Been having a few issues of late which I'm not sure if they are linked, but the latest investigation results have me concerned
Would appreciate some advice as to how to proceed. Apologies for the mega long post but I thought it worth giving the full picture
All started at the back end of October
Due to lockdown/working from home its barely moved all year and even since October has probably done less than 200 miles.
So following a prolonged period of inactivity I jumped in to go to the gym and tried to start. absolutely nothing didn't even try to turn over.
suspecting a flat battery i used my jump pack and while it struggled a bit it did start.
Got back from the gym and put the battery on charge
que repeat performances over the next few days only cured by leaving permanently on charge.
However we now started to develop a very odd issue that whilst it wouldn't even try to turn over if you held the key in the start position for 10 seconds it would miraculously fire up as per normal.
Once running it all sounds fine,
Note from this point forward the car has only been driven very short distances for diagnostic purposes
Suspecting a goosed battery I popped a new one in and hoped that would be the end of my issues.
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Alas no it seemed to behave for a few days but quickly returned to the situation above. However the starting issue was now intermittent seeming to occur when the engine was cold, but be fine when warm.
I then decided to change the ignition coils, more because I had it on my list of maintenance items than anything else, but I thought I may get lucky and find it was also the issue. 8 NGK coils were procured and whilst its felt noticeably livelier in use the starting issue remained.
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Around this time I noticed I was losing coolant. I've yet to find any obvious signs of a leak so braced myself for needing to to do the oil cooler pipe.
Whilst researching this I elected to do an oil change, reasons being twofold, first it was due and second I wanted to see if there were any signs of the missing coolant.
Good news or so I thought, the oil came out as expected, dirty but no signs of coolant.
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The starting issue continued
This time I even noticed electrical smoke coming from the wheelarch on one occasion. (so far this has been a single occurence)
Note the car has only moved on my drive since this as I don't trust it until all is resolved.
My next thought was ground issue. On forum advice I have located the often problematic junction box and it seems in good order (see attached photo)
12.x volts apparent both at the battery and the junction box when not running and 14.x volts when running suggest to me that both battery, cabling and alternator are not at fault.
However at this point we started to notice a mechanical clatter at startup. Only at startup as it immediately vanished and the car idles and revs smoothly thereafter.
It sounds like a very loud heatshield rattle but seems to be coming from the alternator area. So far no joy in tracking this down.
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Today was supposed to see another attempt at finding the culprit. due to the clatter I mentioned I decided to check the oil level on the off chance it was somehow low and causing the issue.
And thats where I get really concerned. The oil on the dipstick looks like chocolate milkshake
The filler cap likewise.
I should note that at no point through this saga has there been any sign of oil in the coolant tank.
Dropping the oil did nothing for my mood as the bucket rapidly filled with more milkshake than oil.
I measured and rather than 8 litres its more like 9.5, which both explains where the coolant has been going and due to the excess volume can not have been doing the engine much good.
Note VCDS has yielded no error codes other than the parking sensors and radio missing which was as expected throughout muliple logging attempts
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So where next?
Is it possible that the oil cooler pipe is responsible, in which case proceeding to change it may solve the issues, or am I flogging a dead horse, is it likely to be something more serious?