
Reset Counter: 40
Mileage: 0 km
Time indication: 0

Freeze Frame:
RPM: 2144 /min
Torque: 240.0 Nm
Speed: 71 km/h
70.20%
Voltage: 13.90 V
Pressure: 2364.3 mbar
Pressure: 1512.3 mbar

000257 - Mass Air Flow Sensor (G70)
P0101-006-Implausible Signal-Intermittent
Freeze Frame:
Fault status: 00000001
Fault Priority: 1
Fault Frequency: 1
Reset Counter: 40
Mileage: 0 km
Time Indication: 0

Freeze Frame:
RPM: 2272 /min
Torque: 0.0 Nm
Speed: 100 km/h
Temperature: 11.0°C
Pressure 1214.1 mbar
Text: 100 kg/h
(no units): 1.58

Thanks in advance to any suggestions with where to look or what to start with.

 

[Jamsmoo]

Blocked cat possibly ?
Any excessive heat in engine bay ,the turbo in particularly


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Brookie09]

Blocked cat possibly ?
Any excessive heat in engine bay ,the turbo in particularly


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No not particularly, haven't noticed it when the bonnet was lifted anyway, I'm not using the car currently as I was worried I might do some serious damage but when I took it to the garage which was a decent drive I lifted the bonnet when there and everything seemed normal. The car does seem to occasionally get a little spurt of energy and come back to life for a few seconds here and there.

I forgot to say aswell, the car has 83k on it and I've recently just put it through a full service if that helps.

 

[Brookie09]

Could the MAF sensor thats showing a fault cause this sort of problem?

 

[Jamsmoo]

Could the MAF sensor thats showing a fault cause this sort of problem?

Symptoms don’t really suggest maf sensor
I was going to suggest unplugging maf sensor just to see but like I said…
Faults elsewhere can cause other components to throw up fault codes
I had a faulty inlet manifold flap that caused a maf sensor fault code


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Brookie09]

Symptoms don’t really suggest maf sensor
I was going to suggest unplugging maf sensor just to see but like I said…
Faults elsewhere can cause other components to throw up fault codes
I had a faulty inlet manifold flap that caused a maf sensor fault code


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Would unplugging the maf sensor cause the car to run as it should if that is what's at fault? I have no idea, someone else will do the work for me. If that was the case at least I could rule it out without buying another one.

 

[Jamsmoo]

Would unplugging the maf sensor cause the car to run as it should if that is what's at fault? I have no idea, someone else will do the work for me. If that was the case at least I could rule it out without buying another one.

Unplugging the maf the car will run ok just default settings
It’ll definitely rule it out


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Jamsmoo]

Unplugging the maf the car will run ok just default settings
It’ll definitely rule it out


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

“Run ok” if the maf is the issue


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Charlie Farley]

not that i'm up on these things but ,P0299 is turbo underboost so it basically isnt producing enough boost or spinning fast enough. If the Dpf is full or blocked then this maybe be your reason, but as it has a dpf delete the problem maystill be related .

 

[Charlie Farley]

Possibly a vacuum leak .

 

[Jamsmoo]

not that i'm up on these things but ,P0299 is turbo underboost so it basically isnt producing enough boost or spinning fast enough. If the Dpf is full or blocked then this maybe be your reason, but as it has a dpf delete the problem maystill be related .

This is what lead me to the cat with [mention]Brookie09 [/mention] saying dpf delete
[mention]Brookie09 [/mention] are you sure the dpf has been removed or gutted


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Brookie09]

The lads at the garage said the egr and dpf were removed and the car had been remapped so he couldn't tell if the injectors were performing correctly with his software and would have to put it back to standard settings and start over anyway but told me he didn't want to go any further with it, I don't know his reasons, maybe it was more hassle than it's worth to him . I thought the egr was just circumvented and deleted from the cars ecu and the dpf system removed when this process was performed. I wouldn't even know where to look so I guess I'll have to find some pictures and go have a look see. Fortunately I have a mechanically gifted family friend that could take it apart piece by piece but he's awaiting an operation and has a pre-op next Friday, so was hoping to narrow it down to something that isn't a massive job that he can get at easily enough without having to take the engine out. Someone mentioned a valve seal cover to me, any chance that could possibly cause thisnor could it actually be one of the glow plugs itself? Or is the turbo fault more likely to steer the problem in another direction? Sorry about all this, I know I'm hard work.

 

[Brookie09]

Right, I'll have a look at the exhaust system in the morning to see if there's signs of a weld on the can and also check where the egr valve is meant to be and report back. I just can't see why the car would have them deleted with a remap if they are still part of the cars system but I'll double check anyway.

 

[Brookie09]

OK, so I looked under the car at the exhaust system and there are no bulges in the pipes coming down, no sign of a cat or dpf as far as I can tell, there looks like there is a slot under the middle where it used to be but the exhaust pipe leading down is the same diameter all the way from the front to the back of the car. The car has been through an mot and passed. I thought with the cat and dpf removed it would fail on emissions? I had a quick look under the bonnet but the wind is crazy today and nearly took the bonnet off but saw no signs of a blanking plate for the egr even though it has been deleted from the ecu. If the egr valve had been removed would the car fail an emissions test? Would there be any reason someone would delete the egr without removing it and blanking it off. Cheers lads.