Swirl flap issue finally sorted! :-)

[dt-tdi]

Hi all
For any of you that are having the same problem that I was having with a swirl flap issue on my 3.0 tdi (on mine it was lower limit not being reached) I have finally got the fault sorted.
Having first changed the linkage arms which didn't solve the problem I had to take the plunge and opt for new intake manifolds, I decided to use a company in Germany which refurb faulty manifolds with uprated parts, they sell these on ebay here.
Fast delivery service as well, ordered them on a Monday and they landed at my doorstep on Wednesday morning!
A local garage fitted them for £204 and cleared the fault codes, car is running fine now.

 

[GoneSouth]

Swirl flaps - are these similar to flaps that cause so many issues for BMW diesels ?

If memory serves, they are there to create more torque at low revs but invariably break off and get ingested by the engine (on beemers at least).

If similar, wouldn't it be easier/cheaper to remove them, block the holes and map out thier activation via vcds ? Assuming of course you are not under extended warranty.

Still, that's a great find on Ebay (especially as they are upgraded) and pretty good service to boot.
.

 

[dt-tdi]

Your absolutely spot on there, mapping out was an option but wasn't that much cheaper plus my car is running a Blue Fin remap by Superchips and I did't want to complicate things there either.

I've done quite a lot of research into this and thought this was the best option for me.

 

[A4_MaJiK]

There is a repair kit which costs about £8-9 per side if I recall correctly to sort this issue out. Took me about 30mins to replace both linkage arms.

 

[SDHA4SLine]

There is a repair kit which costs about £8-9 per side if I recall correctly to sort this issue out. Took me about 30mins to replace both linkage arms.

As dt-tdi says he changed the linkage arms first and it didn't work for him

 

[dt-tdi]

As dt-tdi says he changed the linkage arms first and it didn't work for him

Yes they were the first thing that I changed as it was the cheaper option, it may sort the problem for some but my issue was more sinister and expensive.
I did challenge Audi about it as it is a known problem with my engine, they did offer a 10% discount on replacement non modified manifolds as long as their spanner guys fitted them, total Bill would have been £1100, bargain....NOT!

 

[jdp1962]

This happened on mine, about three years ago. At that time, there were no linkage repair kits, and no recon manifolds available. The only solution of offer from Audi was fitting brand new manifolds, at a cost of about £800 per side. My solution was to find a mapping firm that could delete the fault code (it's not a VCDS thing). This cost £300 and meant that the ECU simply ignored that one of the drop links was detached and the flap inoperable.

Then, about a year ago, by which time the repair kits were availabe for about a tenner a piece, I had the drop links and ball joints replaced as part of the annual service. So both flaps are now fully operational again, but any slack in the spindle part of the linkage is ignored by the ECU.

 

[A4_MaJiK]

As dt-tdi says he changed the linkage arms first and it didn't work for him

Yes they were the first thing that I changed as it was the cheaper option, it may sort the problem for some but my issue was more sinister and expensive.
I did challenge Audi about it as it is a known problem with my engine, they did offer a 10% discount on replacement non modified manifolds as long as their spanner guys fitted them, total Bill would have been £1100, bargain....NOT!

Apologies, must have missed that out.