When Turbo becomes atmospheric nightmare

Just to share a true story of A6 turbo horror.

Full Euro specs A6 Quattro (V6/180)

Early into the morning I drove a few friends and a girlfriend back to their homes,slow pace,nobody on the road without even a hint what is yet to come.

Engine runs smoothly, ample reserves of usually high torque at low revs makes a driver more then relaxed at all times.

While I drove and left the first of three friends a nightmare presented her grandeur.

More then some,say,300-400 meters inter-city bus is approaching, I normally wanted to engage from the side area of the friend's house back to the main road.

I shift gear,on my way, not !!!

A6 entered in such slow manner making what was more then normal and adequate distance from the bus - that is now behind me - more and more potentially dangerous for both of us. People in car are shouting at me thinking this be nothing but mere mockery,and I'm just about to push from that dangerous distance in the flash.

But I'm not, because I can't !

I still have trouble understanding what on earth is going on (we are talking seconds) why is this engine moving as if the very life has been sucked away from it?

Bus driver is flashing, trumpeting aggressively to our ears, and god knows how,but he managed to pass me at parallel side and while he did so, two cars from the other opposite side chain crashed one into another. To become even more sillier, a local police car (dreaming in a hideaway ) witnessed this entire episode and this most of all helped me to get out of this clean completely.

Two guys that chain crashed gave no attention to me, nothing, they were busy lamenting whose fault is their crash. Bus driver is approaching at my sight,angry,furious.

Do I have any idea for how many lives he is responsible for ?

Even a baby car wouldn't do this, he said, what was I thinking?

While my friends are speechless from what they have just experienced,
I explain everything to police and bus driver, it turns out crash of those two is not my (?) fault because drivers (police said) didn't appropriately fit their speed in the first place. Lucky me.

Both bus driver and police now understand that this is one of those unbelievable situations,leaving not very kind words (well deserved) on behalf of Audi engine and electronics.

I'm cleared from all and I promise to go (obviously) first thing in Audi service.

But this is in no way making me fell any less embarrassed and furious.
It is one thing do drive a slow truck when you know that this be a slow truck.

But nothing could prepare you in split second when 4-wheels turbo drive becomes same slow truck !

I call 24h service while making arrangement to first open Audi service.
Service person on duty makes me even more furious telling me the cars are not what they used to be (!) and probably my turbo is gone for good.

Gone for good? Barely a year old engine with barely 7000 miles?
You must be insane!

But I can't deny how terrible that sounds to me.

I get to the service, I've explained all, they run diagnostics engine routine and tell me that one of the air control (acting much like a fuse) jumpers pop-out to protect the Turbo.

But diagnostics log shows no potentially dangerous reason for the same circus and they contributed this to one of those one-of-the-kind situations, that barely never happens, and that this was all to blame because over-complex electronics in A6

They changed that part (insignificant cost) and I'm on my way.

This could and can happen to anybody in maybe much more dangerous and uncomfortable situation to handle.

Irony is that if you are running low on water for washing windows A6 will bore you to death with sexy almost Vegas light led sign and sound until you silent them with more water.

If guy at service forgets to check in your just finished service interval, it will bother you again until it gets updated.

If you are just coming home from a very long trip and near first fuel reserve, it will do the same.

But wait , functionality of turbo is not very relevant to electronic notification to driver,but god forbid you end up without washing water, that is more important!

After all , if driver of Audi Turbo crashes, it would make all the difference how much washing water was inside.

You get the picture.

Never again have experienced this, but this just proves what is known for a long time, because of competitive reasons brands are pushing new models too fast on the markets, deciding it would cost them much less to service anomalies while they show up, then to loose precious time while competition brand might have their model longer on the street than his own model.

Penalty of this is episode like mine.

Just to understand how dangerous this was to move:

After I left for the service, we measured how many seconds will take for now Turbo-less engine to make 0-100 / 0-60, almost 50 seconds, for engine that goes in bit more then 8 seconds.

Very similar thing happened to friend's Alfa 166 engine, so another case to prove the theory.

Worst thing that many owners never learned and thing you wont read in your user guide is the moment you switch battery off, even for just a few seconds, because audio install,alarm or any new device, once you are finished, you need to go first thing to service and to code every routine again and to initiate proper function of A6 electronics. (Only new Saab 9-3 has more relays then A6)

I've heard from Audi service technicians unbelievable episodes from AC,ABS not function properly, to much serious drive problems, and only if you fail to code diagnostics.


http://www.angelfire.com/alt/volken/4Forum/4ever_Dalton1.gif