I may now know why I have been suffering from headaches recently.......

now all the oil leak problems have been sorted the 8 has decided to break something else........symtoms are a lumpy feel when at idle at apparent even worse fuel consumption. Managed to get it on vagcom and have a misfire on cylinders 2 & 4 and intermittant fault with the water temp sensor - this explains the engine management warning light coming on and off all the time..............so basically its running as a V6 at the moment!

Dreams of a masser are looking dim if I continue to heamorage money at this rate! I am desparately hoping this will be the last of the repairs for at least a few months and dreaming of the day its running properly with no problems as all I'm getting from the missus is "I said you shouldn't have bought it...blah, blah" (which I'm struggling to argue with at the moment quite frankly!)

Based on my experinces with local garages so far anyone fancy taking a guess at the part/labour prices I have been quoted? Starter for 10......main dealer has said £36.58 for the sensor and £56 for each coli + 2 hours labour. I can get the parts on-line for half the price @ Ignition Car parts but wondered 1) is this a good idea or should I go with the OEM parts? and 2) How easy a job is this to do - i.e. could I tackle myslef with a basic tool kit?

.....obvioulsy I meant 'coils' not 'coli'........although possibly a freudean slip as the symptoms of e-coli food poisoning bear a remarkable likeness to the general feeling of nausea I get everytime I get in the 8 at the moment a find something else is broken.

[Dezzy]

Each plug has it's own coil pack so you could swap them about and see if the miss moves with them if not then it's not the coil packs, and you can do this with basic tools.

[Conan_the_Librarian]

As Dezzy says. Screw driver to take of the air bog to throttle body pipe (2 jubilee clips). Allen key to remove the cover. 10mm spanner to take out no 4 coil and swap it with number 3. Replace air pipe and clear faults with vagcom, go for a drive and see if it moves to three. Do the same for 1. If it don't move, do the same with the plugs and see if it moves.

Which water temp sensor? You have 2. One in the head and one in the radiator I think.

[Conan_the_Librarian]

As Dezzy says. Screw driver to take of the air box to throttle body pipe (2 jubilee clips). Allen key to remove the cover. 10mm spanner to take out no 4 coil and swap it with number 3. Replace air pipe and clear faults with vagcom, go for a drive and see if it moves to three. Do the same for 1. If it don't move, do the same with the plugs and see if it moves.

Which water temp sensor? You have 2. One in the head and one in the radiator I think.

thanks for the replies - re the sensor i think its the one in the head, but will check. As for trying it myself it looks pretty straight forward so I'm up for having a bash at it - only problem is the need to clear the faults with vagcom - I don't have it myself.

May consider just replacing the plugs anyway - if I still have the problem then its must be the coils but to check I can swap them as suggested and if it misfires then it would confirm and I can just replace? I know changing all the plugs is unnecessary but its got to be better than paying the dealer to do what seems like an easy job?

[ainarssems]

Bad luck really and those prices are outrageous £400 for transfer box seal?? It costs £10 for seal and £240 at Audi dealer

[ainarssems]

And yes for misfires swap coils and plugs around to see if fault follows them, failing that ignition amplifiers .

For the temp sensors- there are 2 one on each head, the one in the radiaor is just a simple thermo switch.

No need to clear faults. If the fault is not detected in next time it will run fine as without fault just store the fault in memory. If fault does not show up again in 30 or 40 times the ignition is turned it will be deleted itself.

Great thanks for this - I'm going to give it a go this weekend!